Feast of All Saints (24 page)

A cluster of reluctant women attempted to stop her, but gasped indignantly as she pushed them off. And sitting down beside the white man, she hissed in a low voice, “So you’ll pay for everything, will you? Now…now that she’s dead?”

Backs turned to them politely.

“And where were you when she was alive, when she called for you, ‘Papa, Papa,’ ” she hissed. “Get out!”

The room had fallen silent. Richard bent to touch her shoulder, summoning his greatest reserve. “Madame Dolly,” he said gently. “Why don’t you come now and rest, this is the best time.”

“Let me alone, Richard!” she shrugged him off, her eyes fixed on Dazincourt. “Get out,” she said again, “out of my house, do you hear?”

He glared at her from under his black brows, only his mouth seeming soft and a little boyish as he twisted it into a bitter grin.

“I’m not leaving here until Lisa’s buried,” he said in a low contemptuous voice.

It seemed she would strike him then, but one of the women attempted to take her arm. Her hand flew out smacking the woman’s
face. And at once she was abandoned as soft shuffling skirts drew away from her all around.

“Dolly, please,” Richard addressed her as he had a thousand times when he was a little boy. He went to take her by the waist, but she jerked from him violently, the wine sour on her breath, the flesh that slipped from his hand feverish. He was afraid of her, and what right had he to hold her, this was after all, her house as she had said. He watched helplessly as she reached for Dazincourt who had turned away as if she weren’t there.

But it was Christophe who slipped between them, whispering low to her upturned cheek, “Dolly, you don’t want to do this.” It was a tone of simple command.

She wavered, and put her hand uncertainly to her brow. “Christophe!” she whispered, “wild little Christophe!”

“Come on, Dolly,” he said, and as angry, scornful faces looked on he lifted her gently to Richard’s arms. Her eyes were vague, dazed, but with a wan smile she gave herself over to Richard, gesturing to a doorway down the hall.

It was a disaster of a room, clothes heaped amid crumpled sheets, which at once made Richard mad. Old liquor reeked in glasses everywhere and thrown helter-skelter over the screen were a corset, chemises, scarves. The house was rudderless, the woman friendless, and as he guided her gingerly to the high bed, he was ashamed for her, ashamed that she would be alone in this room with him and with Christophe at the door.

“I want brandy there!” she declared and would not lie down. He turned to see a bottle beside the sputtering lamp. Without glancing at Christophe for approval, he filled the glass and gave it to her as if it were milk for a child. Her hair fell over her broad high forehead and her fingers made him think of claws.

“Rest now, Dolly,” Richard said, and he covered her shoulders as she settled back.

“Maman,” she groaned suddenly into the stained pillow. And then, shuddering, opened her eyes wide. “Christophe!” she said. “I want to talk to Christophe.”

“You can talk to me anytime, Dolly,” Christophe said. “I’m not going anywhere for a long while.”

“You bastard,” she said, straining to make him out in the gloom. Richard shuddered. Her face was pale, her eyes glittering. “You threw me in the river!” she said.

“Ah,” Christophe answered softly. “You threw me down the stairs first.”

Her laughter was light, girlish. “Why the hell did you come back here, anyway?” she asked. “They had you dancing with the Queen.”

“I came back to throw you in the river again, Dolly,” he said.

She closed her eyes, shivering, but the smile on her lips remained. “Only white men can throw me in the river now, Christophe,” she answered. “You’ve been away too long. Get out of my bedroom.” She turned her head to one side.

“Don’t get rough, Dolly,” Christophe said, backing silently toward the door. “It’s only white men now who can throw me down the stairs.”

She laughed again, her eyelids fluttering.

“How many white women did you have over there, Christophe?” she asked, smiling up at him again. “Come now, how many did you have? They told me you danced with the Queen.”

“Not so many, Dolly,” he said. “Just the Queen.”

Her head rolled on the pillow as she laughed again. Richard all this while was mortified. He was emptying the contents of various glasses into the pitcher, shoving shoes and slippers beneath the skirts of the bed. But it was beyond him, this chaos, and she was moaning and snuggling down into the pillows, her face altered in one of those complete shifts which drunkenness makes possible, “Maman, Maman,” coming like a moan from her parted lips. The tone was so helpless, so piteous that it made him breathless to hear it and to see her moist and quivering face.

