"Aglae, don't..."

"Vincent, when I am in my dotage you may expect my obedience. Until then, you will please answer the questions I put to you...what was your impression of this woman?"

"She was...ill. Philippe had...uncashed bank drafts, some clothes...she gave these to me. There was a sum of money which I told her she must keep. She did not answer me, so I left it there." Of course he had looked into the matter further, ascertained that she had family to provide for her, she would not be dest.i.tute. And he would clear Philippe's debts.

"The woman, her appearance, her age."

He drew himself up, emitting a small sigh again more or less without wishing it to be eloquent, and moved across the room. She was an attractive woman, more than likely, how at such a time could he tell? Pet.i.te, curvaceous, a marvelously delicate face rendered all the more remarkable by the texture of her very dark skin. A white woman with a black skin. How was he to put this into words, and for what?

"Don't torment yourself, Aglae, you owe these people nothing, you do not owe them the slightest thought."

"If you persist in playing the master of this house with me, Vincent, I shall go to the notary in New Orleans and find..."

He shook his head. "A good-looking woman, very well-bred," he shrugged. How else to put it, that she had been anxious, trembling, like any white lady at such a time in that pristine little parlor among whatnots and pet.i.t-point as delicate as herself. She had hardly managed a word. She had wrung her hands, her gold and pearl rings flashing, suffocating in her tight laces, and the daughter, standing there, that beautiful young woman who looked completely white. It was the daughter who had confirmed the story for him, and so properly had she rescued it from the sordid and the ghastly. "Monsieur had gone to bed early, Monsieur did not feel well. When it was time for Monsieur's breakfast, we went to awaken him, Monsieur would not wake up. Monsieur did not suffer...at all." The girl had her rosary beads in her hand, and the woman, crying, tore her handkerchief in shreds.

"Aglae, it was not a squalid place. It was un placage un placage...Aglae, this is not a reflection upon anyone but Philippe himself."

Again she made that impatient shake of her head. She was staring out the windows at the flutter of a branch against the frost.

"It was I who urged you to get the power of attorney," he said. "It was I who examined the books. Even then he had every chance...I don't believe he could have helped himself, even if he had wanted to. Aglae, the bottle had gotten him, all of his weaknesses had gotten him. His behavior was no longer acceptable anywhere else."

"Aaah," she said.

He drew close to her and put his hands lightly on her narrow shoulders. "Do you want to come down now?"

"Not just yet, but you must go down," she said. "You must look out for Henri. And Miss Betsy."

"They are in good hands," he said. "It's you I want to look out for."

She looked at him as if she did not know him, and then she looked down. She reached for his right hand and removed it from her shoulder so that he removed the hand on the left. "Go down, Vincent," she said.

He hesitated at the door. "There is something more I want to tell you. If you feel at all to blame for what we did last year, perhaps this will work some alchemy on your thoughts."

However, she wasn't listening. She was looking at the window. And murmured, "Last year?" as if she had hardly heard.

"When I visited that house, I saw in it a number of items which belong to you. The candles on the mantel were in the silver holders that were given to Grandmere by the Marquis. There were books which had been the property of our father. And on her neck the woman wore a small jet brooch, quite appropriate for mourning, which has been in the Dazincourt family for two hundred years. You remember that you could not find that brooch when Oncle Alcee died? There were other items, china, painted plates. He stole your treasures, Aglae, small, priceless heirlooms, he was the one all along who was taking those things...the little lap secretaire secretaire, the carved wooden rosary, it was on a table beside the woman even as I talked to her, the wooden rosary that had been Grandmere's, you remember that? Think on that if you are inclined to the slightest self-recrimination, think on the pettiness of it, the deceit..."

"You may go, Vincent!"

He went out closing the door.

She shut her eyes. Blame herself for what happened last year, the thought had never entered her mind. Blame herself for getting the power of attorney, the thought had never entered her mind. She had considered that action from every standpoint before she had taken it, and she was not a person given to regret. But something else loomed on the edges of her bleak considerations, something else hovered very near her that was alien to her and caused her to stare wide-eyed at nothing now as she looked up again, caused the muscles of her face to tense again as if she could not find the proper expression for herself, could not move, could not speak.

