“Since I left my own home? I suppose I have. I’ve been away for a long time.”
Mrs. Blanchard said, “You’re a very pretty girl.”
“I’m no girl,” Louise said. “But thank you.”
“And you sing like an angel. You’re giving me the feeling that you think your heart is empty. But you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Louise said, unaware that she’d given any such impression.
“Yes, you are,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “People can lie. To others and to themselves. But I’ve heard you, and I’ll guarantee that music always finds you out.”
At this point, Sophie returned with a tray bearing a glass of cordial for Louise. She was followed into the room by a young black man in a brown suit with a high-collared shirt. He carried a brown derby hat in his hands and was in his twenties, no more than twenty-six or-seven.
Mrs. Blanchard said, “Euday, this is Miss D’Alroy. She’ll be singing for the gathering this weekend. Do you have your music with you, Miss D’Alroy?”
“I do,” Louise said, reaching down for the portfolio she’d brought along. “I’m afraid it’s been rather well used.”
The young man held out his hand for it and said, “I happen to believe that’s no drawback in a good piece of music, ma’am.”
He took the portfolio from her and carried it over to the piano. As he seated himself and took out the manuscript pages, Mrs. Blanchard raised her voice to say, “I had the tuner to it yesterday.”
“I thank you for that, Miz Blanchard.”
As the young man was looking through her pieces, Mrs. Blanchard said to Louise, “When Euday was ten years old, his mother came to my door and asked if I needed someone to clean my house. She was looking for a place with a piano. She needed somewhere they’d allow her boy to practice while she worked.”
Louise, knowing that the young man was within earshot and unable quite to bring herself to speak as if he wasn’t there, spoke loudly enough to make it clear that she was including him and said, “You taught yourself?”
“That’s what he tells them in those terrible places where he plays of an evening. No, he didn’t teach himself.” She raised her own voice again. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of a classical music education.”
Euday grinned without looking up from the scores. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Miss D’Alroy?”
“Yes?”
Now he looked up. “You’ve written something on ‘The Last Rose of Summer.’ Would it help if I were to transpose the key for you?”
“If you can do that.”
“I can.”
He carried on looking through. Mrs. Blanchard said to Louise, “Would you prefer me to leave while you practice?”
“It makes no difference to me.”
“I’ll just sit quietly, then. Forget I’m here.”
The occasion was to be an afternoon’s get-together of friends and family. There were similar events being held all over the city, both private and public, to mark the centenary of the Louisiana Purchase, the land deal of the century—this past one, or any other. The French had given up most of a continent for a pittance. Planned celebrations included a naval review on the Mississippi, a historical ball in the French Opera House, and what they were calling a “grand pontifical mass” at St. Louis Cathedral.
This would be a more modest affair. Cordials, conversation, and old-fashioned songs for old-fashioned people. Louise would sing in the drawing room and a quartet would play in the courtyard amid the jasmine and crepe myrtle.
Euday proved to be an expert sight reader and an accurate player. The only disappointment was the piano, a good instrument whose tone was beginning to go. Its sound was like everything else in the city: exuberant, warped, and slightly off-key. Tropical decay was in its timbers, as it was in everything else in this corner of the world where gilt always peeled, panels invariably split, and bright colors ran into one another.
They gave each of the pieces a going-over, adjusting tempo and clarifying the dynamics wherever necessary. Euday asked pertinent questions and anticipated many of the answers. His playing style was unique in her experience; where some pounded along, he seemed to float without effort.
It took them barely more than an hour. When they were done, Louise turned to Mrs. Blanchard, who, as good as her word, had said nothing throughout.
Louise said, “I hope you approve of the selection.”
“The selection is fine,” Mrs. Blanchard said. “What was that last one? I never heard it before.”
“It’s Italian. Something I used to sing when I first went on the stage. That was back in England.”
Having gathered the printed music pages together, Euday now handed them back to her.
“Yours,” he said.
“Don’t you need to keep them?” she said.
“Just bring them along on the day,” he said. “I think I’ve got them now.”
He bade her a good evening. Mrs. Blanchard thanked him, and asked him to send Sophie up on his way out.
After he’d gone, Louise said to Mrs. Blanchard, “I’ve something to ask.”
“And that would be?”
“I’ve been offered the use of a property. It’s a house and some land outside town. I’ve never seen it, and I’ve no idea whether it’s even livable. I could use the advice of someone who can look it over with me and say whether it’s worth taking on.”
Mrs. Blanchard considered for a moment. “I’ve a nephew who’s a banker,” she said. “Would he do?”
“I’m sure he would, if you’re recommending him.”
Mrs. Blanchard didn’t seem entirely happy with her own choice.
“I’ll think some more,” she said. “Where are you staying? The St. Charles?”
“For now.”
“Send the details over. I’ll have someone look at them and then call on you.”
When Louise emerged into the street, the Silent Man was at her shoulder within a few seconds of the door closing behind her.
Back at the St. Charles Hotel, she was handed an envelope along with her key.
“Who left this?” she said.
