There were azaleas blooming at the end of the garden path. Azaleas in February, but only because the new gardener had mistakenly planted them on the south side of Aurore's garden. Now the crimson blossoms lifted their glorious faces to the New Orleans winter sun, like bathing beauties on the French Riviera, but by August the shrubs would have shriveled and died.

The warm afternoon had drawn Aurore outside to spend an hour on a stone bench beside her goldfish pond. She had brought a book to read, but instead she had stared at the fish and the fat brown toad who drowsed in the cool shadow of a rock and dreamed of mosquitoes.

She heard Phillip's footsteps before she saw him. When she looked up, he was standing several yards away, his arms folded across his chest.

He had left town several weeks ago, the day after he learned the truth about who she was. She knew he had been to New York and California chasing stories. There was little that went on in New Orleans that was a secret, and little Aurore couldn't find out if she asked the right people. She hadn't been surprised. She had expected Phillip to go away. She had also expected him to return.

"What made you come back?" she asked. "A journalist's curiosity? A duty to your mother?" She didn't add her final guess out loud. Had he been influenced by a young woman named Belinda Beauclaire, who was simply too perfect to leave behind?

"You won. Just like you knew you would."

She patted the bench beside her. He moved forward and sat reluctantly. "At my age, and in my condition, I'm allowed a fault or two. Forgive me for being smug."

"Are you really dying? Or was that a way to a.s.sure my presence here?"

Aurore didn't answer directly. She pointed to the azaleas with the tip of her cane. "I really should have those moved. They need protection in summer, but I wanted so badly to see them flower."

"You said you probably had six months."

"I would like to live until summer," she said.

"Most people would prefer to die rather than face the heat and humidity here."

"I'll miss breathing steam." She smiled. "I suppose I'll miss breathing in general."

"Are you in pain?"

"Blessedly, very little. But I can feel death settle over me. I sleep less, eat less. When I move, I feel the way I did as a little girl when I walked out into the Gulf and the water sucked at every step."

"None of that means that death is just around the corner."

"When I do sleep, I'm visited by those who've already died. I dream of them, and when I wake up, they're still with me."

"Your husband?"

She shook her head. "Never Henry."

"From what you've told me, I suppose you're grateful."

She smiled again, this time sadly. "Perhaps Henry went to a place with no visiting hours."

"The marriage never got better?"

"You're beginning to sound like a journalist again, Phillip. Does this mean you'll hear me out?"

"When I write up your memoirs, I'll say that you were an old woman who always got what she wanted, no matter who she had to manipulate, no matter what she had to do."

She was silent for a moment, considering his words and somehow liking the sound of them. "And will you also say that I was an old woman who did what I thought was best, even when it might have been easier to spend my last days watching goldfish and toads?"

"I don't know."

She used her cane to stand. She was increasingly unsteady on her feet, and more disgusted daily that her body could fail her so completely. "Walk with me, Phillip."

He had already gotten to his feet. "I don't have my tape recorder with me now."

"Oh, I think you'll remember what I tell you."

"I already know there's no happy ending to look forward to."

"Perhaps not for me, not in the way you mean. But there are compensations for almost everything that happens in life."

"Are there?"

She held out her hand. "May I lean on you?"

He hesitated. She could see him struggle; then he shrugged. He moved closer. She rested her hand on his arm.

As she thought about how to begin, she stared at the azaleas at the end of the garden path. They were blooming now, but in a month, when their blossoms had faded, she would have the gardener dig them up and plant them in the proper spot. Perhaps she would not be alive next spring to see them bloom again, but she would know that they bloomed for those who came after her.

"Let me tell you about my garden," she said. "And about the ways my life changed in the years when this garden first began to grow."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

After careful a.n.a.lysis, Aurore had been certain that the United States would eventually enter the Great War. Henry hadn't agreed at first, but eventually he had recognized the wisdom of her position, and together they had sunk every surplus penny into reconditioning their old stern-wheel towboats and wooden barges. They had even sc.r.a.ped together a loan to add to their fleet.

Now, just as she had predicted, the railroads couldn't handle the huge loads of foodstuffs, armaments, machinery and military supplies heading south. The river was speckled with barges again. Soon it would be blanketed. Their investments had already begun to pay off, and if the war lasted a while, they would come out winners, no matter the eventual fate of the doughboys.

At thirty-three, Henry was too old for the new selective service law, but young enough to have a long life ahead of him. He had made it clear to Aurore that he planned to live it as a rich man. He also planned to live it with his wife firmly at heel beside him.

