Long Distance Life Part 9

Oh, this must pa.s.s!

But it did not.

One evening late she climbed the stairs to Marcel's room and sat still in the corner watching him at his desk, listening to the sc.r.a.ping of his pen. He put it down at last bending toward her, "What is it, Marie?" And when she could not answer, with both hands he stroked her hair and kissed her eyelids quickly as he clasped her hands.

She loved him. It was nothing to defer to him, wait supper for him, take the b.u.t.tons off his worn s.h.i.+rts, saving them carefully in a wicker box. She went to church when he wished, tied his four-in-hands, waited on warm evenings until he had had his bath, gave him in winter the chair by the fire. He was the only person in truth whom she did love now, she was sure of it; and she would find herself thinking, more often than she was aware, of afternoon naps long years before when climbing onto his bed she had curled up by his side, his knees tucked beneath her own, and felt the gentle pressure of his arm around her waist. He had smelt of pressed linen, rosewater, and something warm that was all his own. Rain fell outside the open windows with the soft rumble of thunder, and jasmine, pounded softly on the sills, filled the room with yet another sultry perfume. He had held her tightly in his sleep, and often kissed her hair. She liked the smooth golden flesh of his face, the lips ashen and rose, and all this so taut and satin in repose that she could not imagine it fired with waking laughter. Then stirring, he might rise and stare before him with such utterly blue eyes.

No, jealousy of him, it was impossible, it was not this constant favoritism she begrudged her mother, it had always seemed so natural that he should be first, and now if anything this only brought her to the brink of a new sharp pain: After all, what was the matter with him now, why did he roam the streets at all hours, why had he finally been expelled from school?

She felt she knew the answer only too well. It had come with the abrupt end of childhood. One day childhood was gone and that was all. And in the new world of harsh adult distinctions, everyone she did not know believed Marie to be white, while no one who laid eyes on Marcel believed for a moment that he was.

It sent a shock through her to think of it; it was impossible that he did not know. Though she herself could never pinpoint that exact moment when she had found it out. And it was hurting him now, she was certain, causing him to shun her, to say always at the cottage door when she came in that he was going out. He pa.s.sed her in the streets without a glimmer of recognition, and she had even glimpsed him on a Sunday afternoon, wandering in the Place Congo. Drums beat, incessant, urged on it seemed by the constant tink of the tambourines, the rattle of bones, and somewhere in the midst of that thick and common crowd, of Yanquis, tourists, slaves, vendors, the blacks danced just as they must have done in African villages, something wild and terrible that she herself had never seen. And there he was on the periphery, her brother, his hands clasped behind his back, his brow furrowed, he had seemed at once a child and an old man. He turned one way, then the next, eyes wild or in the midst of some blinding concentration, she could not tell. It seemed the crowd opened to envelop him and toward that pulsing terrifying center he had moved. She could hardly stand it. All she knew of love, its pleasure and its sublime pain, were wound up with Marcel alone.

That anyone could see him as any less desirable than her was inconceivable to her, the attraction was so strong, so rooted in detail when she studied him, hung on his words, relaxed easily into his casual embrace. He was beautiful to her, and must be to all the world, precious in fact, his hands when he spoke enchanted her, so that to some extent prejudices of color had become for her at this early age something highly suspect, something all too caught up with ideas.

But she knew well how her world worked, heard more of it from sharp tongues of pale friends than ever did the world's victims. Indeed it seemed sometimes that angels protected the victims, as they did children and fools. Or so it seemed with Anna Bella, who with her broad African features and American drawl seemed for all the world unaware of how Marie's schoolmates snubbed her, and ever-pleasant with smiles, took not the slightest offense when others for sheer meanness, some idiot righteousness, had intended for her to do so. Girls on the way home from school turned their heads as Anna Bella waved from her courtyard gate.

And Marie, a quiet person who said little ever to anyone, despised herself at such times for this natural inclination. It was cowardice not to say, "Why, that's Anna Bella Monroe, she's our friend." Anna Bella, who brought preserves in flowered porcelain crocks and tureens of this special soup, that special brew to cure a fever, leaning on the door-jamb, ever so gracefully, one shoulder higher than the other, her neck so very long, said in a lilting voice, "Well, you just get better now Ma'ame Cecile, and if there's the slightest thing...I don't go to school anymore, you just send for me..."