“I wasn’t here when it came, ma’am,” the desk clerk said.
She didn’t open it there and then, but took it upstairs to open in her room. Louise disliked surprises.
The envelope contained a sheet of heavy cream paper that bore a fancy crest and read, The Governor of Louisiana requests the honor of Miss Mary D’Alroy’s presence at the Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States.
It was a printed page in flowing script, with a space where her name had been added by a less-than-flowing hand. It would admit her to Sunday night’s historical ball at the French Opera House. The evening included a gala performance with a series of allegorical tableaux at its conclusion.
She fanned herself with the paper, thinking. A kindness from one of her new acquaintances. She had no fine dress that was suitable. But influential people might be there. Rich people. Bored people. People of all stripes, and of all inclinations. She had dealt out no pain to any living soul since the last earthly moments of Jules Patenotre.
The thought sickened her, but not as much as it once might have. Nowhere near as much. Her first time had caused her weeks of nightmares. But repetition had blunted the impact of the deed, until it held almost no spiritual horror for her. She brought these people what they wanted, and so did her best to satisfy the terms of the Wanderer’s unwritten contract. If she must do harm, she would do it only to those who sought it. When none offered themselves, she would wait.
And if the wait grew too long, what then?
She would accept the invitation, and she would go to the ball. There she would circulate, alone and anonymous. From among those who went out seeking pleasure in this strange, corrupt, and free-living city, she would find one whose needs matched her own. It would not be difficult. Like always seemed to know like. And in the event of an unlooked-for conse
quence, like the death of Jules Patenotre…well, on such nights there were always casualties, to be discovered and swept up in the morning with the fallen bunting and the beads.
Someone had laid out good money for this ticket. Her understanding was that they sold at a high price, to keep out the vulgar. Someone wished to see her there.
Like, perhaps, had spotted like.
On Saturday, she would sing. And on Sunday evening, join the dance.
FORTY-THREE
On Friday morning, there was a knock at her hotel room door and the bell-hopper called out, “There’s a carriage awaitin’ for you, ma’am.”
She opened the door. She disliked it when the staff yelled her business for everyone to hear.
“I’ll be right down,” she said.
It was the Mute Woman’s turn to shadow her. The street in front of the hotel was wide and paved, with rails for streetcars and a place for horses to stand. A victoria waited, just a few yards along. At the front, alongside the driver, sat her piano accompanist from earlier in the week. When he saw Louise, he climbed down and opened the carriage door for her. Louise stopped on the sidewalk, uncertain.
“Please, Miz D’Alroy,” Euday said. “Climb on in.”
Louise turned to the Mute Woman.
“It’s a two-seater,” she said. “And we’ve to pick up Mrs. Blanchard’s nephew.”
The Mute Woman did not move.
“It appears that you have the morning off,” Louise said. “Let us both make the most of it.”
She climbed into the victoria and settled on the buttoned leather, feeling self-conscious. The carriage had seen better days, but it was still transport that declared the importance of its passenger. Euday swung back up into his seat beside the driver. The whip cracked, and off they went.
Louise risked a glance back and saw the Mute Woman standing on the sidewalk, watching them go.
After a while, she began to relax. No one was paying any particular attention as they went by. They went through the Vieux Carré and within a few city squares they were passing along streets that she didn’t recognize. At first she’d expected that they’d be stopping to pick up her adviser along the way. But after shops and office buildings gave way to warehouses, and the warehouses gave way to row after row of ugly wooden shacks with sagging windows and rotten verandas, she realized that they’d soon be outside the city altogether.
“Euday,” she called forward. “Where’s the nephew?”
The young man half turned in his seat. “Miz Blanchard reckoned I could advise you better. Only it won’t do to announce that to the whole town. You understand what I’m saying.” He suddenly remembered something, and reached inside his coat. “Here,” he said, producing documents that she recognized. “You want to keep these safe. I’ve been looking them over for you.”
He held them out for her to take. They were the deeds to Jules Patenotre’s property. She’d had the Silent Man carry them over to the Blanchard house, effectively entrusting her stolen fortune to a stranger. But some risks had to be run. Of those in Louise’s life so far, this was nowhere near the greatest.
Stowing them safely in her bag, she said, “No offense intended, Euday, but how come a piano player can advise me better than a banker would?”
“Music’s not my living,” he said. “I make that as a bookkeeper. When a banker mislays your money, it’s the bookkeeper’s job to find out exactly where he put it. So if you think it through, with me you got a better deal. Only drawback for you is, it’s black folks and white folks. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I’m beginning to,” she said. “If you have a regular job, why are you here instead of working?”
“The office is closed,” he said. “For the celebrations.”
“Then you could be celebrating.”
“It’s nothing to me,” Euday said.
Throughout all of this, the carriage driver had sat hunched over his reins, playing no part in their conversation and paying it no attention. He was dressed in livery that would have looked handsome on some better-built and fitter man. As it was, he looked as if he was fleeing a famine by way of the dressing-up box. Euday leaned over and said a few words to him, and at the next fork in the road he tweaked at the reins and took a left, down a wide avenue of live oak trees hung with Spanish moss.