Henry had wanted a home to showcase his ascendancy in New Orleans society. Aurore had wanted one of quiet good taste. A home like the one she had envisioned could be built for four thousand dollars, with elaborate plumbing and enameled bathtubs, tiled hearths, hardwood mantels and enough rooms to keep a small household staff employed.

Henry had insisted they spend several times that amount and engage one of the most popular architects of the day, Thomas Sully, who had designed numerous homes along Saint Charles Avenue and Carrollton. The result of their warring taste was an elegant Greek Revival mansion. She had insisted on floor-to-ceiling windows and a double gallery with iron lace railings that mimicked those of her childhood home. Henry had insisted on high Victorian touches of beveled and etched gla.s.s and an asymmetrical wing for the library.

Henry had obtained prime property on Prytania, owing his good fortune to the previous owner's bad. A fire had destroyed the home formerly occupying their lot. Live oaks and magnolias had survived, but most of the beautiful plantings that were important features of every Garden District home had been destroyed.

Aurore had found the design and construction of the house taxing, but work on the gardens had been her delight. Henry had little interest in shrubbery and a great deal in fences. He had demanded cast iron and geometric spikes, which she had promptly softened with ma.s.ses of camellias, azaleas and sweet olive, in the Creole style. Against the house she had planted myrtle, jasmine and althaea, and in the yard, fig, orange and oleander. A rose garden bloomed under the bedroom windows.

As she consulted with landscapers, she had envisioned her children playing there. The house might be imposing, but she wanted the gardens to beckon merrily. Her children would live in the house, but they would thrive in the gardens.

Hugh did thrive there. A quiet child who seemed to be cataloging the experiences of childhood, Hugh loved the roses best of all. Aurore never chose flowers to bring indoors without Hugh at her side. He was sweetly serious about his mission, weighing the pros and cons of his choices with the intensity of a theologian considering original sin. He pointed; she cut and stripped off the thorns and gave them to him to place in his straw basket. Inside the house, he was always beside her to help when she arranged them.

In the hottest part of summer and fall, few flowers bloomed, and Hugh had little interest in them. Late on an October morning, he played under the shade of the magnolias instead, tossing a ball to the spaniel Aurore had bought him the day she realized he might never have a brother or sister to play with.

She wanted more children. Her menstrual periods were as regular as the waxing and waning of the moon, and despite the suspicions Henry often voiced, she had not tried to prevent another pregnancy. But, despite Henry's frequent attentions, she remained barren.

Nicolette was ten now, so completely lost to Aurore that sometimes it seemed as if her daughter's birth had been a dream. Hugh was the joy of her life. She couldn't replace one child with another, but Aurore knew that she had more love to give than one child should have to absorb. Already she could see how hard it would be for Hugh to separate from her when the time came. As poor a father as Henry was, he was right when he criticized her for protecting their son so strenuously. Hugh had to grow up, and she had to allow it.

"Mamete." Quickly bored, Hugh flung himself into her lap. Quickly bored, Hugh flung himself into her lap.

She held him close. "Are you tired of Floppsy already?"

"I want to draw."

Even though the sky was clear, an earlier rainstorm still seemed to hang in the hot air. She understood his desire to go inside. She signaled his nurse, Marta, a stocky, silver-haired widow whose husband had piloted barges for Gulf Coast. Aurore had chosen Marta after Cleo went to live with a sister. Marta had endless patience, and although her standards were high, her expectations were reasonable.

She watched Marta lead Hugh away. Marta never spoke to him as if he were a child. She was teaching him German-despite the nation's wholesale rejection of all things Germanic-and Aurore often spoke French in his presence. Hugh learned languages effortlessly, just as he had learned not to speak anything except English to his father, who ridiculed his abilities.

"Ro-Ro."

She turned at the unexpected sound of Ti' Boo's voice and crossed the yard to greet her. Ti' Boo had her youngest child in tow, Val, who was only a year older than Hugh, but who already looked exactly like his father. Val galloped after Hugh and Marta and left the women alone in the garden.

"I'm so glad you brought him today. Hugh needs a friend. Join me for coffee?" Aurore ushered Ti' Boo to a table under the trees. "I'll get a fresh pot."

"No. Sit. Me, I've had three cups today already, and it just makes the morning hotter."

Ti' Boo had grown plumper through the years, but this morning she looked as fresh as a new day, in a white dress with striped trim. The skills she had learned in her childhood served her well now that the country was at war. Meatless days weren't strong enough conservation measures. Everyone with land was expected to grow and preserve his own food, so Ti' Boo taught vegetable gardening and canning to city women who had never grown more than a flower or two. At her insistence, Aurore had even dug up a large section of her prized lawn to plant vegetables.