But she began to breathe deeply, silently. And the face became smooth. He opened the high blinds to let in a little air and made his way to the door.

Only two of the women were there to meet him, older women, old as Dolly’s mother had been before she died. Their inquiries were cold, perfunctory and hearing that she was sleeping now, they hurriedly took their leave.

Christophe meantime had rested his weight easily on the frame of the door opposite, and a warmth shone in his eyes as he glanced at Richard and gave him a weary smile. Richard was ashamed now for having been so shaken, ashamed for having depended so on this man who for all his fame was a stranger to Richard still.

“And Madame Rose, her mother?” Christophe asked.

“She died last year, Monsieur, a stroke.” It had never been his habit to gossip about the bereaved, but his cheeks were still burning from the rawness of Dolly’s language, and he found himself struggling now to make some guarded explanation for the woman who was so alone in the next room. “She was devoted to her mother, Monsieur. And devoted to the little girl. Now they are both gone and…?” he let the words hang there as he made a subtle heavy shrug.

Christophe’s eyes held him intently for a moment. Then he removed a thin cigar from his inside pocket and glanced toward the distant door which stood open to the yard.

“A stroke, was it?” said the monotone voice. “I thought that woman was made of iron.” And his eyes moved eloquently over the walls as if probing some childhood memory and there was faint mystery in his smile. “You should have seen her face the day I threw Dolly in the river,” he said. “But then you should have seen my face the day Dolly threw me down the stairs.”

Richard laughed softly before he could stop himself, and it took him a moment to regain his composure under the man’s playful eye. He felt strangely at ease with Christophe, the man’s manner was compelling, even spouting this blasphemy outside Dolly’s door.

“I want to thank you, Monsieur,” Richard said, “for helping me as you did.”

“De rien,”
Christophe shrugged.

“If it weren’t so soon after Madame Rose’s death, perhaps Dolly could manage better, but they were so close, closer I think than mother and daughter usually are.”

There came that mystery again to Christophe’s expression. “She was a witch!” he said.

Richard was stunned.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Christophe said simply. “Dolly hated her.” He turned, cigar and match in hand, and walked quietly toward the back door.

As Richard returned to the parlor, more and more callers were coming up the stairs. A short line formed behind the little prie-dieu before the child, and it seemed order had returned to the universe, the rosary soon commenced, and a decorous wake proceeded as smoothly as before. Christophe, coming in from the gallery, brought a chair up beside the white man, so they were soon tête-à-tête and as the hours passed, a faint picture emerged from the murmuring pair: they had known one another in Paris, had acquaintances in common, and had returned home together on the same boat. But this was subdued, slow conversation, and Vincent Dazincourt, obviously comforted by Christophe’s presence, soon lapsed into his own heavy thoughts.

And burning to tell Marcel of Christophe, and burning to know more of Christophe himself, Richard would have forgotten the white man altogether after this night had it not been for another occurrence which left its imprint on Richard’s mind.

At a very late hour, when the crowd had thinned somewhat and the rosary had already been said, another white man came up the stairs from the back courtyard, walking with a heavy tread down the high-ceilinged hall, his dark cape flaring to touch the walls on either side. This was Marcel’s father, Philippe Ferronaire.

Richard had seen this man many times in the Rue Ste. Anne, and he recognized him at once. His yellow hair was unmistakable as was
his large somewhat affable face with its pale blue eyes. Philippe Ferronaire appeared to know him also, and gave him a nod as he hesitated at the door. Richard could not know it, but Philippe had marked him often in the past, not only for his height but for the exotic slant of his eyes, the fine bones of his face and an overall beauty that struck Philippe as regal, reminding him of those African “princes” among his slaves who kept the women in thrall. Now he surveyed the small company, and turned to Vincent Dazincourt.

He drew up a chair beside the listless figure, and Dazincourt turned with a start. His face evinced a faint and evanescent pleasure at being so surprised.

Christophe, however, distracted him by choosing this moment to go. With a nod, he was headed for the stairs. Dazincourt rose for the first time during all these long hours and followed him. “Thank you for coming,” he whispered as he took Christophe’s hand. And after a moment’s hesitation he said gravely, “I wish you well.” For an instant Christophe merely stared at him. The words were ceremonious and final. And Richard felt himself stiffen as he looked away. But Christophe merely murmured his thanks and was gone.