After another mile or two they saw the river, and a while later they saw it again—the road running more or less straight while the river snaked in and out of view. Patenotre had told her that his family’s plantation was on land by the Mississippi. It was land that was flat, fertile, and likely to flood.
All along the River Road, they passed antebellum homes in various states of repair. Most of the bigger ones were in a Greek Revival style, century-old wooden mansions fashioned to resemble millennia-old stone temples. Sugar planters had built them in the years before the war. Theirs was an immensely wealthy economy, but one that had depended entirely upon slave labor for its vitality.
After a particular milepost, they came to a long driveway. It had been a dirt road, and now it was choked with grass that came almost up to the hubs of their wheels. The horses waded ahead, pulling the carriage along like a barge on a canal of greenery, trailing a neatly cut line down the center of the road. At the end of the driveway stood the gates to a mansion house.
The house seemed largely undamaged. The roof had lost a few of its red tiles and the white paint was peeling off, but its lines were fairly straight and the gallery didn’t sag too much. It was two stories high and about eight rooms wide, with outbuildings beyond. As the victoria drew in before it, a stray dog on the porch scrambled to its feet and came down the steps, barking.
Euday said, “Don’t get down till I chase him away.”
“You can leave him be,” Louise said. “He’s doing no harm.”
“They carry all kinds of diseases.” He looked around for rocks, but found none. He found a stick and threw that. The animal dodged it, then turned around and picked it up and carried it a short distance to where it settled, gnawing at the stick to make it splinter. The dog was long-legged and rangy, some kind of a hound crossed with a spaniel.
Euday went to shoo it further, but it just moved a few feet, resettled, and carried on.
By this time, Louise had climbed down from the victoria and was approaching the house. The windows were all boarded up, giving the place a blinded look. The main entrance was secured with a chain, and the chain secured with a padlock.
She brought out the keys that she’d taken from Jules Patenotre. One had given her access to his strongbox. The other, larger one had been inside it.
The key from inside the strongbox fit the lock, but would not turn. She stepped back for Euday to try, and with a sound like old bones grinding together, he was able to get the lock to open. He unhooked it from the chain and drew the chain from the doors.
Then he opened the doors as wide as they would go.
Louise stopped on the threshold. The house was gloomy, but not dark. Although the windows were boarded, there was a skylight dome at the top of the main stairway. This created a perpetual twilight in the center of the house, falling away into shadow as one moved off into other parts.
She took a few steps forward. She’d been expecting a ruin. But this house was merely neglected, and compared to some of the places where she’d been forced to hide out—Richmond’s theater of varieties or that empty grocery store in Oregon, to name a couple—it was more than habitable. Some of the plaster had come down and there was an odor of sweetness and rot in the air, but there was nothing here that couldn’t be fixed, disguised, or ignored.
From behind her, Euday said, “A lot of these places got burned.”
She looked around. He was standing there squinting up at the dome. “In the war?” she said.
“People didn’t wait for the soldiers to come. They dragged all the cotton bales out of the warehouses and onto the levee so they could set light to them. Then they fired the ships at the wharves an
d cut them loose to float downstream. My granddaddy remembers steamboats burning on the river. Imagine that. You’d think it was the fleet of the devil himself sailing through.”
“Was your grandfather a slave?”
“No ma’am. My granddaddy was a free man.”
From the central hallway, she moved through a wide arch and into one of the reception rooms. It was big enough to dance in. There were thin stripes of sunlight across the floor and up the walls, streaming in through gaps in the planking. They picked out odd details: a plaster cornice, some hanging wallpaper black with mold, the pink marble of an elaborate fireplace whose full splendor would only be revealed when the boards came off the windows.
Euday didn’t follow her into the room, but from the archway said, “Looks like the furniture went.”
“It was sold,” she said, her voice echoing. “I’ve got all the receipts. I may see if I can buy it back. If it hasn’t already been sold on.”
She could do it, too. She had the money as well as the paperwork. The furniture had gone for a song. Let her servants object, with their subtle pressures and their poisonous looks. She’d have her way.
Louise continued through the rooms, and Euday went upstairs. She could hear him above her, knocking on walls and stamping on boards.
Toward the back of the building, she found signs that someone had managed to find a way in. There were cold embers from a long-dead fire, and scattered animal bones that had been barbecued over it and picked clean. But that was all. Someone had camped here and moved on. In a scullery, she found the broken window they’d got in by. She found birds’ mess and pigeon feathers in the room.
She couldn’t dislodge the picture that Euday had planted in her mind. As she moved back through the house, she kept imagining what it must have been like to stand on the riverbank and watch burning ships go by. Rudderless, unpiloted, fully alight as they came into view around the bend. One Flying Dutchman after another. Roaring bright and yellow from masthead to waterline, the wash of their heat blasting the watcher as they passed…and as the current bore them on downstream, still more of them coming into sight.
The Kingdom of Bones Page 28
