Iron Lace #1

CHAPTER FOUR

Louisiana Gulf Coast 1893

A man took a wife for children. A man took a mistress for pleasure. In the latter, Lucien Le Danois had been most fortunate. He had taken a mistress who could bestow such pleasure that the most demanding of Creole men, had they known, would have knelt at her feet. But as fate would have it, Marcelite Cantrelle was also more capable of bearing children than Lucien’s wife, Claire.

A man merely looked at Marcelite and she grew heavy with new life, like the seed of the love vine, swollen with spring rain. Her body, wide-hipped and sturdy, was made for child-bearing. Her breasts were a lush invitation to suckle and grow strong. Lucien knew well the mystical wonders of her flesh against his lips, the enticement of her earthy fragrance.

Marcelite had already borne him one child, a daughter brought into the world in a matter of hours, nourished on mother’s milk and the freshest, sweetest fruits of the Gulf of Mexico. Angelle was a black-haired, laughing nymph, brown from the sun, like her black-haired mother. When Marcelite went down to the beach to mend nets, two-year-old Angelle knew how to dance away from the white-tipped waves. At home, as their house filled with the spicy scent of the day’s catch cooking in the fireplace, she could climb the lone water oak outside their front door and, hidden among its moss-draped branches, call greetings to the fishermen who passed by.

Lucien attempted to think only of Angelle and Marcelite as he sailed across the Jump, the shallow pass that separated Grand Isle from Chénière Caminada. But, despite his best efforts, it was other faces that he saw.

The Jump separated more than two bodies of land. Earlier in the afternoon, he had said a stern farewell to his wild-eyed wife, and to Aurore, his only legitimate child. He could still feel Claire’s fingers clawing at his arm as he pushed her away, still see the accusations in Aurore’s pale eyes.

Why should he feel guilty? Hadn’t he made the steamboat trip to Grand Isle well after the summer season had ended so that he could escort Claire and Aurore back to New Orleans? Hadn’t he given Claire permission to stay these extra weeks, weeks she claimed to need in order to face the final months of her pregnancy?

As a husband, he could not be faulted. Perhaps their house in New Orleans was not as grand as the home she had once shared with her parents, but many men envied the large property he owned on Esplanade. Claire lacked for nothing.

And he had been patient. By all the saints, he had been patient as she lost baby after baby. A man could be outraged at a woman for less. He had watched and waited in silence as she failed to bring a son into the world to carry his name. Even now, she was pregnant again. Even now, he waited for the day when she would take to her bed and disappoint him once more.

For all Lucien’s patience, Claire had given him nothing but one frail daughter whose skin was so translucent he could almost see her heartbeat. No one believed that five-year-old Aurore, their only child to be born alive, would live to adulthood.

So was he to blame if he took an afternoon for himself? He had promised Marcelite a visit before he returned to New Orleans. Months would pass before he saw her again, months when he would dream of her body under his.

The wind suddenly filled his sail, the harsh sigh of a God impatient with his excuses. The small skiff bobbed closer to the shoreline, carried by the waves breaking against the sand. The tide was low. Lucien rolled up his trousers and took off his shoes, then swung himself overboard to drag the skiff to the beach.

In the distance, despite the afternoon’s bursts of rain, he could see men in wide-brimmed hats offshore, casting circular throw nets. A cold front had come through, and the damp air was tinged with the pleasures of autumn. Two women, their homespun skirts dragging on the wet sand, piled storm-tossed driftwood to season for cooking and heating. Marcelite’s pile was farther up the beach, stacked tall by her own hands and Raphael’s.

Seven-year-old Raphael, Marcelite’s son by a former liaison, was a good child, a help to his mother, a guardian and companion to his sister. He was as captivated by Angelle as Lucien was, and because of his enslavement to Lucien’s daughter, Raphael had taken a special place in Lucien’s heart.

Lucien scanned the beach, half expecting to find the boy hiding behind one of the woodpiles, in a game they often played. But Raphael was nowhere to be seen.

Lucien murmured polite greetings to the women before he made his way toward the village. The contrast between Chénière Caminada and Grand Isle was as wide as the pass that separated them. The large village on the chénière boasted over six hundred houses and bustled with the daily routines of its inhabitants. The fishermen and trappers of the chénière had large, close-knit families, and little contact with the outside world. Grand Isle was smaller, without a church or a resident justice of the peace. But in the summer months, Grand Isle swelled with the wealthy who escaped the punishing summers of the city and the fever that often came with the heat.

