Bal Masque

by Fleeta Cunningham

  By the light of one candle, Lucienne tacked up her hem. Tomorrow she’d have her life in order. Her circumstances would change for the better. Certainly the convent wasn’t exactly what she’d thought it would be, and she’d never worked so hard in her life. Come down to it, she’d never worked at all. Once she had Mother Superior’s approval, things should be different. She’d be out of that hot, steamy kitchen and away from all those endless dishes. Finding Lucienne to be a lady from a good family, Mother Superior would likely send her to work with the fine sewing, stitching altar cloths and fair linen. Her embroidery might not be as perfect as all those elaborate things the sisters did, but she was far too genteel to be left in the kitchen as a scullery maid. Sister Ann Marie meant to be kind, Lucienne was sure, but she was obviously not familiar with the way society was structured here in the Creole world. Mother Superior, tiny and loving, delicate as carved ivory, would straighten it all out. She’d be amazed at how well Lucienne had coped with such an ordeal, too. No one would ever have imagined Lucienne Toussaint wearing cast-off, ill-fitting gowns or ruining her lovely white hands with horrid dishwater. Her nails were ragged and her hands raw, but she hadn’t complained, not even once. Mother Superior would be astonished at Lucienne’s resilience and dedication. Lucienne would make sure she knew of it.

  ****

  Something, some dreadful doubt, was hounding M’sieu Armand. Marie, after a week in his house, had begun to read his moods. He’d visited the Pardue house and returned with the word that M’sieu Philippe had gone to Texas without Lucienne. She hadn’t been seen there. Since then, Armand had come and gone at odd hours, rejected meals, and walked about as if a hurricane hovered somewhere just out of sight. Marie was certain he knew something he didn’t want to share. For three days he’d searched the dock area and talked to everyone who had daily contact with the water traffic. Lucienne had not boarded a ship, though the Prices apparently had. With feigned amusement he told Marie of the temperamental passenger on the Delta Belle, and they agreed the girl might well have been Lucienne. Whatever gnawed at him, it wasn’t definite information about the girl’s whereabouts, Marie decided. If he knew where Lucienne had gone, he’d be after her in a flash, no matter what outrageous thing the girl had done.

  “M’sieu, you ate no dinner last night and barely touched your coffee this morning.” Marie approached the glum man in the study cautiously.

  Armand looked up, the black kitten Ninette in his lap and his brown eyes hooded by worry. “Sit down, Marie.” He gestured to the chair opposite. “I’m at my wits’ end.”

  “You’ve learned something of Lucienne, something dreadful that you’re keeping to yourself?” Marie could scarcely endure the dark, weary lines that marked his face.

  “Lucienne did go to Pardue’s house. I don’t know when, but she was there. Something happened on the riverboat, something terrible, and I think she went to Pardue for help. He was gone, or she heard about the duel and thought he’d been killed. I don’t know what she learned, but she was at the Pardue house and she ran away again.”

  “She’d go to Madame Thierry’s house then, M’sieu Armand. It’s nearby, and the next place she’d think of.”

  “I’ve asked at Madame Thierry’s, and she’s not been there. The Pardues’, yes, but not to her Grandmère’s.”

  “But how do you know she went to the Pardue house?”

  “I have proof. I think when she ran from the riverboat Lucienne may have been followed. Or she trusted the wrong person and was attacked on the riverboat.”

  Marie’s heart pounded at the thought of anyone attacking Lucienne. Struggling to maintain a calm façade, she asked, “What makes you think this is the case?”

  Instead of answering, Armand put the kitten on the floor, went to his desk, opened a drawer, and brought out a soiled white bundle. “I found this in the garden at the Pardue house. It’s a pillowslip from the Delta Belle. The boatman thought she took it to carry something from the boat. This is what was in it.” Armand shook the tangled nightgown from the bag and passed it to Marie. “I didn’t want to upset you further unless I had no choice. It looks as if someone tore it violently from her. And from what the deck hand said, we know someone took her belongings.”