But no such gathering of angel wings sheltered Marcel who, on the sly, slipped away with Monsieur Philippe's newspaper and left it open under the lamp to an article on the special feeding for African slaves, Marcel, who took command when Lisette ran away insisting that no one say a word to her, after all, she's come back, hasn't she? But then he had a way with Lisette as he had a way with everyone, and when she would not work it was Marcel who brought her round, and later gently hinted to Cecile, "Monsieur Philippe will be so tired from the long trip when he comes, he won't want to hear complaints, isn't it better he not know?" The man of the house, her brother!

He could have anything, do anything, even now when he acted the madman and frightened everyone, he still had that power...

No, it wasn't jealousy of him for a moment that could explain this awesome dark thing that lay between herself and Cecile, this throbbing violence of emotion that seemed to threaten the very coordination of Marie's limbs.

She was nearing the notary's office without thinking of where she was going, and through the tears that stood in her eyes the Rue Royale had become some avenue of the grotesque where men and women worried each other with ludicrous errands.

She could not stop seeing her mother, could not stop hearing her voice at that moment when she had turned, her head lowered, the veins in her neck standing out, and her lips taut with hissing, "Take that to his office, go!" And the vision of Cecile had been the very same the evening before, all semblance of the lady lost in one blazing instant in Richard's presence when she had said those unmistakable words, "Get out!" Not one syllable had pa.s.sed between them all the long night afterwards, not once had Cecile so much as given Marie a glance. She had learned of Marcel's expulsion from Cecile's cries outside his door. And withering after into a corner of the bedroom, had listened for an hour to her mother pacing the floor.

Her mother disliked her, disliked disliked her! The word formed instantaneously from the chaos of her conscious with stunning cold. Disliked her, it was manifest at last in those flas.h.i.+ng eyes, the lips drawn back from the teeth, the quick turning of the head with that overpowering aversion, dissolving utterly all myths of family love, and all that which had been mere pretense crumbled at once like something splendid, painted on ancient paper, come apart at the touch. But ah, to reveal this in the presence of another, with blind impatience to display it, this which should have been the deepest of family secrets! It was unforgivable! Marie, shaken, throbbing, in fact, from the sting of it, felt for her mother suddenly the most profound contempt. And this contempt, like all else between them, was as cold as a barren hearth. her! The word formed instantaneously from the chaos of her conscious with stunning cold. Disliked her, it was manifest at last in those flas.h.i.+ng eyes, the lips drawn back from the teeth, the quick turning of the head with that overpowering aversion, dissolving utterly all myths of family love, and all that which had been mere pretense crumbled at once like something splendid, painted on ancient paper, come apart at the touch. But ah, to reveal this in the presence of another, with blind impatience to display it, this which should have been the deepest of family secrets! It was unforgivable! Marie, shaken, throbbing, in fact, from the sting of it, felt for her mother suddenly the most profound contempt. And this contempt, like all else between them, was as cold as a barren hearth.

She stopped in the street, astonished to discover that she was at the notary's door.

She did not for an instant know why or what she was doing, and then the necessities of the moment flooded back to her, and she felt, if anything, more helpless and confused than before. This note, this foolish, if not disastrous, note! Her fingers, moist from the heat, had disfigured it but not enough. She was mildly amazed to feel her hand shaking as she grasped for the latch.

It was here that her rage should have focused all along, she felt it in a flash, and there came a vague relief as this pa.s.sion was deflected from her own behalf. After all, what was being done here to Marcel with this note? What a rash and utterly foolish action this was. Who was Monsieur Philippe really, this gentle man she called mon Pere mon Pere when he bent to kiss her cheek? He was a white man, a protector, a benefactor upon whose whim Marcel's fortune utterly depended, and for the moment the child in her who had loved this man gave way to the woman who felt that the other woman was committing a stupid and absurdly destructive act. She felt superior to Cecile in that moment, worldly and peculiarly strong. when he bent to kiss her cheek? He was a white man, a protector, a benefactor upon whose whim Marcel's fortune utterly depended, and for the moment the child in her who had loved this man gave way to the woman who felt that the other woman was committing a stupid and absurdly destructive act. She felt superior to Cecile in that moment, worldly and peculiarly strong.

