by Helen Bryan
She shut the glass dining room doors firmly behind her, praying the commotion would calm down and hoping there wouldn’t be repercussions if one of the Englishmen sat next to her niece. Lieutenant Fairfax was a perfectly pleasant young man, nearly at the end of his weeklong stay in New Orleans. If Maurice was annoyed, Celeste would tell him that she couldn’t have left the place next to Evangeline conspicuously empty.
Eighteen-year-old Evangeline, debutante of the year, was the guest of honor at today’s luncheon. Her coming-out ball tonight—the last night of Mardi Gras—would close the season. Given that all New Orleans expected that when the ball ended at midnight her father would announce Evangeline’s engagement to Maurice, Maurice’s absence at lunch was awkward. It didn’t take much to start people gossiping in New Orleans, and the last thing Celeste wanted was to provoke comment or speculation about Evangeline. Well brought up girls should never be the subject of gossip, and a few vague but worrying rumors about Evangeline had reached her ears. Celeste hoped fervently they had not reached Maurice’s. He would not have been amused.
More than twice Evangeline’s age, Maurice was a longtime intimate of Evangeline’s father. He was the last of his family, sole heir to its fortune and vast estate; the Fitzroy plantation, Belle Triste, was one of the oldest and handsomest in the state. The family was proud of its ancestry—the Fitzroys claimed to have had royal antecedents—but now Maurice was the last of the family and needed sons to keep the name alive. They said the haughty Fitzroys had thought none of the local girls good enough, and in his younger days Maurice had spent a considerable time in Europe seeking a suitable bride. If so, his search had come to nothing. Then the only daughter of the prominent Fontaine family caught his eye.
Maurice had unbent enough to let Celeste know that he had been captivated by Evangeline when she was still a convent schoolgirl. Romantic, Celeste supposed uneasily. He clearly worshipped the girl now, scarcely taking his eyes off her, hanging on her every word, lighting her cigarettes, holding her chair, and claiming every possible dance at balls, despite the fact that Evangeline did not seem to care for him at all. Thoughtless and giddy, she flirted and danced with her younger beaux and visited risqué establishments in the Treme with her friends, without a serious thought about her future or marriage in her head.
Celeste sighed. It didn’t bode well. Marriage was a sacrament and, in her experience, often a crown of thorns. But Evangeline’s future was dictated by social custom. Among the first families of New Orleans girls married young, unless they entered a convent, and from then on their happiness depended on the clever management of home and husband. Otherwise…
Halfway through luncheon, Celeste frowned down the long table at Evangeline. The girl was pushing Inez’s special étouffée around her plate, eating nothing, pale and listless, half asleep. Modern young people stayed out too late at night. Although she was childless, Celeste had strong views on how girls should be brought up, and she disapproved of the way Evangeline had been raised.
Young girls should be trained from an early age to attend to their duties rather than selfish enjoyment. Unfortunately Evangeline was the youngest child and only girl in a family of five children. She had been spoiled by her parents and doted on by her four older brothers who had let her follow them around and taught her to hunt, fish, swim, climb trees, and who knew what else. It wasn’t ladylike, but her parents had just laughed. Eventually her father realized she was growing up into a hoyden and stopped laughing. He told his wife to see Evangeline was taken in hand. They had to think about her position in society and her marriage prospects.
The nuns at the school had done their best to reverse the damage, but since graduating from the convent the previous summer and beginning her season, all of their good work had been undone. As a debutante Evangeline had plunged into frivolity and overindulgence. She thought of nothing but shopping, fittings, parties, and running about to nightclubs where well brought up girls had no business. At tonight’s splendid ball she would wear a Paris gown and, Celeste happened to know, a Fitzroy family ring on her right index finger, which had been given with her parents’ approval and which her mother insisted she wear lest Maurice take offense. But despite it all, Evangeline looked bored.
Celeste disapproved of debutante seasons. She and Evangeline’s mother had been brought up in the old-fashioned way. Between school and marriage, they were kept at home, learning how to run a household and keep a husband happy. They had been taught to supervise servants, arrange flowers, plan menus, even cook. There had been no gadding about.