Lucien passed a small orange grove, its green-tinged fruit bending the branches into graceful arcs. Ahead, a group of frame houses set high on brick pillars lined the grassy path. As he passed, a group of women, chatting together and shelling crabs on the wide gallery of one house, called to him to get inside before it rained again. A small dog stepped into his path and sniffed his shoes, as if hoping to discover a story to share with a larger comrade asleep under the shelter of an overturned pirogue.

His destination was a leisurely fifteen-minute stroll away, past houses with vineyards and kitchen gardens. On Grand Isle, ridges of ancient, twisted oaks hindered every view, but here Lucien could see much of the village in one glance. The chénière natives had cut down their trees, to better feel the Gulf breezes on hot summer days.

He had come this way for the first time three years ago. He and a friend had sailed to the chénière from Grand Isle to buy a new fishing net as a gift for his friend’s wife. The net was to be a decoration for an autumn soiree with a seaside theme.

On arrival, they had been directed to Marcelite Cantrelle’s hut. Lucien had expected a toothless hag who would bargain ruthlessly. Instead, he had been enchanted to discover a dark-haired temptress who negotiated with such charm that by the time his friend had his net, he didn’t even realize that he had spent twice the amount he had planned.

Lucien had gone back to see Marcelite often that first summer. He had found excuses at first—another net, advice on where he might have the most success fishing, a small gift for Raphael. But by the time August arrived, he and Marcelite had come to an unspoken understanding. He visited when he could, and brought her gifts and money. In exchange, she yielded her body exclusively to him. The arrangement suited them both.

Lucien had come this way many times, but he never failed to become aroused when he knew he would soon hold Marcelite in his arms. Now he rounded a bend, and her house came into view. Constructed of driftwood and thatched with palmetto, the house was as much a creation of local custom and culture as the woman who lived in it. In the distance, Lucien could see her, waiting in the shelter of the water oak. Her shirtwaist gleamed white against the weathered brown of the palmetto. He could see her hands sweep back and forth over a fishing net, tugging, straightening, tying, but her gaze was fixed on him.

When he drew nearer, she thrust the net aside and stood, but she didn’t come to him. She wasn’t a tall woman, but with her regal carriage and the proud tilt of her head, she gave the impression of height. She didn’t straighten her skirts or allow her hands to fidget. She waited.

When they were face-to-face, he gave a little bow. “Mademoiselle.”

“M’sieu,” she replied, in the husky, staccato accent of the bayous.

“Where are the children?”

She switched to English, since she knew he preferred it. “Angelle naps inside. Raphael explores.”

“I didn’t see him on the beach.”

“He goes farther each day, looking for treasure.”

“It’s the influence of that old pirate Juan Rodriguez.”

“Raphael seeks more than gold coins. He seeks a man to talk with.”

Lucien heard no reproach in Marcelite’s voice, but he felt it nonetheless. “He could do better than old Rodriguez.”

“Juan is good to Raphael. The boy could listen to his stories forever.”

Lucien propped one hand against the tree. The pose moved him closer to her. “And what could you do forever, mon coeur? ”

She lifted her shoulders, and he watched the soft muslin collar glide along her neck. “Eat, mais oui? Sit in the shade and watch the herons catch their supper?”

“And what else?”

“I can think of nothing else I might want to do forever.” She lowered her eyes until her lashes shadowed her sun-kissed cheeks. “But perhaps I can think of something I would like to do often.”

His heart beat faster. He absorbed each detail of her, the way the light filtered through the branches and spangled her black hair, the tiny gold hoops at her earlobes, the strong curve of her nose, the sensuous curve of her lips.

Never more than at moments like this did he wish that time would cease its steadfast march and leave him alone with Marcelite, secure and content in the life they had fashioned here together. She was a mixture of the diverse nationalities that had long claimed this marshy peninsula as their own, a spicy combination of this and that, much like the gumbo she often served him. It was her differences, as much as the things that made her like every woman, that compelled him to seek her out.

“I brought you a gift.”

She lifted her eyes. “Did you? You’ve hidden it well.”

“It’s a small thing.” He slid his hand inside his coat and drew out a rectangular package. “See what you think.”

She took her time, letting her callused, capable fingers pluck at the strings with the patience and delicacy of a well-bred Creole maiden. When the gift was revealed, she stared at it without removing it from its wrappings.