But what could she do about it? How could she stop it? Go back now, not to the cottage, but to Anna Bella's right by, where she might borrow pen and paper and write another letter, something milder, that would give her brother time? Cecile who could neither read nor write might never actually know. But this was inconceivable really. She had never done such a thing, and she was powerless to do it now.

And seeing her father in these moments as some remote and powerful personage from another world, she loathed the sheer reality of these thoughts, her own calculations, and their sordid resonance and resented all at once the whole circ.u.mstance that had made her think of lies and tricks, such words as indiscretion and the very practical phrase, common sense. It was repulsive, as repulsive as that moment when Richard had hurried from the cottage door, an unwilling witness to hostile words.

She bowed her head. She did not know it but she appeared ill as if the steaming street with its ripening smells had made her weak, and the clerk having seen her through the shadowy gla.s.s came to open the door.

"Mademoiselle?" he whispered. He extended his arm. She didn't see him. She took the chair he offered and sank down in cooler air, breathing the clean fragrance of leather and ink, and watching dumbly as he neatly closed the silk folds of her parasol.

When he brought her water, she did not drink it, but merely looked at the gla.s.s in her hand. He thought she was white, naturally, and there was another aspect to his gentle attentions which made her drop her eyes.

"Monsieur Jacquemine, I have to see him please," she explained at once.

There was nothing to be done.

"Ah, Mademoiselle, forgive me, I don't believe I have had the pleasure," the notary came bl.u.s.tering from an inner office, and imprisoning her hand needlessly touched the palm of it with rough fingers that set her teeth on end. She rose.

"Marie Ste. Marie, Monsieur, I believe you know my brother."

His thick mossy brows lifted, and his reddened cheeks plumped with his smile. "Aah, I would not have guessed." he whispered.

She was furious. She could feel the smarting of her own face. That he should think this a compliment. And thrusting the note quickly into his hand, she turned to go.

"But wait, ma pet.i.te," ma pet.i.te," he insisted. She had moved to the door. "Expelled from school?" he held the note at arm's length, feeling for his spectacles, no doubt, in a breast pocket. "But what school is this, ah, this is serious...what school does your brother attend?" he insisted. She had moved to the door. "Expelled from school?" he held the note at arm's length, feeling for his spectacles, no doubt, in a breast pocket. "But what school is this, ah, this is serious...what school does your brother attend?"

"Monsieur, if you can reach Monsieur Ferronaire." She had never said her father's surname before. Even this hurt her, shocked her. She reached for the latch.

He came close to her, a hand pressing the door shut. His sleeve brushed her arm, and turning slowly toward him she looked up into his eyes. She could see him shying backward, see the effect of her chilly expression and felt not the slightest regret.

"Ah, Mademoiselle, I'm sure I don't know if Monsieur is in the city, if he is not in the city, it might be some time..." he smiled confidentially, "these matters..." he murmured.

"Merci, Monsieur," she whispered and found herself in the crowded street.

He was insisting upon something, calling her. She did not hear. Glancing back suddenly, she saw that smile again, confidential, seemingly tender, and his gaze pa.s.sed furtively over her yellow muslin dress.

Tears formed in her eyes as she moved quickly away, but they did not come.

The crowd was blurred, indistinct. Someone brushed her shoulder and mumbling apologies gave her a wide berth so that she felt unsteady and reached out for the bricks of the wall. But she did not like to touch such things. Her fingers dropped, closing instead on the folds of her dress. She had forgotten about her hair, and saw it suddenly in flat tresses against her bosom and whispered to the raucous rumbling about her, "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu." "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu."

Through the open doors of the St. Louis Hotel came a press of white women, clambering into open carriages, one behind the other at the curb, so that she was obliged to stand with others for a moment as they pa.s.sed, and turning her head she became aware of a strange noise.

It was as if an orchestra were playing already at this early hour, and all but the thick vibrations of the ba.s.s were drowned by the murmur of the lobby crowds. Above this came the faint high-pitched nasal cries of the auctioneers at war with one another under the high rotunda. Lifting her hand to her cheek, she was astonished to see on her fingertips the bright wetness of tears.

The crowd moved. And she was forced to move with it. She had never fainted in her life, but felt for the first time a rising darkness and a weakness in her limbs. Her mouth was curiously moist, and loose. She was afraid. But then a hand reached for her, steadied her, and meant to guide her closer to the wall. This was dreadful. She was going to pull away, most certainly had to pull away when with stinging eyes she saw that this was Richard Lermontant.

