I glanced at my uncle curiously. “There’s no white king. How can you play a chess game without two kings?”
His smile turned faintly sardonic. “In the days before the war I had the honor of playing chess many times with the greatest player who ever lived—Paul Morphy of Creole New Orleans. I have always regarded the game as a superior mental exercise. And I am quite conversant with its rules.”
He reached again to the cinnabar box and selected a figure from among the discarded pieces. The set had apparently been made by an Oriental artist and the figure was a beautifully carved ivory statuette in long Chinese robes.
“The white king is dead,” said my uncle and tossed the piece carelessly back in the box. Then he smiled without rancor at my bewilderment. “Some men think best when they take a long walk, others while they read, or play a game of dominoes. For me a chessboard clarifies my thinking, enables me to make my plans visually. The rules, under such circumstances, are my own.”
He replaced the silver cover upon the table and I saw that it fitted into a groove which had been cut in the table’s surface, and hid the entire chessboard.
“The cover,” Uncle Robert said, “is for the purpose of keeping the board safe from the careless hands of servants who are dusting. No one lifts it from the table except myself.”
For just an instant I felt chilled. Did those pawns and knights and castles represent men and women whose lives my uncle wished to manipulate? I remembered what my mother had said of his love of power. But these were unpleasant thoughts and I did not want to entertain them about my uncle.
Now he leaned back in his chair and regarded me affably, his fingers playing with the gold chain that looped across his vest. He was not, as I found, a particularly relaxed person. His hands were wont to move often, not only in an expressive French way as he talked, but even when they might have been at rest.
“I am glad that you are a young woman of spirit,” he said, and his tone was the kindly one I liked in him. “I find your independence of thought admirable, providing it is restrained behind a womanly exterior. You are, after all, of marriageable age, my dear, and I hope you will forgive me for speaking frankly. Your marriage is something we must consider.”
I was glad of the opening. It would be possible now to tell him how I felt about marriage. Perhaps I might even find in him an ally against my mother’s maneuvering.
“Several people have spoken to me about marrying since I’ve come to New Orleans,” I began. “But I feel—”
He raised a long forefinger reassuringly. “There is no need for precipitant action. However, you are a young woman of good family and from this house you should be able to step into a most favorable marriage.”
“Thank you for your concern, Uncle Robert,” I said, “but I don’t expect to think of marriage for some time. I’m not a very good catch, you know. My father can give me no dowry.”
“That is of no great consequence.” Again his hands moved, this time in a small gesture of dismissal. “In New Orleans we place a greater emphasis on family than we do on wealth, my dear. I am sure there will be many young men who will be eager to press their suit. Already you have won the admiration of my ward, Courtney. And it is not impossible that there will be something of a dowry forthcoming when you marry.”
A twinge of uncertainty ran through me at his mention of Courtney. Had I after all misjudged my mother?
Uncle Robert took my silence for the confusion of gratitude. “Why should I not do this for so charming a niece? Providing, of course, that your marriage is suitable. But there is no point in discussing such matters now. You must be properly introduced to society this fall. When you appear in a box at the French Opera—which is the way in which we present our debutantes—you will, I’m sure, have suitors by the score. And until the time of your marriage you and your parents will of course be most welcome to stay in this house.”
I could relax again and dismiss the suspicion which had stirred in me. Uncle Robert had spoken of Courtney only in passing. He was thinking in general terms of the future, with only my own good at heart. And that, of course, I could not resent. In fact, such concern gave me again the feeling of being somehow protected and safe in this house. Safe even from my mother. And that was a feeling I had seldom experienced before.
Uncle Robert rose and I knew the interview was at an end, though there had still been no mention of the hat Justin Law had sent me. I moved toward the door and Uncle Robert came to open it for me. Again I glimpsed the portrait that hung in this inconspicuous corner and wished that I might ask him whether it had been painted of Madame Aurore Law as a girl. But of course I did not dare.
“Remember, my dear,” he said, laying an affectionate hand on my arm, “—no more adventures on Gallatin Street.”
“Of course not,” I promised. “But if I see Mr. Law again, I cannot be discourteous to him.”
“Naturally,” he said, “a lady is never discourteous to a gentleman.” His implication was clear.
“But if this man comes of good family—?” I said.
My uncle put an arm gently about my shoulders. “These are matters beyond your understanding, Skye, and you need not trouble yourself about them. It is enough to know that Justin Law has been in prison for many years for a crime of violence. Only fortune saved him from a hanging. His reputation is evil to an extent that a young woman like yourself cannot possibly dream.”
I recalled Caro’s excited words as she bounced on her stool that day in the dining room. So she had been right, after all. But I had to hear this from my uncle’s lips to believe what I did not want to believe.
“Is it true that he is a murderer?” I asked him directly.
“It is true,” Uncle Robert said. “A man so debased has no right to speak to a respectable women, no matter what the circumstances.”
I wondered fleetingly if it would have been better to let me be mauled and insulted by a drunken sailor.