Celeste shuddered to think how Evangeline would manage when she married. Overnight she would become mistress of two grand houses, the Fitzroy plantation house at Belle Triste and the mansion in New Orleans. Maurice would expect them to run like clockwork, of course, and there would be a baby every year. Well, Celeste had tried her best to fill the gaps in Evangeline’s domestic education in the past year, but the girl had taken little notice of her aunt’s efforts.
Down the table Evangeline was smoking cigarette after cigarette between sips of wine, not making the slightest effort to talk to the Englishman beside her or to anyone else. To the servants Celeste signaled discreetly that they should pour no more wine for Miss Evangeline and to bring in the next course. Then, the perfect wife and hostess, she turned back with a look of rapt attention to what the men were saying. When she heard it was politics, business, and what they were saying in Washington again, her expression of interest didn’t falter but she groaned inwardly. The European branch of the Fontaine business was in deep trouble, she knew. Yet Evangeline’s family was lavishing so much money on tonight’s ball. She didn’t want to think deeply about that. Let the men deal with business. It was all they were good for.
At the other end of the table, Charles’s face was red from too many prelunch cocktails as he engaged in a heated discussion about the American government, the situation in Germany, and how it was affecting the Fontaines’ business in Marseille. To her intense discomfort he was slurring his words…
Evangeline studied the dregs in her wine glass, careful not to look up and catch her aunt’s eye. She could feel Aunt Celeste watching her like a hawk. Did she suspect what might be wrong? The anonymous notes had begun coming days ago, leaving a trail of poison in Evangeline’s handbag, in a box of flowers—there had even been a note on her breakfast tray this morning, in the folds of the napkin where her maid, Delphy, couldn’t have seen it. Just a few crudely written, misspelled words.
“BIN WATCHIN YOU NIGGER’S HORE”
Or: “GITTIN CLOSE”
Someone close to her had been spying. Who? It hardly mattered. In New Orleans the consequences would be swift and terrible. Today’s note said:
“YOU AND THE NIGGER CANOT GIT AWAY REKONING IS COMIN”
What could she do! Evangeline cast a sideways look at the Englishman on her left. If she had had less on her mind she would have been flirting with him. He was good looking, in a fair, English way, and tall, with an air of command. She had danced with him a few times in the past week. Soon he had wanted as many dances as she would give him, but she found him serious-minded and hopeless at the kind of silly banter and frivolous compliments New Orleans girls expected from men. He bored her. But at least he wasn’t Maurice. Maurice had watched him with narrowed eyes. Maurice. She shivered.
Almost from the moment they had sat down to lunch, her uncle had demanded Richard’s attention. Evangeline listened intermittently to their conversation, then concentrated on her own worries. She heard that Richard and his fellow delegates hadn’t succeeded in persuading the president to take an interest in developments in Germany and they were going home. Well, Evangeline didn’t blame President Roosevelt. Germany was so far away, why should he? Richard was sailing for England early next morning. If only she could escape to England. They had been so careful…but someone knew.
Her untouched étouffée was taken and replaced with a salad that glistened with mayonnaise. Ugh! Feeling quea
sy again, Evangeline cut some lettuce into small pieces and wondered again what on earth she was going to do. For the hundredth time, she calculated how many days, how many weeks, since she last had the curse.
This morning her maid, Delphy, had found her throwing up when she came to draw Evangeline’s bath. “Too much champagne last night,” Evangeline had said, burying her face in a wet towel. Delphy had raised her eyebrows skeptically. Delphy was in the kitchen now; what was she saying to the other servants? Servants’ gossip meant everyone knew everything in New Orleans.