Had it been anyone else, anyone at all, it would not have mattered. Strangers did not frighten her, not in the Rue Royale. She could have gotten away and gone home. But when she saw him leaning forward, saw the pa.s.sionate concern in his large brown eyes, and felt again the mild press of his fingers on her arm, she commenced to shake. Humiliated, she turned her back on him and on the crowd, stared mutely at the red bricks before her, and gave way to silent sobs.

"But Marie, what is it?" he whispered. He held a clean linen handkerchief out to her.

She did not know it but she had pulled her hair close around her, as if it might cover her up, and then she thought distinctly in bright flashes, I am not here, I cannot be here, not with Richard in this street, crying. I must somehow get away.

"Tell me Marie, what is it, what can I do?" he whispered.

She shook her head. Turning, she was peculiarly affected by this closeness to him. She stared at the sudden whiteness of his starched front, the glossy b.u.t.tons of his black broadcloth coat. With some immense effort she raised her eyes to his, wanted to let him know that she was all right. But she experienced a weightless feeling, and a throbbing in her ears. It was as if she were hearing the rush of a waterfall, the great gush of rain through flooded pa.s.sages, a sweet and stunning cessation of all matters in time. His face above the dark silk of his tie was not young, it was immaculate with youth certainly, but it was older in its tenderness, its obvious solicitude and something that must surely be wise.

But there was an intrusion, a voice, a man's hand. Stepping back impulsively she saw Monsieur Rudolphe, Richard's father, beside him, dressed in that same proper wintry black. Even against the extraordinary height of his son, the man seemed ma.s.sive, his great chest and belly smooth beneath his curved waistcoat, his large somewhat long face with its slightly protuberant eyes looming over her. The clear Caucasian voice was immediately commanding.

"Ahh Marie, come across to the shop, out of this heat, at once," he took her arm.

She drew back in spite of herself. "No, Monsieur, thank you," she murmured. She swallowed quickly, and took Richard's handkerchief. "I'm expected home right now." She wiped the tears quickly from her eyes. "It's only the heat, yes, I was walking too fast..."

Monsieur Rudolphe accepted this more easily than she had expected, and Richard merely nodding stepped aside from her, gesturing at once that she must keep the handkerchief.

"You should have a sunshade, Mademoiselle," Monsieur Rudolphe said. And she realized with a sudden sense of defeat that she had left her parasol with the notary. Well, Marcel would have to get it, she was not going back. "Walk slowly and keep under the galleries."

Richard's face when she last glimpsed it was the picture of distress. She felt faint, sick, as she walked on, and actually dreaded some stupid accident. She took in her breaths deeply, and by the time she had reached the corner she was all right.

But in a moment she was thinking of nothing but Richard, and her mind, exhausted, gave in gradually to a melancholy that was almost sadness. They were wealthy, the Lermontants, with their shop, their stables, their stone yards. Their new Spanish style house in the Rue St. Louis had large lacquered double doors and at night through floating lace curtains one could glimpse a spectacle of gaslight. And he their only son could pick and choose.

There would be talk of dowries at their supper table, of how many weddings between this and that name, entered in the ledgers of the St. Louis Cathedral for this many generations back. At thirteen she would soon be old enough to be courted, and at sixteen Richard was not old enough to give it a thought.

How tired her mind was! Giselle, his sister, had gone off to marry into a fine colored family in Charleston taking with her a dowry of rosewood furniture and ten household slaves. And Madame Suzette Lermontant had come from those wealthy colored planters of Saint-Domingue who had all but dominated the province of Jeremie.

At any other time, how this would have made her heart beat, how miserable it might have made her feel. But now it merely made her head droop. Turning the corner into the Rue Ste. Anne, she moved on steadily to the Rue Dauphine, where she saw a light-skinned colored man dragging with angry grunts a heavy trunk toward the Mercier gate. He stopped when he saw her, as though struck by something about her. This must be the man, she thought, as she hurried past, eyes down, this famous Christophe. She could feel his eyes on her back as she moved down the narrow street and crossed to her own gate. One quick glance told her he was still watching her, had stopped dead still to watch her and she turned her eyes away from him angrily with a haughty lift to her head.