“Ah yes…the novelist, ‘sweet Charlotte’…” Philippe Ferronaire whispered afterwards when the two white men were again alone. They spoke in hushed voices until Philippe rose, his heavy cape unfolding thickly around him, and moving to the hallway, beckoned for Richard to follow him as he proceeded to the rear gallery over the yard.

Richard’s limbs were stiff and his back ached. He wanted to stretch when he stepped out under the black sky but he did not, only breathing deeply as he looked up at the faint stars.

Philippe Ferronaire lit a cigar and moving from the light of the hallway, leaned his elbows on the iron rail. A gas lamp flickered at the bottom of the curving stair, and beneath it in the rippling waters of a fountain Richard could see the sudden flash of goldfish beneath the pads of the lilies. The lilies were as white as the moon. The small stone figure of a child, dark with moss, poured water over all from the mouth of a pitcher and that low trickling seemed somehow by its sound to cool the air. Yet there were weeds everywhere, sticks of weatherworn furniture, and the buckling broken flags that signaled ruin all around.

Richard glanced at Philippe who was also looking down. The man fascinated him because he was Marcel’s father, yet he had been thinking since Philippe arrived that it was rotten luck, pure and simple, for Marcel that the man was in town at this time.

“Listen to me,” said Philippe in a low drawling voice. “There’s a boardinghouse in the Rue Ste. Anne…for gentlemen, a respectable place…oh, you know the place, right near the Rue Burgundy…that’s that young girl there, very pretty girl.”

“Oh, Anna Bella,” Richard said emerging from his thoughts. The man had avoided saying this is just near the Ste. Marie cottage, or that the girl was Marcel’s friend. “It’s Madame Elsie’s, Monsieur, at the corner.”

“Ah, that’s the one, you know it then.”

“In passing, Monsieur.”

“But you could get him a room there tonight, in spite of the hour?” He referred to Dazincourt obviously. He drew his pocket watch out, and facing the door again, checked the time. “He has to sleep, he can’t stay here till morning. And he won’t go back to the hotel, doesn’t want to be with his friends.”

“I can try, Monsieur, and of course there are other respectable boardinghouses.”

The man sighed heavily and leaning on the banister appeared to be looking at the dark sky. Lights glimmered behind slatted blinds across the courtyard; there was, as always, noise from the nearby cabarets that were sprinkled throughout the Quarter among shops and quite lavish townhouses. He moved his jaw a little as though chewing his thoughts. There was something heavy about him beyond his build, though in fact he was rather firm. It was more in his slow casual manner and the deep voice that drawled as he spoke. It seemed his most natural gesture would be the shrug, a gesture that would consume him easily, even to the loose twist of the mouth and a droop to the heavy eyelids and a rise to the mossy brows. Richard did not find him compelling in any way, could see nothing certainly of the Ste. Marie children in him, but he was not insensible to the fact that the man had the aura of immense wealth. There was something powerful about him, too. Perhaps it was merely that he was a planter, that he wore high riding boots even now, and this heavy black serge cape that no doubt protected him even in this sweltering heat from the cold winds on the River Road. He smelt of leather and tobacco, and seemed made for the saddle and some seemingly romantic ride through the fields of cane. There was gold on his fingers, and a bright green silk cravat, which he had apparently taken off in deference to the funeral, bulged from his jacket pocket. “Anna Bella, is it?” he whispered now. “What does she do there?”

“She’s an orphan, Monsieur, but well provided for. Madame Elsie is her guardian. I do not think that she works in the house.”

“Hmmmm…” he drew on his cigar, and the fragrance was sweet but strong, hovering about them in a cloud.

“Pretty thing…” he muttered. “Well, you take him there when you leave, you can do that now, can’t you?”

It wasn’t until near midnight that Richard’s cousin, Pierre, at last came to relieve Richard, and he set out for Madame Elsie’s with Monsieur
Dazincourt. The man said nothing as they walked, seemed to be brooding and deadly tired, and though he was shorter than Richard—as was almost everybody—he was by no means of small stature. He had a near military stiffness to his back.