Hidden Jewel (24 page)

I thanked her and paid my check. Then I left quickly to return to Cypress Woods.
As I drove there, I calmed down again. After speaking with Ella, I felt I had a better understanding of what life at Cypress Woods had been like. I wondered what Mommy had seen when she returned. Did it depress her even more, or did she look at her former home through rose-colored glasses? Did her memories take her back to the time when flowers were blooming and birds were singing, a time of music and beauty, comfort and safety? Considering all that had happened, it didn't surprise me now that she would flee to Cypress Woods and the world where she had once been protected by Paul's money and love and by Grandmere Catherine's magic.
Where was that magic now? I wondered. We need it so.

13
The Past Comes
A-courting
.
The thunderheads had been creeping along in

our direction all day. By the time I returned to Cypress Woods, they were overhead, growling and heralding rain and wind. I drove directly to the house, but a cloud burst just as I stopped the car. I waited a moment. However, seeing it was only going to get worse before it got better, I pulled my jacket over my head, lunged from the car, and ran up the gallery steps. The wind whipped the heavy drops at me, soaking my face.

I stepped inside and closed the large door to keep the gusty air and the rain out, but I, found myself standing in a very dark, dank entryway filled with stale air. A chill passed through me and settled like the cold palm of a large hand on the back of my neck. I shuddered and looked up the dark stairway.

My voice reverberated, and the echo sounded like someone tormenting me, imitating my
desperation: "Mommy, are you here?"

Dead silence was followed by the heavy creaking of the wood frame and floors. Shutters rattled. It began to rain harder. Was my mother wandering about out there? I wondered. The thought of her being caught in this storm terrified me. Tears streaked my face as much as the rain streaked the windowpane, mixing with the raindrops on my cheeks. Another chill shot through my chest, making my teeth chatter. I had to find a warmer place.

I hurried into the sitting room on my right and pulled the dustcover off the settee. Although it was dusty, I used it as a blanket and curled up against the arm of the settee, squeezing my legs up against my stomach and embracing them.

The wind seemed to be circling and embracing the house, seeking out every opening, no matter how small, and then threading itself through to whistle and whip about the rooms, making the long drapes move in a macabre dance and the chandeliers swing ominously above. The storm grew stronger. I had heard that summer storms in the bayou were often worse than they were in New Orleans. This one appeared to have the power to lift this enormous house from its foundation and carry it off into the swamp.

I groaned. "Mommy," I whispered, "where can you be in all this? Are you safe?" Maybe she was upstairs, cringing in a corner just as I was cringing on this settee. I looked up at the ceiling, wishing I could see through walls for just an instant.

A decorative plate shook loose from one of the shelves of the hutch on my left and shattered on the cypress-plank floor. The crash startled me and I cried out. The wind grew louder, angrier. The chandeliers were rattling like old bones. In another room down the corridor, another piece of glass or china fell, exploding like a gunshot. Raindrops pelted the windows, zigzagging like sharp fingernails scratching their way down the panes. The wind that passed freely through the house stirred up the dust. I coughed and buried my face in my hands as I began to alternate between feeling chilled and feeling feverish. The raging tempest blustered harder and harder. I thought it was never going to end. The very walls threatened to fall in, crushing me. It grew so dark I could barely see my hand, and then I heard the front door blow open.