II.

RICHARD STOOD WATCHING Marie as she moved away along the crowded banquette, into the shade of one overhanging balcony after another. She had square shoulders, nothing of artifice in her walk, only a natural grace and dignity of which she herself seemed utterly unaware. Her hair flowed to her waist, and the thick ruffles of her shorter girlish skirts showed a bit of narrow white-stockinged ankle above the bright heel of her slipper that caused him quickly to drop his eyes. Marie as she moved away along the crowded banquette, into the shade of one overhanging balcony after another. She had square shoulders, nothing of artifice in her walk, only a natural grace and dignity of which she herself seemed utterly unaware. Her hair flowed to her waist, and the thick ruffles of her shorter girlish skirts showed a bit of narrow white-stockinged ankle above the bright heel of her slipper that caused him quickly to drop his eyes.

Then folding his handkerchief carefully, he put it in his pocket and followed his father across the Rue Royale and into the undertaker's shop.

"I would have insisted that girl sit down, but who knows, this place might have unsettled her," Rudolphe murmured, glancing at his watch, "and if I don't get some of my work done, I'm going to be unsettled. Why don't they post it, tell me that?" he said angrily to Richard. "Do you hear?"

He was listening to the bells. The mortuary chapel had been tolling steadily since morning, and the Cathedral was tolling, and no doubt other churches all over town. "Yet they don't post it!" Rudolphe said with a sneer.

He meant by this the notices at the Board of Health that the yearly scourge, yellow fever, had reached the proportions of an epidemic, the news that would send the last of the gentry scurrying for the country where they should have been before now. Deaths were worst among the immigrants, but the Lermontants would be busy round the clock. They had only just come from the cemetery, and Richard was already changing his boots so that they could be blacked again. This would happen perhaps three times this day, maybe more.

As Antoine, his cousin, gathered these, and Rudolphe's as well, Richard went at once to the high stool before his slanting desk and began to go through the bills that had acc.u.mulated in the past few days. He would have to put the books in order before Monday when he returned to school.

"She's prettier than I remembered, really she is," Rudolphe murmured, and Richard stopped, held the bra.s.s letter opener poised for an instant, and then went on. It seemed Antoine, gone into the back office to black the boots, uttered a short laugh.

"Well, I don't suppose you haven't noticed!" Rudolphe said to Richard. "You heard what I said, didn't you? Or have you gone deaf?"

"No, mon Pere," mon Pere," Richard whispered. Richard whispered.

Again came that derisive laugh. Richard glanced at the open door.

"Never mind him, I'm talking to you," Rudolphe said, but at that moment there was a tap at the gla.s.s and a tall Negro, in the same gentlemanly black as the Lermontants, entered, the bell jingling.

"That little girl's gone, Michie, went at nine o'clock, and that Madame Dolly is out of her mind," he said.

This was Placide, valet, butler, and a.s.sistant in a thousand capacities, bought for Rudolphe when Rudolphe was born. He was an old man, his very dark face heavily creased, and he removed his hat at once and held it in his thin hand. "And they say there's nothing in that flat, Michie, not even chairs to sit on, seems Madame Dolly's been selling everything piece by piece for a long time."

"Mon Dieu!" Rudolphe shook his head. "And that little child?" Rudolphe shook his head. "And that little child?"

"Nine o'clock this morning, Michie, with three doctors there, at this time of the year, with three doctors there," he held up three fingers.

"Get in here, Placide, and black these boots," came a low disgruntled voice from the back room. Antoine emerged, wiping the bootblack from his fingers. "You wait until my hands are filthy before you finally show up."

"I only have one body, Michie," said the tall Negro, "I can't be two places at the same time," and he moved slowly toward the rear door, his walk uneven as though it hurt him to bend his knees.

"This is Dolly Rose's daughter?" Richard asked.

"Lockjaw." Rudolphe shook his head. "I'll go there first."

Richard sat slightly hunched on the stool, his eyes on the desk. He looked up, eyes moving languidly over the shop. A dull light fell over the smooth mahogany of the long counters, the stacks of folded crepe, the black cloaks on hooks, and bundles of bombazine along the shelves. "Lockjaw," he whispered.