  Marie took the wad of linen and spread it over the library table in front of the window. “Oh, yes, M’sieu, it certainly is Lucienne’s. The monogram alone tells me that.”

  She smoothed the folds and straightened the shoulders. Stray threads and frayed bits of lace marked the front opening. She patted a torn buttonloop back in place. “But from this you think Lucienne was attacked?”

  “The garment speaks for itself. The buttons are torn from their fastening, the loops ripped open… That lace is almost shredded from the force it received.”

  Marie sat down, the nightgown crumpled in her lap. Though Armand’s face was a picture of despair, she couldn’t help herself. She laughed, laughed till tears ran down her hawk-sharp face. “M’sieu, if you’d lived with Lucienne for a few years, you’d not be so quick to add two and two to get five.” She shook the gown free and folded it into a neat square. “Lucienne had this gown on in her room after the wedding. It is her trousseau gown, you understand. She wanted to leave, and she had no mind to tarry. The missing buttons are in a pile on the top of her vanity. I picked them up myself. When mam’selle is in a hurry, she has no patience with fancy buttonloops or fragile lace. I’ve stitched back a hundred garments in this condition. If the p’tite Chou-Chou had to put them back herself, she might learn a little patience.” She patted the gown with both affection and exasperation. “This, m’sieu, this means nothing. She did this bit of violence herself.”

  “Herself? She tore the thing getting it off so she could run away?” Armand was reluctant to believe Marie’s words at first, then he drew hope from them. “Then she’s still out there somewhere. Somewhere she’s found a refuge, unless she’s given up and gone home.”

  “Not gone back to Mille Fleur, M’sieu Armand. Madame sent a note today asking when the newlyweds would be available for company. One of the hands drove in to pick up M’sieu Toussaint’s Madeira and left the message.”

  “So she’s not gone home. And she’s not been seen at Madame Thierry’s.” Armand’s drawn face eased with this fresh glimmer of hope. “A school friend, then? Or someone she met while she and her parents were staying in town last year? There must be someone she’d go to.”

  Marie searched her mind. “The only young lady she’s actually close to is her cousin Pierrette; we know Lucienne’s not with her. No one from her school days had a special place in her heart. She made some friends here last fall, but I think M’sieu Etienne’s wife was the closest.” Marie thought a moment. “I don’t suppose Madame Etienne might shelter her?”

  “Etienne said his wife was away, visiting her mother.”

  Marie paced the floor thinking. “Lucienne won’t be with her, then. Madame Etienne would not likely support this social disaster if Philippe is gone.”

  “She wouldn’t risk a possible scandal touching Etienne or her family,” Armand agreed. “Not a likely connection there, at least not one Lucienne could trade on, with Philippe in Texas.”

  Though they talked at length, neither Armand nor Marie could come up with more possibilities to examine. At last Armand straightened his cravat, took his coat, hat, and cane, and went out into the streets. He was certain he’d think better moving through the town. Perhaps somewhere among the early evening pedestrians, beneath some softly glowing streetlamp, he’d even catch a glimpse of that elusive girl he’d married.

  Armand, with his worst fears lightened by Marie’s matter-of-fact explanation, left his house with a new resolve in his heart. This time he’d have luck with him. He’d find some trace of Lucienne.

  A young woman doesn’t disappear into thin air. Armand tried to still the inner voice that had begun to gnaw at him. She’s here in this town, someone has seen her, and I can find her, he insisted, to still his fretful mind. A
t the end of the street was a small jewelry shop Armand sometimes patronized. With nothing else to bolster his hopes, he considered stepping in and looking over the man’s wares. His merchandise wasn’t as fashionable as that in some of the larger shops, but he often carried small, unique pieces of very fine craftsmanship. A bauble, a pretty trifle to give Lucienne when he found her, a symbol of the pledge to himself that Lucienne would come home, Armand thought, and turned his flagging steps to the doorway.

  “Ah, M’sieu Dupre, how good to see you. Congratulations on your recent marriage. I’m sure the lady is beautiful and charming and the most delightful of brides.”