Evangeline’s eyelids drooped. At night she lay awake, imagining she heard footsteps creeping up to her bedroom door, or slept and endured a recurring nightmare. In it she was hunting after dark with her brothers on Granmere’s plantation upriver. When she was little the boys had shown her how to shine a flashlight to blind the rabbits: they would be transfixed, ears twitching. Unless they jumped fast and disappeared into the dark, the hunters fired and they dropped. Most weren’t fast enough to get away. Killing rabbits this way upset her at first, but the boys told her that was hunting; the rabbits destroyed the vegetable garden and Inez used them for jambalaya, so she’d got used to it, had shot plenty herself. But in her dream it was her and Laurent in the darkness, sensing hunters approaching from somewhere. Then the two of them were trapped in a blinding beam of light. Knowing what would happen next but rooted to the spot, powerless to run as the hunters took aim, she would wake as she heard the click of the trigger…
Evangeline’s palms had grown cold and clammy. Her glass was empty—damn! Alcohol was the only thing that steadied her jangled nerves, calmed her uneasy stomach. She had been afraid to tell Laurent about the notes. And she was afraid to tell him about the other thing she hardly dared name. Laurent was smart, he knew many things she did not, things no girl suspected. He had known of secret places where no one could find them, had shown her what to do that first time. He had taught her wonderful, dangerous games for the two of them to play, and even though she knew they were committing a mortal sin, Evangeline now lived for their next intoxicating time together.
Laurent would take care of everything…somehow. Evangeline could think of no way out—unless they ran away. But where to? And how could they run? With so much happening today, she didn’t even know how she’d manage to see Laurent. After lunch she would be expected at home, to dress under the eye of her mother and Delphy. Tonight was the big Mardi Gras parade, when she and the other debutantes whose fathers were in the same krewe, one of the Mardi Gras organizations, were expected to play the traditional gracious role of girls from prominent families and perch decoratively on the krewe’s float. They would wave and smile and throw doubloons and beads to the crowd. Afterward, at her ball, she would be surrounded by people every minute. But she had to do something. Before her parents found out, before anyone else found out. Especially before Maurice found out. Before it was too late.
A snippet of conversation startled her. “What did Uncle Charles just say?” she whispered to Richard.
Richard smiled at her. “I gather your family’s company is sending a new employee to the Marseille office next week.”
“Smart as a whip, that boy, best Jesuit education, no real future in New Orleans,” Uncle Charles said, a little too loudly. Everyone looked at their plates.
Richard Fairfax asked why such a smart boy should have no future in New Orleans.
“Ha! He’s Creole, that’s why, gens de couleur. Part colored, Lieutenant Fairfax! But smart like his daddy.” Charles Fontaine smirked and Aunt Celeste gasped. Evangeline felt as if someone had emptied a pitcher of ice water over her. France! No! Laurent wasn’t supposed to go until he was twenty-one, and that was two years away. And he couldn’t leave her alone, not if he knew. Holy Virgin, she had to tell him at once.
“Y’all have the colored problem in England?” Uncle Charles asked.
The servants’ black faces were impassive as they removed plates.
Aunt Celeste’s glass trembled in her hand.
Evangeline felt faint. If Laurent left she would never see him again. And if Laurent didn’t save her from Maurice…who would? She realized with terrible clarity that, for the first time in her life, demanding what she wanted would not be enough. She and Laurent were doomed. Never mind that Uncle Charles had sent Laurent to the Jesuits and Granmere doted on him and the family looked after him. His mother had been a quadroon so he was colored, and no colored boy dared so much as look at a white girl, lest he end up swinging from a tree. He couldn’t save her from Maurice or anyone else. He couldn’t even save himself if anyone knew. And she knew she had to warn him that someone did…because then the safest thing was for him to leave for France immediately. Maybe she could follow him? How? She couldn’t sprout wings and fly. But…Richard was English. England was near France, wasn’t it? But where exactly? Evangeline played with the ring Maurice had given her. She didn’t like it, but her mother said it would be rude not to wear it. She thought distractedly of Sister Bernadette’s geography lessons and tried to conjure up a map.
Everyone welcomed the distraction when the dining room doors swung open, and with great fanfare, the servants brought in the traditional King Cake. Was there no one in New Orleans she could turn to?
Evangeline had heard the colored girls went to an old woman named Mama La Bas who did mojos and spells, black magic, but you had to be careful with what she gave you. Use the spell wrong, they said, and it would turn against you. It was a terrible sin to go to a woman like that. The Church taught that voodoo was an instrument of the devil, and having been brought up in the Church, Evangeline was afraid, but she was now so mired in sinful thoughts and deeds there was nowhere to go but on. For courage she boldly picked up the full wineglass in front of Richard and drained it as conversation resumed. Everyone began to talk at once, but not to Richard.