“Remember,” Uncle Robert said with some perception, “that the scoundrel often has a dashing way with women. He can seem deceptively attractive. But his sort can bring only misery and unhappiness. Don’t forget that, Skye.”
His look had softened and I felt that he spoke to me as a father would speak to his daughter. I knew his warning must be justified and I nodded silently as I turned away. Behind me I heard the soft closing of the door.
The things he had said about Justin Law left me unexpectedly sick and shaken. Far more shaken than I liked to admit. It hurt me to consider that a man who could play so delightful a prank with a little green hat could cruelly take another man’s life. Yet I knew there was violence in him. I had seen it in his handling of that sailor. I had felt it myself. I must give him no further thought. Perhaps that was why Uncle Robert had not embarrassed me by speaking of the hat. He expected me to do the proper thing, once I was in possession of a true knowledge of Justin Law.
He was right, of course. The hat must be returned at once to the milliner from whom it had come.
I hurried to my room, meaning to take the hat at once from its post and thrust it into its nest of tissue. But no bit of green fancy perched upon the post. The carved knob was as bald as though it had never boasted so stylish a covering for its polished top.
Delphine had come into my room in my absence and taken it away, I thought angrily. And that I would not have! I might give the order myself to have the hat returned, but I would not have Delphine take matters into her own hands. She might feel it her privilege and duty to run the rest of the family, but she was not going to run me.
I returned to the gallery and saw at once what I had failed to see before. On the courtyard gallery outside the doors of the second parlor, where Caro had been playing a while ago, stood Delphine. There was something still and almost secretive about her attitude. I saw that she stood half hidden, watching something that went on in the parlor.
Softly I followed the gallery around its turn and was upon her before she saw me coming.
“You had no
business taking my hat!” I told her in a low voice.
I must have surprised her, but she did not start or even turn her head. “Your maman does not change, Mam’zelle Skye,” she said and made a small gesture toward the parlor.
Quickly I stepped to the door and looked in. Over the mantelpiece hung a long, gilt-framed mirror, tilted somewhat to reflect the room. Before it my mother postured, tilting her head this way and that, admiring herself. Admiring the small green hat perched so becomingly upon her black hair.
A sense of outrage shook me, and at the same time a sense of helplessness. My impulse was to snatch the hat from her head and run off with it. It was mine. The most beautiful thing I had ever owned. And yet it was not mine and I didn’t want it. I didn’t want anything sent me by a man so evil as Justin Law.
“Stop whispering out there, you two,” Mama said, “and come tell me how I look.”
I held back the confusion of my feelings and went into the room. Delphine came silently with me. There was no escaping the fact that the fern-green hat became my mother, even though her hair was black and the hat had been destined for red. As she dipped and twirled about the room I knew she was herself again and that she had thrown off the depression and lassitude that had held her since she had returned to this house of her childhood.
She seemed not to notice that neither Delphine nor I made any comment on her appearance. Quite evidently she was sufficiently pleased with herself.
“Imagine my surprise,” she said, “when I went to your room just now and found this charming little hat upon the bedpost. Where did you get it, Skye?”
I glanced sidelong at the woman beside me. “Delphine brought it to me,” I said cooly. “After all, I lost a hat this morning.”
“But this is not your type,” Mama cried. “Never, never! Skye, I will loan you a hat when you need one—or you can prevail upon Aunt Natalie to get you another. But this one I must have. This hat was made for me!”
I waited a moment to see what Delphine would say or do. But she did not look at me, and she said not a word.
Mama danced over to me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Look—look how foolishly it sits on your red head—” and she plucked it off and set it rakishly on my straight-drawn hair. I would have shaken my head free of it, hating her ridicule and knowing she was right, but she took the hat back quickly, lest it be harmed.
“Give it to me, Skye,” she wheedled. “You know it’s not right for you.”
What did it matter? I hadn’t intended to keep it anyway. If it pleased her so, she might as well be the one to wear it.
“Keep it, if you like,” I said, and my words sounded angry in my ears.
But Mama did not notice. She said she must go show it to Papa at once and flew out of the room and across the gallery.
I looked at Delphine. “Why didn’t you tell Uncle Robert about the hat?”
She moved away from me. “It is not necessary to disturb M’sieu Robert with trivial matters.”
“I see,” I told her, but I did not in the least. Something had made Delphine hold her hand from her original intent, and I could not know what it was.
She paused in the doorway and looked back at me tentatively. “If mam’zelle would dress her hair in a different style, the hat would become her better than it does Mam’zelle Loulou.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m not going to wear it anyway and I like my hair as it is.… Delphine, you knew my mother as a girl in this house, didn’t you?”
“Yes, mam’zelle.” She turned from the door without another word and went about her business. Yet I had the surprising impression that she was shaken by some anger which included me as well as my mother.
EIGHT
In the week that followed I found no opportunity to get out of the house alone. My uncle’s warnings had, for the time being, dampened my enthusiasm for opposing the edicts of the house. Yet I still wanted to go my own way without incurring too much displeasure.