  Armand wished Lucienne were there to accept the shopkeeper’s fulsome compliments. “A most beautiful bride indeed, mon ami, and I have it in my mind to take her a small trinket. Have you something suitable?”

  His expansive gesture invited Armand to survey the contents of the store. “You know I have only the most interesting items, things I have picked up on my travels, or keepsakes from estates with some history worth knowing. Regardez, regardez, m’sieu.”

  Armand looked with indifference over the displays. What did it matter? No happy bride waited for him to return with a sparkling bangle for her pleasure. Still, he wouldn’t offend the shopkeeper by walking away without a show of interest. He glanced over a collection of rings and shook his head. All too heavy, too old for Lucienne’s pretty hands. Earrings, bracelets—those too he passed by. A chain delicate as spider webs caught his attention. From it fell a heart-shaped locket covered in filigree flowers, opals, and pink pearls. Next to it, nestled in pink satin, sat an opal-and-pearl ring. There couldn’t be two such sets in existence, much less two sets in New Orleans. He steeled himself to show only casual interest.

  “That locket and ring, m’sieu. Let me see them.”

  “Ah, you have a very good eye, mon vieux.” The shopkeeper lifted the two sparkling objects free and dropped them into Armand’s outstretched palm.

  No, there could be no question. He held the ring and locket he’d given Lucienne. “I’ll take these. They’re exquisite. But my wife will be sure to ask about their history. What can you tell me about them? How did you come by them? Was it recently?”

  The shopkeeper, an elderly man with eyes as bright as the jewels he sold, stopped wrapping Armand’s purchase to look at his customer cautiously. “I would not tell most people the story of how I came by this lot,” he began. “But you know I do not knowingly buy the products of thievery. In this case I suspect I may have, but if I had not, the young woman would have taken them elsewhere, to someone who might have taken the pearls and opals from their mounting to sell separately. That would have been a greater crime, destroying the setting to get the gems. So I bought them from her. It was yesterday—no, no, I lie. The day before.”

  Only two days ago? Armand tried to control his urgency. “Did she look the type to have family jewels? You think she had stolen the pieces? I wouldn’t want to give my bride things that might have been stolen.”

  The shopkeeper gestured in futility. “Eh, who can say? Families start poor, get some land and prosper, make their way up in the world, then lose everything from disaster or a wastrel who is too fond of slow horses or bad cards. Could be the things were hers by right, I suppose, though I have my doubts.” He wore a puzzled expression as he thought about the dilemma. “She was young, I told you, slim, much dark hair, and not very tall. Well-dressed, though, in a blue-and-white dress right out of the fashion books. Looked very smart in it, too.”

  Lucienne. It certainly sounded like Lucienne, Armand told himself. And the dress sounded like the one she’d worn to the picnic. Her valise had been stolen so she might have resorted to selling her jewelry. But would the thieves have overlooked something so valuable? The combination of circumstances made no sense. “A name? Did the young lady mention a name?”

  “No, she gave me no name, but I doubt that a gentleman of your station in life would call her a lady. Her skin was very dark, burned brown from more hours in the sun than a lady of quality would permit herself. Her hands were not dainty or well cared for. I would take her for a farmer’s wife or a shopkeeper’s daughter who worked alongside her family. Not a lady, m’sieu, no matter how well dressed. I’d stake my shop on that.”

  Not Lucienne after all. Armand thought a moment. Price’s daughter was slim, dark haired, and sunburned; her hands would show signs of hard work. Yes, it could well be the Price girl, which suggested the pair hadn’t left New Orleans after all, or had not yet used the passage they booked. Armand had a new line of inquiry to deliberate as he left the shop. That pair had a hand in Lucienne’s disappearance; he felt more convinced of that than ever. They’d taken all she had, as well, it seemed. The valise she’d carried from home and the mementos he’d given her to mark their engagement were not in her possession. Lucienne must still be in town, yet she didn’t seem to be with the Prices. How would Lucienne survive a week in New Orleans? If she was hiding, where the devil had she gone to do it?