It was something immense, and so terrible that it could not, simply could not, be true. And her mind took her mercilessly back, as if she were a child with her heels dug in refusing to be dragged, and yet she was being dragged by some righteous stiff-backed woman who was also herself, back to the time when Philippe had first come into this house, when she had first seen him strolling along the gallery with her father, the figures reappearing in one window after another, those two men, the silver-haired man so cheered by the company of the younger, the hand on the shoulder, and that handsome blue-eyed smiling face. How the blue eyes had gleamed as Philippe bent to kiss her hand. The eyes said we have some secret you and I, as he called her "Ma chere." "Ma chere." But oh, how at the same time those eyes had implored. That was it, they implored, always they implored, But oh, how at the same time those eyes had implored. That was it, they implored, always they implored, love me, love me love me, love me, find me the man of your dreams, love me love me...and behind those quick witticisms and all that pa.s.sed for charm among the others, there had always been that weakness, that dependence, those eyes saying love me, love me love me, love me, oh, it gave her the wildest shudder of revulsion even now.

She writhed in her chair. Her hands were again on the sides of her head, and that tautness to her muscles went away. Her mouth was quivering with some terrible sadness. She could so keenly remember her sisters' laughter, their heads coming together, "Why, he's so handsome, Aglae, he's so handsome," and Christine destined to marry Cousin Louis who was so old then and white as a bone. There had been tears in Christine's eyes when she said, "He is splendid, Aglae," Christine had been dancing with him until she was so dizzy she could hardly stand. But oh, how he had angered Aglae, maddened her with that need, those eyes flashing to her again and again from the end of the supper table, from across the crowded room, and how sheepish was that whisper when he drew near to her, and that smile and that look, "We share a secret, you and I." She had loathed him! No, No. She shook her head. "No!" she said aloud to the empty room. "It could not have been different, I am not to blame, I am not to blame, I am not to blame..."

II.

As SOON AS THEY ENTERED SOON AS THEY ENTERED the cottage, Cecile looked at the clock. She stared so intently at it, her face drained and weary, that Tante Louisa took her by the arm and told her to sit down. They had all been in the Cathedral at the moment when in St. Jacques Parish, some fifty miles away, Philippe had been taken from the Requiem Ma.s.s in the St. Jacques chapel to his family grave. Friends had come to the Cathedral. Madame Suzette had been there with Giselle. Celestina had come with Gabriella and Fantin. And in the great empty church where there had been no service on this day, others moved about oblivious to this small gathering in the back pews. At last it was three o'clock. No doubt the stone had been set in place, and most likely no one even remained in the cemetery in St. Jacques Parish. So Louisa had said, "Let's go home." the cottage, Cecile looked at the clock. She stared so intently at it, her face drained and weary, that Tante Louisa took her by the arm and told her to sit down. They had all been in the Cathedral at the moment when in St. Jacques Parish, some fifty miles away, Philippe had been taken from the Requiem Ma.s.s in the St. Jacques chapel to his family grave. Friends had come to the Cathedral. Madame Suzette had been there with Giselle. Celestina had come with Gabriella and Fantin. And in the great empty church where there had been no service on this day, others moved about oblivious to this small gathering in the back pews. At last it was three o'clock. No doubt the stone had been set in place, and most likely no one even remained in the cemetery in St. Jacques Parish. So Louisa had said, "Let's go home."

And now having come into the cottage, Cecile stared at the clock and had to be told to sit down.

"I don't see why you stay in this house," Colette said, her voice light so that it sounded strange and sing-song among so much black bombazine. Marie took a pot of coffee from Lisette and poured it into four small gilt-edged cups.

"Put some brandy in that, ma pet.i.te ma pet.i.te," Louisa said. And Colette, thinking that Cecile had been offered enough brandy and enough sherry and enough straight whiskey, shot her a disapproving and vain glance.

"I don't see why we just don't go right up to our place now," said Colette folding her shawl and laying it over the back of her chair. The cottage was cold, since Lisette had only just made the fire.

"You should go," Cecile said quite suddenly. Both the aunts were startled. Cecile's eyes were gla.s.sy, but calm. "You should both go now and leave Marie and me here alone."

For a moment they all studied her as if they had not properly heard.

"I want to be alone here with Marie," she said.

Marie's face was remote and cold. She set the coffee down for her mother and glanced from Louisa to Colette. There was as always now a defiance in Marie's expression. Louisa had several times told her that her haughty look was not feminine, and she ought to be more demure but this did no good. And now Colette appeared exasperated.

"You've got plenty of time to be alone with Marie, you come up to the flat with us. Where's Lisette, seems like someone is always asking where's Lisette, get her to pack your things, you don't want to stay here right now..."

"This is my home and this is where I want to stay," Cecile said sharply, baring her teeth involuntarily as she clenched them. She drank the coffee down in one gulp.