"I brought you seeds," Ti' Boo said. "Cabbage and mustard and onion sets."

"Good. I still have room along the back fence. Hugh can help me plant them this evening, when it's cooler."

"Is he well now?"

"He's fine. It was only a mild fever." Aurore thought of her frantic telephone call to Ti' Boo the week before. Hugh had always been healthy, but at his first normal childhood illness she had become panic-stricken. The days when epidemics of yellow fever and cholera were commonplace had ended, thanks to a new emphasis on sanitation and pest control. But there were other diseases that could strike down children. Aurore had felt Hugh's flushed cheeks and listened to his labored breathing, and she had been certain he was going to die.

"Every day I expect him to be taken from me," Aurore said.

"We all feel that way."

"I love him too much."

"You need another."

"I have another."

Ti' Boo reached for her hand. "Have you learned anything new about Nicolette?"

Aurore knew that her daughter no longer lived at the Magnolia Palace. Several years ago, Rafe had moved her to a small house on a quiet street below Ca.n.a.l, in what was commonly called the Creole Quarter. Most of its residents were Creoles of color. Rafe couldn't have chosen a more foreign environment for a child who had been raised in the honky-tonk swirl of the district. Family ties, breeding and gracious manners were all-important to the colored Creoles. But although Nicolette might never be a real part of the community, she would blend in there. She could go to school and church, perhaps even make friends. Aurore was grateful, so grateful, that Rafe had listened to her.

But had he? At their encounter in Audubon Park, Rafe had been cold and mocking. Had he really heard her pleas and acted on them? Had she really changed his mind, or had he only moved their daughter to keep her farther from Aurore's reach?

"You haven't seen her?" Ti' Boo asked.

"I've never found a way." Aurore took Ti' Boo's hand and squeezed it. "Have you heard that the district is going to close? It's official now. There's been too much trouble lately, and sailors have been injured. The navy insisted. The city council voted for it last night."

"How such a place could exist!"

"Rafe has investments there besides the Magnolia Palace, Ti' Boo."

"How can you know so much?"

Aurore didn't know how to explain. She had learned to listen, to ask the right questions and bribe the right people. She wasn't proud of her skills, but without them she would have no control of her life. "Sometimes it's easier to be a woman. No one ever thinks we're listening. The men gather to talk at dinner parties, and they say things as if we women had no ears."

"These men talk about Rafe Cantrelle?"

"It's very possible to hear things that aren't said out loud. But it doesn't matter how I know. I just do."

"And what will happen to Rafe when the district closes? Have you heard that, too?"

"No. But I can guess." Aurore rose to get the ball for Floppsy, who lay at her feet staring forlornly toward the house, where she was never invited. She threw the ball and watched the grateful spaniel retrieve it. "Rafe Cantrelle will survive this. He's survived worse. I wouldn't even be surprised if he prospers."

"I think you admire him."

Aurore turned, surprised. "How can you say that?"

"It's not what I say that's important."

"I don't admire him. I hate him!"

"I no longer think so."

"He killed my father. He stole my baby."

"I think, perhaps, he did neither." Ti' Boo stood, too. "I've asked myself again and again why Rafe did the things he did. But for every time I've asked, you must have asked a million, yes? And until you know, you'll never have peace."

"Peace?" Aurore threw the ball again, hard enough to send it through a hedge of sweet olive. "I wasn't born for peace."

"Were you born for revenge?"

"I'm not seeking revenge anymore. I don't want my daughter hurt."

"Is that the reason, Ro-Ro, or is it that you can see more clearly now? You must honor your father, the church tells us that. But must you also believe lies about him? Lucien Le Danois was not a good man. And Rafe never stole your daughter. You put Nicolette into his arms yourself."

Aurore faced her. "How can you say these things to me?"

Ti' Boo looked suddenly tired. "Because I'm getting older, and you never say them to yourself."

"I've lived my life the only way I knew."

"Again, what I think isn't important, but I'll tell you anyway. I've watched you since your father died and since your marriage, and I've seen you change. You're like the crab who grows a sh.e.l.l so rigid that one day he must abandon it and grow another. On the bayou, we wait for these crabs to leave their sh.e.l.ls, but it's not the sh.e.l.ls we wait for, no. It's the crabs themselves, because in those hours when they have no sh.e.l.ls, they're the most delicious. If you continue to grow a sh.e.l.l of lies and secrets around you, Ro-Ro, you will have to leave it for another one day. And you, too, will be tres vulnerable. tres vulnerable."

Aurore was stunned. Ti' Boo had never criticized her before. "Why say this to me now? Is it because of everything I have and you don't? Has it finally separated us?"