  ****

  Lucienne straightened her skirts and tugged the flowered apron over the worst of the faded streaks. Her hair fell in two neat braids over her shoulders, not a becoming hairstyle, she knew, but all she could manage with no mirror and only a small comb. Taking a deep breath, she knocked lightly on Mother Superior’s door.

  “Yes, Lucie,” the quiet voice called, “you may enter.”

  Lucienne hurried into the room, remembered her manners, and curtsied to the aged woman in black at the end of the chamber. She motioned for Lucienne to come to her.

  “So you are Lucie, and you wish to join us here and do God’s work?” She had seated herself on a tall-backed chair. Lucienne stood before her with some misgivings. This was not the soft-spoken, tiny, ancient Mother Superior she’d anticipated. It had been some time, at least four years, since she’d stood before this woman. Back then, she’d been Sister Marie St. Jacques, who taught history, the bane of Lucienne’s brief academic career. This might be a setback she hadn’t expected. But surely, among so many students, Sister wouldn’t remember the much younger Lucienne, a child whose frequent capers had caused chaos in the school.

  “Yes, Mother, I would very much like to be a nun and live here in the convent,” she answered in as demure a voice as she could muster. It was hard to get the words out. She’d never been able to lie successfully to this austere, tall woman.

  The dark eyes beneath the coif looked up, their expression cool, detached, and perhaps a little amused. “Lucienne Toussaint, what nonsense is this? Of all the girls I ever had in class, you’re the last one I’d expect to see here asking for admittance to our order.”

  The floor tilted under Lucienne’s feet. She could almost feel the stones rushing up to meet her. Not another blocked passage, not now. Tears welled up, not the easy tears of her theatrics, but tears of real despair. Before she crumpled, a strong grip caught her arm and eased her into a chair. In spite of her fogged vision, she managed to sit.

  “I didn’t realize you’d become the Mother Superior,” she lamented. “I didn’t expect to see you in this room.”

  “Obviously,” the older woman agreed dryly. “Has no one told you that our beloved mother became very ill, too ill to carry on, last year? I’ve been with her these last few days, keeping vigil and saying goodbye to the oldest friend I’ll ever have.”

  A dozen episodes and half-remembered conversations made connection to the information Sister Ann Marie had given her. She should have realized, she saw now, that something had changed since her schooldays. The whispers, grief, and prayers for a passing soul had been for that tiny, beloved presence. If she’d just asked around a bit, she’d have recognized the mourning that surrounded her.

  “I’m very sorry. She was kind to us, all the students, when I was here.”

  “She was dear to all of us, and she’ll be missed.” Mother Superior gave her a moment. “Now, if you’ve regained your composure, you can explain to me what you’re doing here. I
understood you were about to marry Armand Dupre. At least it was so announced some time back.”

  “I was supposed to marry Armand; Papa wanted me to. He insisted, and Armand’s papa insisted, and so I finally said I would.” She looked up at the patient, stern face opposite. “But I loved someone else, someone I thought loved me.”

  “And?” There was only curiosity in the word, not accusation.

  “And so we planned to elope. But he didn’t come.” She bit back an angry impulse to call Philippe names and spit on his memory. “There was a duel, and I was sure he’d be killed, so I ran away and came to New Orleans to stop him.” The anger became a sob that she couldn’t hold back. “And I found out he didn’t love me; he was just amusing himself by making me think he did.” She tossed back her braids and gave Mother Superior a defiant look. “I just can’t go back and be married to Armand. I’d die.” Her throat constricted with anger and the tears she couldn’t release. “I’m sick of men running my life, controlling who I am and what I’m going to do. So I decided I’d come here and be a nun, where there are no men arranging your life.”

  Mother Superior laughed, a short, indignant laugh. “Our vows here bind us to obedience, Lucienne, and the rules are much more restrictive than those your papa or Armand or anyone else would place on you. We choose to live as we do, and we are committed to our way of life, but it is by no means an easy one.”

  “I know, but I can do it. Just ask Sister Mary Agnes about my breadmaking. She can tell you how good I’ve been.”