More than once I visited the market with Aunt Natalie and Delphine. But though the Vieux Carré is small—hardly more than a mile square—I did not again glimpse Justin Law. About this I had a curious reaction. The things my uncle had told me of the man should have held me chilled and disdainful of him. Yet I still thought of him more often than I liked, and on occasions when I glimpsed in the distance a man of his size, I found my rebel heart all too ready to quicken with anticipation. Though I fought it with all that was reasonable in me, an eagerness to see him again began to fill my being. I told myself sternly that I wanted only to test my own impression of the man against what my uncle had told me and be convinced as Uncle Robert wished me to be. But my heart was not concerned with reason and took a wayward bent of its own.
Since the talk my father had with Uncle Robert, he had scarcely roused himself. It was as if he had given up completely. The Creole doctor had come again, but he offered no more hope than had our doctor at home, and I doubt if Papa paid much attention to his words. Even in these few days he had wasted and his only desire was to be let alone. Of us all, only Delphine was able to get him to eat. Sometimes she brought him a bowl of strengthening soup made from chicken and okra and tomatoes. She would raise him in the bed, place the bowl calmly in his hands and then stand beside him, implacable as fate until he had every bit of it down. Yet when Mama or I brought him food, tried to coax him, he would not touch it.
Once I stopped Delphine on the gallery as she came from Papa’s room with an empty bowl in her hands.
“How do you persuade him to eat, Delphine?” I asked. “He will touch nothing for Mama and me.”
Delphine could be mannerly, yet at the same time convey more with her fine dark eyes than she put into words. “He is a man, Mam’zelle Skye. I treat him as one and expect him to act as one.” She bowed her tignoned head courteously and went by me on the gallery. I sensed wisdom in what she said, but I could not stand beside my father’s bed and feel anything but heartbreak and pity. He had become no longer a man, but only a helpless child.
The languid summer life of a Creole household enveloped us. We made the most of early morning in a courtyard still shaded and delightfully green and cool. But when the sun climbed high enough to pierce the shade, the very bricks burned in its glare and humid heat enveloped us. Then we retreated behind the shelter of our slanted blinds, with fans and cool liquids to drink. There were mornings when I found insects in my shoes on rising and dampness touched everything. Even the sheets upon my bed were often clammy to the touch. With evening we threw open our windows to the courtyard once more and welcomed any breeze that wafted through the passageway from the street.
It was a quiet, somnolent life and I began to long for something to happen. Assurances that the gay season began at summer’s end did not comfort me. I did not want to live with brooding thoughts and longings until then. I wanted to be alive now.
Since the drive we had taken that Sunday, I had only glimpsed Courtney going and coming in my uncle’s office. Though he always gave me the warmly interested look which was second nature to him, there was no conversation between us until one day when I stood in the courtyard, watching the goldfish dart through the waters of the fountain.
Courtney, coming down the steps from an office door, saw me there and came to join me.
“I have wished to see you, mam’zelle. I reproach myself that there has been no opportunity. Would you do me the honor to visit my mother’s house on Saturday afternoon? Perhaps your Tante Natalie and your mother would enjoy the drive too. And if there are several ladies to speak with my mother—” He smiled meaningly and I knew he hoped there might be an opportunity to see me alone.
At once I was eager to go. I would enjoy Courtney’s company and the way he treated me. But the thought leapt unbidden to my mind that I might see Justin as well. At once I was impatient with my own wayward whims. Courtney was someone I liked. Now that no one was thrusting him upon me, I could take pleasure in being with him. I could even wonder if someth
ing more than friendship might develop between us, if ever we got a chance to know each other in this world of chaperones.
I told him readily that I would be pleased to visit his mother and then, perversely, I went a step further, dissembling.
“Has Uncle Robert given his permission for me to visit your house? I mean there is the matter of your brother Justin.”
“That is why we’ve chosen Saturday afternoon,” Courtney said. “This intruder in our household will be away on that day. For his convenience he has taken rooms in the Vieux Carré, and sometimes he does not come to our house for days at a time.”
I did not like the twinge of disappointment that went through me. It was growing difficult to live with the two women I seemed to be. Which was I—the sensible one who knew danger when she saw it and stepped back, or the giddy moth who dashed foolishly toward the flame? Never had there been this division of mind and emotion in me before and I did not know how to control it.
“There has been no reconciliation then between your brother and you?” I asked Courtney quickly, to cover my own confused reaction.
“But certainly not, mam’zelle,” he said. “There can never be such a thing.”
I had an impulse to tell him what had happened that day on Gallatin Street, to tell him that I had already met his brother, but I knew that would only disturb him. When Courtney returned to his work in the office, I went upstairs to announce the invitation to Aunt Natalie and my mother.
Both were uncertain and I did not know until Saturday morning whether one or both ladies would accompany me. Then Aunt Natalie excused herself. Tina was feverish and she must stay with the baby. So it was Mama who decided to go.
That morning when I stood talking to her in the doorway of her room, she seemed restless and as eager for change as I.
“It will be a pleasant day for a drive to the Garden District,” she said. “I haven’t been there since I was a young girl. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Is it all right to leave Papa alone for that long?” I asked.
Skye Cameron Page 8