“It’s a folding fan,” Lucien said. He took it and flicked it open, revealing embroidered red and gold roses on butter-soft leather. “The frame is violet wood. From France.” He swept it under her nose so that she could enjoy the scent. “For when the breeze forgets to blow.”

“And where, M’sieu, do I find the hand I need to use such a thing?”

He laughed. “Open the fan in the evenings, when your chores are finished. Sit on your little stool, right here, as darkness comes, and think of me.”

“ Mais non —it’s the mosquitoes I’ll think of.”

He folded the fan and touched her cheek with the tip. “And you won’t think of me? Not even a little?”

She examined him as a wife at the French Market might examine the day’s catch. “Why should I?”

“Marcelite…” He moved closer. “Haven’t you missed me?”

Her expression didn’t change.

“Don’t you like your gift?”

“My roof needs patching. My bed is damp. My house needs windows, a new door. I have no time to fan myself. I have no time to miss you. And now that I am with child again…”

He grabbed her arms. “What?”

“…I have less time than before.”

“You’re going to have a baby?”

“Where are your eyes?”

He let his gaze drop slowly, and he saw what he had missed. Despite her corset—which he knew she wore only for his pleasure—her waist was thicker. Her breasts, heavy and ripe, rebelled against the unaccustomed restraint and strained toward freedom.

“When?” he asked.

“In the spring. When the birds fly north.”

All the implications ran swiftly through his mind. “A son?”

She lifted her shoulders again, and this time it was not her neck, but her breasts that he watched in fascination, to see if they would gain the freedom they so longed for.

“Do you want my son, Lucien? If I have your son, what will life hold for him?”

He thought of everything he had to offer. His home, his name, the money and social position that had come to him through his marriage to Claire Friloux, his stature as an officer of Gulf Coast Steamship. All this he had to give, but none of it could he offer Marcelite’s child.

“What would you have me give him?” he asked.

“A house better than this one.” She gestured behind her, toward the hut where they had spent so many pleasurable hours. “A lugger, so that he can earn his way in the world. Later, perhaps, a place in your business.”

A son. Lucien felt his chest grow tight with longing. A son with Angelle’s black hair and laughing brown eyes. A son grown strong on salt air and hard work, a son who could never carry his name, but who would carry some essence of him into the next generations. And perhaps, if fate decreed and Antoine Friloux, Claire’s father, did not outlive Lucien, a son who might someday inherit part of his estate.

“You’ll get your house,” Lucien said. He touched her cheek again, but this time his fingertips weren’t quite steady. “I promise to send a boat in the spring filled with lumber. Can you find men to build it?”

She nodded. Her eyes softened to the black of a moonlit bayou, her gaze flicked languidly over him. “Can you find a man to live in it with me sometimes, hein? A man to teach my son of the city?”

“Our son and our daughter.”

“Maybe we should go inside and see our daughter now?”

He knew that Angelle always napped away the afternoon. They would see a child soundly sleeping, curled in a ball on a mattress stuffed with Spanish moss. From experience, he knew there would be more enticing things to view.

He followed Marcelite, then crossed the room and made the correct sounds of fatherly approval as he gazed at Angelle, asleep under the tied-back folds of a mosquito bar. His daughter lay just as he had imagined, her cottonade dress twisted high above her knees, her cheeks rosy. She clutched the doll he had bought at her birth, well used and loved now, no longer perfect like the dolls in Paris fashions that lined Aurore’s room.

Finally he turned and watched Marcelite undress.

Her shirtwaist dropped to the crude wooden bench beside her bed, followed by her homespun skirt. She faced him in garments elaborate enough to suit Claire. He had given her the pink, lace-trimmed corset at the beginning of the summer, and it still looked as new as it had on that June day. Her chemise was snow-white, but the ribbon adorning it showed signs of wear. He told himself he must remember to buy her another.

She lifted her hands and began to uncoil her hair. It fell past her shoulders, past her waist. The airy room was pleasantly cool, but he could feel himself beginning to sweat.

She came to him without a word, holding out her hand for the straw hat he had already removed. He gave it to her and watched as she placed it carefully on the bench. He spread his coat while he waited, and when she returned he lifted his arms just enough so that she could push it off his shoulders.