But I heard it close, too.
"Pearl! Pearl, where are you?" Jack cried. Never was I so happy to hear another person's voice, especially his.
"In here, Jack!"
He came rushing in, dressed in a slick black raincoat and hat and knee-high boots. He carried a flashlight and had a bundle under his arm. "Are you all right?" he asked hurrying over. He put down the flashlight and swept his hat off. Then he brushed the rain off the back of his neck.
"This storm is so horrible and it came so fast," I complained through my chattering teeth.
"We had hurricane warnings coming in over the radio," he said. "The storm built up as it traveled inland." He took the bundle out from under his arm. It contained a blanket and a kerosene lamp, which he set on a table. "I saw you drive up and tried to get you to come to the trailer, but you didn't see me waving."
He took off his wet raincoat and put it on a chair just as a gust of wind slammed against the house. I released a small cry. Jack was at my side instantly. I welcomed his embrace and cuddled against the warm pocket between his arm and his chest.
"You poor thing. You're freezing," he said, rubbing my shoulders and arms vigorously.
My teeth stopped chattering. "Oh, Jack, what are we going to do?"
"We'll wait it out," he said. "But anything that's loose is going to fly away. Let me light the kerosene lamp." I lifted myself away so he could do so. Then he sat back and offered his arm again. I leaned into him. The illumination from the flickering lamp threw distorted shapes over the wall. They looked like the silhouettes of grotesque marionettes dangling on strings, moving to the rhythm of the wind.
"Warmer?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you. No one mentioned a hurricane," I said.
"Sometimes they creep up on us. Makes it exciting to live here," he added smiling.
"I think I can do without this sort of thrill."
He laughed. "Did your mother contact your aunt? She was obviously not there if you returned to Cypress Woods," he concluded.
"No. I'm sure she won't call or go there either. I met my aunt's mother," I said with a grimace.
"Gladys Tate?" I nodded. "I never saw her around here, but I heard she's a tough lady. Actually," he said after a moment, "the boys say she's the one who wears the pants in that family. Whenever Mr. Tate does come around here, he looks whipped. It's none of my business, so I don't pay much attention, as long as we all get what's coming to us when it's coming to us."
"I returned to my great-grandmere's old shack, and, Jack, someone has been there since Daddy and I were there. Whoever it was tore the place apart."
"Tore it apart? What do you mean?"
I described the furniture, the walls. "Why would someone do that to an old, deserted place?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said with a look of worry. "It's strange." He thought a moment and shrugged. "Did you have anything to eat, drink?"
"I went into town and had some lunch in a place called Grandmere's Kitchen."
"Ella's place? Food's great, isn't it?"
"She went to school with my mother. I didn't tell her why I was really here," I said. "Nor did I say anything about the shack."
"Well, it won't take long for the truth to get out and around. My daddy says a phone's a waste of money in the bayou. One person tells another something, and it's passed on before the words die on the originator's lips."
"Cajun people are really close, aren't they?"
"One big family," he said proudly. "We have our feuds, though, same as any people."
"I'm half Cajun," I said, "but I feel as if I'm in another country."
"My grandmere used to say you can become Cajun only three ways: by the blood, by the ring, or by the back door. I tell you what," he added, gazing at me, "you got grit like a Cajun. Not many fancy New Orleans girls would come here all alone, I bet, no matter how important it was."
"I don't know what else to do. My mother's not home; my brother's getting worse and worse; Daddy's laid up with a broken leg . . ."
Jack nodded thoughtfully.
Suddenly I realized the storm had stopped. The house was cemetery quiet, and the air was still. "It's over," I said gratefully.
Jack shook his head. "The eye is passing over us. More to come," he predicted, and sure enough, moments later the wind began to whistle through the house again, the shutters slammed and pounded, and the rain splattered and drummed over the trembling windowpanes. Upstairs, a blast of air blew out a pane. We heard it shatter on the floor.
I cringed. Jack held me closer. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he thought it was his own.
"It'll be all right," he said again. I felt his lips on my hair, his warm breath against my cheek. The terror of the hurricane, the long storm of sadness that had been raining over us, and the desperation of our situation made me long for the calm and the security I found in Jack's arms. He was soft and loving and very sensitive.