Marie seated herself at the end of the table and stirred her coffee with a small silver spoon.

"All right, then, "Louisa said. "But you send Lisette up there for us if you get to feeling bad. Has anyone taken the time to write to Marcel yet to tell him to come home?"

"No!" Cecile's teeth clenched again. "I'll take care of that when I want him home."

"Well, what difference does it make now, for G.o.d's sake?" Colette asked. "Those Bontemps Bontemps people have been here and gone, they won't be coming back here, I don't see why he can't..." people have been here and gone, they won't be coming back here, I don't see why he can't..."

"Will you leave that to me?" Cecile said.

"This lady's tired," Louisa said. "Come on, let's leave her alone." And she was halfway out the door before Colette could protest.

Marie had her back to her mother, more or less. She could see her mother out of the corner of her eye. She was not particularly afraid now, it seemed a time to forgive, if that were possible, or at least to pretend to forgive, but she was quite uncertain as to why her mother would want her here, why such a situation as this could thaw the hatred between them when her mother had others to lean on, when her mother had not spoken a civil word to Marie in a year. She herself was sickened by her father's death, sickened by the manner of it and the months of drinking that had preceded it, and was shamed and humiliated that he had died under this roof, not for herself, but for him.

She felt she had known he was going to die long before it had happened, and the sight of the man in those last weeks had horrified her, torn her heart. It had brought her to tears to see him stumbling, unable even to keep the cigar to his lip, her mother's terrified eyes gazing on. She drank a sip of the coffee into which she had put no brandy and wondered how long she must wait now for the marriage, if Cecile could conceivably throw another obstacle in her path, some decorous period of mourning, for instance, and just how long that might be. Rudolphe didn't care about a dowry, and in veiled gentlemanly terms had let her know. And now, having become quite adept at putting her mind someplace else when she was alone with her mother, Marie looked at the lace curtains, or at the papered walls, or at the whatnot shelf or the statues on the mantel and thought, I am with Richard, in Richard's house.

Her eyes moved numbly over the surface of the table when she heard her mother rise, saw the black dress in the corner of her eye drawing closer and closer and suddenly felt her mother's hand on her shoulder and heard her intake of breath. She looked up, and to her amazement her mother's face was completely sad. She was staring at the ceiling above Marie and she looked dreadfully softened and sad.

Marie hesitated and when the hand didn't go away, she lifted her left hand and slid it around her mother's waist. She felt stiff and cold doing this, and unnatural, and she wished that this extremely unusual moment could elicit more from her, but it could not.

"Wouldn't it be better to go up to the flat?" she asked.

"I have precisely seventy-five dollars and seventy-five cents," Cecile said in a simple voice, her eyes still on the ceiling, and her hand tightening on her daughter's shoulder. She looked down now into Marie's eyes so boldly that Marie flushed. "Now how long do you think we can live on that?"

"Marcel should come home, right home," Marie said.

"And what can Marcel do?" her mother asked without a trace of the usual acrimony, the voice strangely unaffected by anything but sincerity.

Marie was painfully conscious of the hand on her shoulder, painfully conscious of the closeness of her mother's body. In fact, her mother's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, very high and firm beneath the bombazine, aroused in her a vague disgust. She looked at the table, and opened her eyes wider as the hand actually clasped her arm and she felt her body tilted toward her mother and felt her mother trembling all over beneath the bombazine and the scent of roses.

"These are decisions we must all discuss together, we need Marcel," Marie said.

Suddenly her mother sat down and reaching out so that Marie was frightened, she suddenly pulled the pins from Marie's hair. She did this gently, deftly, her brows knit as she did it, so that her dark face, so devoid of wrinkles that it was almost a girl's face, became suddenly brooding with care. Marie was astonished. She felt the hair unraveling from her chignon, and that great sweet relief as it fell down on her shoulders. She could not resist lifting her fingers to ma.s.sage the scalp suddenly while her mother sat looking at Marie's hair, her own hands clasping the pins. The fact that the mere touch of her mother's hands to her hair had given her the usual tingling pleasure she always experienced when her hair was touched confused her. She wanted nothing from her mother, least of all pleasure, intimacy, affection. Her mother hadn't touched her hair since she was a little girl.

"It's beautiful," her mother said, and took a handful of the dark tresses. This was quite amazing, really.

"Like your own," Marie said coldly.

"Yes, but that is where the resemblance stops." Cecile looked her right in the eyes. Again, no venom. "You are as beautiful as everyone says you are. I've been jealous of you from the moment you were born."