Skilled and sure of herself, she took her time with the rest of his clothing. His eyelids drifted shut. He could feel the harsh whisper of her hands against his chest and arms, feel the damp breeze sifting through palmetto fronds to tease the beads forming on his forehead. Her hair brushed his face, and he savored the fragrance of the pomade she made from jasmine petals.

“You’ll help me undress, too, non? ”

He opened his eyes as she curved against him, lifting her hair so that he could find the strings of her corset. His fingers were heavy and uncoordinated as he struggled with the hooks. He felt her sigh as the corset came apart, but before she could move away, he cupped her breasts in his hands and felt them rest heavily against his palms.

“And the lugger for our son?” she asked, arching back against him. “A boat of his own, one he can fish from and sail to the city?”

Her bottom danced in a slow, sensuous rhythm against him, her breasts swayed in his hands. Lucien groaned. “You’ll always have what you need, mon coeur. And so will your children. Always.”

She turned slowly, and her legs spread to cradle him. He lifted her and moved toward the bed.

“The lugger?”

“More, if I can give it,” he said as he fell with her to the mattress. “Trust me to take care of you. Trust me.”

Aurore Le Danois was hiding from her mother. One noise, one breath sucked in too deeply, the whisper of one black stocking rubbing another, and she would give herself away.

As she watched, her mother crossed the room, returning from the gallery where she had rocked unceasingly for the past hour. She passed the little table that sheltered Aurore, but she didn’t glance her way. At the doorway of her own bedroom, she raised her hand to her forehead and murmured something indistinguishable. Then she disappeared from sight.

Aurore waited, worried still. When she was certain forever had passed, she straightened one leg, biting her lip at the cramp that made it nearly impossible. When her mother didn’t reappear, she slid back against the wall and stood.

She watched her mother every day, and knew her habits. Now she would sleep restlessly, moaning sometimes, like the wind that bent the trees outside their door. But not until Ti’ Boo, Aurore’s nursemaid, came back from her daily visit to her uncle’s family would anyone think to check on Aurore. She was free, if she dared, to run outside and dance with the wind. She could play under the swiftly gathering storm clouds. And if the lightning came…

She clasped her hands. If the lightning came, she could watch it streak the dark sky and pry open the clouds. Rain would fall again, pure silver rain, as shiny as her bedroom mirror in New Orleans.

The wind beckoned. Leaves spun merrily, and many-hued petals of oleander flew light as angel wings through the air. Across the train tracks that ran in front of her, Aurore could see the empty cottages lining the other side of the clearing, and behind them, lowing mournful music, a small gathering of the sleepy-eyed cows who roamed the island.

The tracks were as empty as the houses. The tourist season was finished at the Krantz Place, and now the mule who pulled the tram car down to the beach twice each summer day was pastured behind the dining hall for a well-deserved rest.

She wished the season hadn’t ended. In summer there were other children. Under the watchful eyes of Ti’ Boo, she could romp and shout, and no one thought to tell her she must rest. No one remembered she was a frail, big-eyed child who took fever after too much excitement and sometimes couldn’t draw a proper breath. In summer she waded in the Gulf, and collected shells and driftwood. She had learned to crab this year, and to float with her feet toward the waves. Next year, Ti’ Boo promised, she would learn to swim.

She wanted to swim. She wanted to swim to the end of the Gulf, to the great water beyond, and never, never stop. She would leap high with the porpoises, and the sharks would not eat her. She was too thin, too pale, to interest sharks. Ti’ Boo had told her so at the beginning of the summer, when she was still a little girl and frightened to get wet.

A gust of wind lifted a curl off her neck and plastered it against her cheek. She giggled and held out her arms to embrace her unseen playmate. In a moment she was under the oaks, whirling to the wind’s rhythm. She scampered past the dining room. There hadn’t been a shout from her cottage or any of the others. In the summer, fifty people would have seen her and asked questions. But now, on the last day of September, not even Mr. Krantz, who was such a large man he seemed to be everywhere, had spotted her.

She wanted to see the waves once more. Her family was leaving for New Orleans on Monday. Last night, her father, Lucien, had come from New Orleans to escort them home. And though they wouldn’t go to church tomorrow, because Papa said that the chénière, where the church was located, wasn’t a suitable place for his wife and child, her mother would pray in their cottage, and Aurore would be forced to stay inside.