I buried my face in his shoulder, unable to keep back the flood of tears. He held me tightly and comforted me as I sobbed. We hadn't known each other long, but his sincerity made that short period seem more like years. The wind howled, the rain stung the house, more things toppled and smashed, another window shattered. It seemed that the world was opening and we would fall into the gaping hole. The sky grew purplish and dark. The kerosene lamp flickered precariously.
"Wow," Jack whispered, and I knew that even he, someone who had been born and lived here all his life, was impressed with this particular storm. The house continued to shake. Everything on hinges was rattling. We clung to each other like two desperate swimmers clinging to a raft in a tossing sea. The wind rose and fell, sending wave after wave of rain against the house.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ended. Mother Nature relaxed and stepped over us, the storm trailing after her as she made her way northward to remind someone else how powerful she could be and how much we should all respect her. Jack eased his tight embrace around me, and we both sighed with relief.
"Is it finally over?" I asked, still skeptical.
"Yes," he said. "It's over. I just hate to go out there in daylight tomorrow and see the mess. You all right?"
I nodded, but I didn't leave his side. My heartbeat had slowed, but the numbness I had felt earlier in my legs was still there. I didn't think I could stand up. Jack stroked my hair with his left hand.
"How many of these storms have you been through?" I asked.
"A few, but this was a humdinger."
"I was born during a storm," I told him. "My mother told me about it and how my uncle Paul was there to help with the delivery."
"So that explains it," Jack said.
"Explains what?"
"Where you get your grit . . . from the hurricane. It left its mark in your heart. I bet you're a terror when you're angry."
"No . . . well, maybe," I said.
He laughed. "I don't intend to find out. So," he said sitting back, "what do you plan to do now?" "Nothing. I'm going to wait here," I said.
"You don't really think your mother's coming back, do you?"
"Yes," I said. "She knows I was here; she's got to come back."
Jack thought for a moment. "Okay," he said. "Let's go to my trailer and get some things, see how bad the storm was, and then we'll return."
"No," I said. "I want to stay here. I was going to go through the house just before the storm began. Maybe my mother's hiding someplace."
"You sure got a Cajun stubbornness. When your mind's made up, it's made up," he said. "All right. Wait for me here. We'll search the house again together. I'll go gather up some food for us so we can have dinner."
"I'm not hungry."
"You will be," he assured me. "I'll leave the lantern, but promise you will wait for me before you start trekking through the house again."
"I promise," I said.
He stared at me a moment and then smiled that soft, small smile I was beginning to crave. I smiled back and he leaned toward me as my lips opened slightly to invite his. We kissed.
"I'll be right back," he whispered and put on his slick raincoat and hat. "Don't move."
"Don't worry. I won't," I said.
He laughed and hurried out.
I gazed around the room. In the throes of the storm, I had run to the nearest safe harbor without really looking at my haven. Now, calmer, I looked up at the large oil painting of a cove in the swamps. Although it was too dark to see the details, I had a vision flash across my mind and I saw the grosbeak night heron swooping over the water.
Suddenly a parade of childhood memories began. I saw myself peering down the grand stairway, which to me had looked as deep as the Grand Canyon. I heard laughter in the hallway, the full melodic laugh of my uncle Paul, who beamed his sunny smile at me whenever he saw me. I felt him scoop me up and carry me through the house on his shoulders. Delicious aromas from the kitchen returned. I saw our cook working over the stoves and ordering her assistant to cut this and mix that.- All the people in my memories were big, gigantic in word and deed.
As I recalled more and more, the house that was now so dark and dreary was resurrected in my memory. In my recollections it was bright and warm and full of life. Uncle Paul was hanging one of Mommy's new paintings, and I was standing beside her, holding her hand, marveling at the magic that came out of my mother's fingers. With a sweep of a brush, she could put life in a face or make birds fly and fish jump. I heard music and more laughter. There were people everywhere; not a room, not a corner, looked lonely or cold. And from a window, probably in my room, I saw the gardens, bright and lush with flowers in all of the colors of the rainbow.
It seemed to me my mother and I had fled from this house one day, and because the flight was so quick and so complete, my memories had fallen deeper and deeper into the vaults of my mind. It was almost as if I was afraid to let them emerge, afraid that they would return with some horrid nightmare trailing behind them.