“Hasn’t been in the South long enough,” said someone, audibly.
“Doesn’t understand the situation here; coloreds were slaves two or three generations ago, they’re like animals, got to be firm with them,” said someone else.
To Richard’s immense relief, Evangeline rescued him from the awkward moment. She laid her hand sporting a priceless antique French rose-diamond ring carved with a crest on his wrist, leaned close, and said, in a conspiratorial murmur, “I want to tell you a secret.” But first, had her brothers shown him a good time in New Orleans?
Richard, entranced, felt her breast pressing against his arm and smelled her perfume. Her long eyelashes fluttered on her cheeks. “Quite the most splendid time,” he enthused.
“I bet Andre and Philippe took you down to the Treme,” she went on, gazing up into his eyes. “That’s where the speakeasies and good-time houses are,” she whispered. She smiled, lowering her eyelashes again. “The nuns at school warned us it was a mortal sin even to imagine what goes on down there. But you must have noticed all the beautiful Creole girls. Well,” her head was nearly on his shoulder now, “here’s the secret. Uncle Charles kept a girl down there in a little house, but she died. Bet the boys took you to hear her son, Laurent Baptiste. Uncle Charles is Laurent’s father. Laurent was smart in school, like Uncle Charles said, but what he really likes is music. He’s amazing, plays the piano and the saxophone and, oh, lots of instruments, better than anyone—ragtime and swing and jazz—but the only places he can play are in the Treme.”
Richard was mesmerized. She was so close he could feel her breath on his cheek and smell her scent, like gardenias at dusk. “Anyhow, he’s the family member Uncle Charles meant. And he wouldn’t normally have been rude enough to mention it, but he forgets himself when he, um, talks business.” She sat up straight as her aunt shot her a sharp look, but let her fingers slide down to brush his thigh, as if by accident.
“Good lord, Miss Fontaine! I…er…your uncle was talking earlier about—I had no idea the fellow was related to the family. He looks, well, like a white person.” Flustered, Richard remembered the handsome young man with co
pper-colored hair at the piano who had saluted Evangeline’s brothers and winked, saying, “Don’t let on to Granmere I was in here again. Supposed to be in the office.” The sleeves of his immaculate shirt were rolled up and the jacket of a well-cut suit folded neatly beneath an expensive Homburg on the chair beside him.
Evangeline shrugged. “You won’t see a white man playing the piano in the Treme. This is New Orleans. Everybody knows the relationship between us and Laurent; it’s a common situation really, even in the older families, so nobody ever talks about it, it’s just there. Everybody pretends they don’t know. In fact, Laurent and my brothers practically grew up together, although officially white people and colored don’t mix. When Laurent’s mother died our grandmother took a liking to him and raised him at her plantation upriver. Then Uncle Charles sent him to the Jesuit school for Creole boys. We used to spend the school vacations together at the plantation. Granmere thinks the world of him because he’s got the family blood, but being colored Laurent learned to know his place, which is why most of the family accepts him. Mama and Aunt Celeste, of course, pretend he doesn’t exist. And boys like him, if they don’t have big mouths, are taken care of, usually doing some kind of work for the family. I thought you should know so you won’t mention what Uncle Charles said when you’re talking to Aunt Celeste. She and Uncle Charles never had children, so Laurent and children like him are always a sensitive subject. Now, try some King Cake.” A servant was bending over Evangeline with a silver tray and she put a slice on Richard’s plate.
“Watch out for the gold baby,” Celeste called to him down the length of the table.
“I beg your pardon?” Richard, picking up his fork, was startled.
Before Celeste could tell him Evangeline hurried to explain, “King Cake is a Mardi Gras tradition. There’s always a little gold baby inside. It’s for the Baby Jesus and brings good luck to whoever gets it. If you find it in your cake you have to give the next party, but since Mardi Gras is almost over,” Evangeline wrinkled her nose and made a disappointed face, “and my ball is the last of the season, I guess you won’t have time to give a party before you go back to England. But you have to do something!”