"Maman, don't say these things," Marie drew back. She hadn't used that word, Maman, in years. Years! It was "you" and "she" or "Maman" in the third person when speaking of Cecile to others, but most often then "my mother" which she had often allowed herself to say with the faintest sneer. People were often puzzled by her expression when she spoke of her mother and she liked it, seeing the vague discomfort in Gabriella's eyes. But everyone must know, surely, we hate each other. Now Marie was flushed, and staring at the floor.

"But it's true," Cecile said. "I've hated you for being beautiful while other mothers would have been proud."

"Then don't talk of it, it's best if it's not talked about..." Marie murmured.

"Why? Aren't you tired of the tension, tired of the hatred between us? Don't you want it to end? We only have each other now, you and me."

"We have Marcel." Marie glanced at her but couldn't continue to look into her eyes. She's mad, she thought. The grief has driven her temporarily out of her mind. "I'm tired, I want to lie down."

"Get me the sherry," her mother said.

Relieved to get away, she got it at once. She set a gla.s.s down and filled it and was just a little alarmed to see her mother drink that right away and refill the gla.s.s.

"That's warm," her mother said. It was a phrase Monsieur Philippe had often used, when coming in on cold nights he had taken a heavy drink of his whiskey. "That's warm."

Marie moved to the fireplace and taking the poker stoked the coals. Her mother was drinking a third gla.s.s. "Did you like him?" she asked as if she knew that Marie was thinking of Monsieur Philippe. "I know that you loved him, but tell me...did you like him?"

"Very much," Marie said.

Cecile sat back and let out a low moan. Her eyes moved over the ceiling and her hands moved feverishly along the stem of the gla.s.s. "If he hadn't died right there in that bed, I don't think I'd believe he was dead. I think I'd spend the rest of my life waiting for him to come in that door."

"Let's go up to the flat," Marie said.

"Hmmmmm, no. No, I want to be alone here now with you," Cecile shook her head. "You don't know how shy I was in the beginning, you have no idea. You only know the woman who had grown accustomed to him, who loved him so. You have no idea how it was in the beginning. I used to hide from them, they wanted to take me to the b.a.l.l.s, and I used to lock my door and hide. I would have gotten under the bed to get away from them, and I was twenty-four years old. I was terrified! And all day long in the shop I spent my days on my knees under those white women's hems. Pins in my mouth, pins..." she looked at the tips of her fingers and rubbed her thumb along the tips. "I used to be p.r.i.c.ked all over by those pins. Even now when I thread a needle, I can hardly bear it." She shut her eyes and shook her head.

Marie was staring at her. She had never, never heard her mother speak of any of this. Only once in a great while she had said in the past how she hated to sew.

"And then they brought that old man home to the flat, that old man..." Cecile mused.

"But what old man?" Marie asked. She was still holding the poker. A faint ray of sun came in through the close trees outside the window and struck the rings on her mother's hand. The sherry in the gla.s.s sparkled. Her mother's small mouth was wet and gleaming.

"Magloire Dazincourt," her mother said with mock dignity, "Magloire Dazincourt. Old enough to be my father, with yellow teeth. He built this house, not your father, and those are his babies in the cemetery, not your father's. You never knew that, did you? 'What are you going to do?' Colette kept saying to me, 'throw your corset on top the armoire and be an old maid? You're twenty-four years old, what are you going to do?'" She turned with wide eyes toward Marie and then with a strange sweet but bitter smile, she said, "They didn't want me on their hands forever, I don't blame them."

"Oh, but I don't believe that," Marie whispered. "They would have taken care of you forever, they will take care of you..." she stopped.

"Now?" Cecile whispered. "Is that what you were going to say?" And again braced for the malignant edge, Marie did not sense it and was confused.

Cecile drank more of the sherry, and bent her profile scowling in the ray of sun. Dust swirled about her in the light, dust which in church in similar rays of light had often put Marie in mind of the Annunciation, the word of G.o.d coming to the Virgin in a ray of light. Those tiny particles seemed to be a spirit in the light.

"I wasn't fortunate enough to have a child that lived during Monsieur Magloire's time, and he died the very day this house was complete. But the house is mine, and the furniture is mine, everything here is mine, he was a generous man. He had in fact a young friend who looked after me, a man so handsome people turned to look at him when he pa.s.sed. That was your father, Monsieur Philippe." She glanced at her daughter, and Marie, quite fascinated by this tale, was staring at her.