The oil wells drummed in the night. Creatures slid along the banks of the swamp, and the water turned inky, dreadful, hiding the face that was to appear on the surface in the yellow moonlight, a face I was yet to see.
I blinked, and the memories faded as quickly as they had come. I was here in the present again, in the dark, dank house, searching for Mommy and hoping to find her before it was too late for all of us.
I didn't move until Jack returned and when he saw that I had barely budged an inch, he laughed. He was carrying a carton filled with food and drink.
"It's too dark to see it all clearly," he said, "but there are trees down, branches scattered, water running every which way. The trailer made out all right, although the phone's dead. I won't be able to inspect the machinery until morning though. I'll set this down on the dining room table," he said, indicating the carton. "Take the lantern and lead the way."
I did so. The sky was still thickly overcast, so the house was very dark. The glow of the lantern cast a dim pool of illumination over the floors and walls, but as we walked through the corridor, darkness seemed to cling to us. Field mice scampered into holes no bigger than quarters. I could hear scratching and scurrying in other rooms, and I surmised that other animals had fled here from the storm.
The dining room table was hidden by a dustcover that had yellowed with time. I pulled it back, and Jack put the carton down. Turning with the lantern, I looked at the walls and ceiling, the grand chandelier and the large windows. Vague images tickled my memory. This table had looked miles long and miles wide to me when I was an infant. The image of Uncle Paul seated at the head flashed in the darkness like a ghost, and I gasped.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked.
I shook my head. "Nothing. I'm fine."
"You want to go through the house again?"
"Please," I replied. He took my hand and the lantern and we checked the kitchen and the pantries and then the sitting rooms before ascending the stairway. Through a window at the end of the upstairs corridor, I saw lightning flash in the distance. I was holding tightly to Jack's hand, squeezing his fingers together, but he didn't appear to mind.
We checked my old nursery, even the closets, checked the guest rooms, Uncle Paul's room and Mommy's. There was no sign of her.
"Where could she be in such a storm?" I mused aloud.
"Maybe she's with someone she didn't talk about much. Maybe she found an old shack and camped out in it, or maybe she went to a motel. There's nothing much you can do tonight, Pearl, with the phones out and the roads closed here and there. Might as well relax as best you can."
"I suppose you're right," I said. I sighed and realized my throat was dry and my tongue felt like a slab of granite. "I'm very thirsty."
"I brought water and some homemade blueberry wine," he said, leading me back to the stairway. "Dinner will be last night's leftovers, but I made it myself."
I laughed at the pride he took in his cooking. "And what did you make last night?"
"A batch of poached blackfish. Bart and Lefty were supposed to eat with me, but they went to a
faisdodo
and an all-you-can-eat crawfish party," he said as we descended the stairs.
"Why didn't you go with them?"
"Wasn't in the mood," he said.
"Don't you have a girl, Jack?" I asked. I couldn't see his face when he turned to me, but I suspected that he was smiling.
"I've had a few girlfriends, but no one serious."
"Why not?"
"That's just it," he said, "no one's serious. Most of the girls I've met are . . ."
"What?" I asked, intrigued.
"Airheads," he said, and I laughed.
"Bart says a woman doesn't need much in her head to get by with a man, but that's not the kind of woman I want," he continued.
We returned to the dining room, where he set down the lantern and began to unpack the carton. Everything was neatly wrapped in tinfoil. He poured me a glass of water.
"Thank you, Jack." The water was cold and very refreshing. I drank it quickly.
"More?"
"Not right now, thanks," I said. In the glow of the lantern, his face looked shiny but soft, and his eyes twinkled. "What kind of a woman do you want, Jack?"
"Someone who can talk to me about important things, a companion, not just a. . ."
"Just a what?"
"Just a woman," he replied, turning back to his carton. "I brought a little Sterno stove to warm up the sauce. My grandmere's recipe: three cups of homemade mayonnaise, six drops of Tabasco, four tablespoons of lemon juice, one-half cup of capers, one teaspoon of caper liquid, and two tablespoons of dry mustard."
"Sounds wonderful. I'm not much of a cook, I'm afraid. We have a cook at home, had a cook all my life." He didn't say anything. "Do you think I'm a spoiled rich girl, Jack?"