"All right," said Rudolphe, "enough, the child's in heaven to be sure, which is more than we could say with any certainty of anyone else. Now I want to finish what I was saying to you, listen to me. I've seen you looking at that girl! I've seen you gawking at her on the street the way you did just now, and gawking at her in church when your mind should be on the Ma.s.s."

Richard's brows knit. He lifted the letter opener again and slid it quickly into the envelope in his hand.

"Put that down and turn around," Rudolphe said furiously. "You're too big for your age, that's your trouble, people take you for a man, and you're nothing but a child. Now, listen to me, you know perfectly well what I mean."

Richard drew himself up, taking a long silent breath, and slowly raised his eyes to his father's. He summoned all his self-control to make his face a mask of calm. Even the slightest resistance, he knew, would make this worse.

"Mon Pere, I never meant..." he began.

"Don't talk to me as if I were a fool!" Rudolphe said.

Antoine had emerged again from the rear door, and now wore his black coat. He was smoothing his straight dark hair with one hand.

Richard pressed his lips together and again fixed his eyes on his father. The muscles of his face were taut. "Yes, mon Pere? mon Pere?" he whispered. Anyone but Rudolphe might have caught the timbre of sarcasm in the polite tone.

"Oh, so you're angry now, well, good, because then you'll pay some attention. All the rest of the time you dream! A girl like that-!"

Richard started. Before he could stop himself, he said, "Mon Pere "Mon Pere, she's Marcel's sister."

"I'm not insulting her, don't be an imbecile," Rudolphe said. Both of them heard Antoine's derisive murmur, and Rudolphe turning sharply to his nephew said coolly, "If you are ready, go on to the LeClairs', they're waiting for you. The Ma.s.s is at eleven, go on!"

With a faint smile, a superior and knowing smile, Antoine walked slowly out of the shop. When the door had shut Rudolphe turned to his son who sat slightly hunched over the desk, all but crus.h.i.+ng the envelope in his large fingers. Richard had been staring at the words written there but they made no sense, they might as well have been a foreign language.

"I mean no insult," Rudolphe said with annoyance. "If I didn't approve of Marcel you wouldn't be his friend. I like Marcel, I always have. I feel sorry for him, if you want the truth, though that would curdle his mother's blood, wouldn't it, a 'shopkeeper' feeling sorry for Marcel!" He made a short laugh. He turned, and reaching into the corner behind his rolltop desk, he produced a small bottle of rose water and pouring it into his handkerchief blotted his lips and his face. "But my point is simply this," he went on. "I'm tired of being the one to state the obvious to people, tired of being the one to bring them face to face with facts that ought to be already known..."

"She is above reproach, mon Pere," mon Pere," Richard whispered. "I have never so much as spoken to her except in the presence of others, her mother...Marcel..." Richard whispered. "I have never so much as spoken to her except in the presence of others, her mother...Marcel..."

"Above reproach, of course she's above reproach, virtuous, lady-like and beautiful! Beautiful beyond compare!" Rudolphe glowered at him. "Isn't she? Well, isn't she...beautiful?"

"Yes, yes!" Richard whispered. The blood pounded in his temples. He looked at his father helplessly, desperately. And again dropping his voice to that velvet tone that was just above a whisper, the invariable characteristic of him when he was furious, he said, "If I looked at her in some way, it was nothing, I a.s.sure you..."

For a moment their eyes met directly and in silence. There was a change so subtle but unusual in Rudolphe's expression that Richard was bewildered. "Mon fils," "Mon fils," Rudolphe said, his voice low, softer, "don't you understand? I know perfectly well what you're thinking about that girl, I'm no fool. And don't you understand that girls like that, girls like Marie Ste. Marie, yes, yes, Marie...girls like that Rudolphe said, his voice low, softer, "don't you understand? I know perfectly well what you're thinking about that girl, I'm no fool. And don't you understand that girls like that, girls like Marie Ste. Marie, yes, yes, Marie...girls like that always always follow in the footsteps of their mothers?" follow in the footsteps of their mothers?"

Richard's eyes moved slowly down. The entire posture of resistance to his father which was more than habit, rather something inveterate, was softly broken.

"But no," he shook his head. "No, mon Pere mon Pere, not Marie. No."

"Oh, son," Rudolphe sighed. He had never taken this tone with Richard before. "Don't break your heart."