"And so the old maid, you see, at the age of twenty-five, had snared the handsome planter who could have his pick." Cecile smiled. "I did well."

Marie nodded.

"And I tell you," her mother sighed suddenly, her head thrown back so that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s seemed higher, fuller, and the sun gilded the edge of her throat, as the voice became low, husky, "in those days you have them in the palm of your hand. You can have anything, anything," she said. "Later? They become practical, they have other things to think about, but in the beginning..." she let out a low intimate laugh..."You've got them! And it's diamonds if you want them." Her right hand fingered the rings on her left. "Diamonds," she said, "and champagne."

Marie's eyes were wide with disbelief. Her mother was baring a soul to her that she had never even glimpsed. She found it abhorrent, and yet she was fascinated. She could not look away from Cecile.

"We are women, you and I," her mother was saying as if she spoke to the ray of sunlight. "We are women," she said again, running her tongue over her gleaming lip. She drank the sherry and looked at her gla.s.s. "I was lucky," she said, narrowing her eyes. "That's what they all said, 'she was in the right place at the right time.' They said the same vicious things about me that they said about that foolish Anna Bella," her eyes turned again on Marie with perfect candor. "I know they did because I know them, all of them," she made an angry gesture to the world.

"But you?" she went on softly. "You? No matter whatever happens to you, they won't call it luck, they couldn't. You can have anything you want, and they know that, all of them, Louisa, Colette, Celestina, any of them, all of them, what could they say? You've stripped the spite out of them with your beauty, if you walked into that ballroom, they would fall on their knees. Oh, they'd hate you, they'll hate you as I hated you, but where would they find the words to say anything except she's beautiful, look at that white skin, that hair, those eyes...she can have anything that she wants! It's there for the taking, she can just reach out for it. Philippe Ferronaire's daughter. I tell you every man in that ballroom would go down on his knees."

"No," Marie whispered.

"Come here," her mother said. She pushed the gla.s.s of sherry forward toward Marie. "Come here."

"No," Marie shook her head.

"It's true," her mother smiled. "But you don't believe it, do you? You've never known. Colette said once 'if you'd ever tell her she was beautiful, she'd believe it, you're her mother, she doesn't see it in your eyes,' and me all the time thinking with an aching heart, she'll despise me when she becomes a woman, when she sees this black skin!"

"Oh, no, never for that, never!" Marie whispered.

Cecile laughed. Her eyes were luminous. She sipped the sherry. "Sit by me then, have a gla.s.s with me, then," she said. "I need you, I need you now."

Marie stood stock-still. She tilted her head to one side, and then slowly she moved to the chair. Her mother moved the gla.s.s toward her and she picked it up thinking suddenly that her mother's lips had touched it and it was repellent to her and then she looked into Cecile's eyes.

"It's true," her mother said. "It's true. You were so, so pretty," her mother's eyes narrowed with pain. "You were so fair! Did you know when you were a little girl, and I'd be walking with you, those white women would stop me to compliment you, to lift you and kiss you, and those women thought that I was the servant sent out with you, did you know that? They thought I was your nurse!" She leaned forward, eyes narrow, "They thought I was your colored nurse."

Marie shook her head. She ran her hand up to her hair and it fell down like a veil. "O my Lord in heaven," she murmured.

"You know sometimes I wonder," Cecile threw back her head. Her hand moved nervously, almost unconsciously to her throat and pulled at the velvet ribbon there, the mourning brooch, until the ribbon came loose. Her hand slid down toward her breast pushing the fabric free from the jet b.u.t.tons..."I wonder," she sighed, "how it would have been if he had been the fair one, and you had had that kinky hair, and I could have done nothing with it, Lisette would have ironed it on the board."

"Maman," Marie whispered. "He is a handsome man!"

"Hmmmm..." she disregarded this. "I wonder if I would have loved you then, and ironed that kinky hair, and tried to make it like cornsilk, and put powder on that yellow skin. I wonder if I would have held you to me, protected you, been afraid for you the way I've always been for him. Oh, I don't think a day pa.s.ses that I don't fear for him," she shut her eyes, her teeth cutting her lower lip. She had made her arms into a cradle for an invisible child and now she rocked it back and forth making the faintest moan. "People look at you when you're together, I've seen men look at you, look at him. O G.o.d," she whispered squeezing her eyes shut again. "I've seen them staring at him thinking he was...and you were..." She grimaced with distaste and a shudder shook her frame.

"Yes," Marie whispered. Her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears.

"You know that same fear," Cecile whispered.

"Always..." With him, with Richard, with Rudolphe...