Aurore knew that her father wouldn’t discover her escape. Earlier in the afternoon, she had heard her mother and father arguing. Papa had wanted to go sailing, but Maman had begged him not to. M’sieu Placide Chighizola had warned her of an approaching storm, and she believed him. Hadn’t he made her stronger with his herbs and diet? How could she believe he was wrong?

Aurore’s father had scoffed, saying M’sieu Chighizola knew nothing. The old man’s cures were voodoo, no better than the gris-gris bags carried by the blacks who still believed Marie Laveau, dead though she was, would save them from some imagined curse. His prediction of a storm was nonsense. Couldn’t Claire feel the slight chill in the air? Every sailor knew a big storm never followed a cold front.

Aurore had watched her mother grow paler. Her father had grown paler, too. As she continued to plead with him, he had raised a hand, as if to strike her. Then he had turned and stalked away.

Aurore thought her father was the handsomest man in the world, but at that moment his face had been twisted into a horrifying carnival mask. She had seen his lips move under his luxuriant drooping mustache, and she had been afraid of the words he muttered.

Aurore had told Ti’ Boo about the angry words. Ti’ Boo had said that parents sometimes argued, and that once her mother had chased her father with a broom.

Aurore wished she was as old as Ti’ Boo. To be twelve, and able to leave your parents for the summer to work as a nursemaid! True, Ti’ Boo had to visit her aunt and uncle each day and submit to their questions, but Ti’ Boo’s life still seemed like freedom itself.

Someday Aurore would be twelve, too. She tried to imagine it, but she couldn’t. To be twelve. To be free!

The waves seemed to call her, with their own promises of freedom. Her mind made up, she started toward the water, following the iron rails. In the distance, she saw the roofs of the bathhouses where she and her mother changed before entering the water. Far to one side there were other bathhouses for the men. Ti’ Boo said that the men bathed without clothes, and that was why their houses were so far away. More than once, Aurore had tried to imagine such a thing.

As she reached the dunes and followed the track through them, she saw there were no fishermen today. Against the horizon, several boats with colorful triangular sails rode the angry waves, but no one fished in the surf.

She drew a sharp breath at the majesty of the waves. She was not foolish enough to get close. The waves ate into the shoreline hungrily, and they would eat a little girl, too. As she inched forward, the trunk of an ancient cypress, snatched by wind and water from some mysterious swamp, was flung against the sand, then snatched back.

She clasped her hands, as she had on the gallery. Far away, there was a silver flash, beyond the boats, beyond the waves. Light drifted down to the water between black thunderheads, as it did in the pictures of God’s son rising toward heaven. She crossed herself quickly, then clasped her hands again.

“Ro-Ro!”

She whirled at the sound of Ti’ Boo’s voice. For a moment she hoped she could hide; then she knew it was useless. She could only fling herself into the waves, and she was afraid to do that.

Ti’ Boo, her chubby face pink with exertion, came running through the dunes. “Ro-Ro!” She stopped and shook her finger at Aurore.

Aurore tried to look sorry. “I only wanted to see the beach once more, Ti’ Boo. I wasn’t going to go any closer. Truly.”

“You scared me to death. My heart, it’s stopped!” She clapped her hand over her chest.

“I didn’t think you’d be back. I thought no one—”

“No one knows but me.”

Aurore said a quick prayer of thanksgiving. “Don’t tell! Please don’t tell!”

Ti’ Boo flung her arms out dramatically. “The wind, it could carry you away!”

“I was careful.” Aurore took advantage of Ti’ Boo’s open arms to throw herself into them. She wrapped her arms around Ti’ Boo’s waist. “Don’t tell, please?”

Reluctantly Ti’ Boo stroked Aurore’s long brown curls. “Silly ti’ oiseau. I won’t tell, but if we don’t get back quick, someone’ll find us here.”

Aurore looked up at her friend. She thought Ti’ Boo beautiful, with her cheerful round face and her straight black hair braided over her ears. “I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here forever.”

“Next summer, you come back, and I’ll take care of you again.”

“I wish you would come to New Orleans.”

“ Non, my home, it’s on the b’you. What would my maman do without me, heh? Her with twelve to feed?”

Aurore brightened. “I could come with you to Bayou Lafourche. I could help.”

Ti’ Boo laughed. Aurore could feel the rumble against her ear. “And what would your maman do? Without her ti’oiseau? ”

Aurore didn’t think her mother would mind too much.

“Come on. Le’s get back before anyone knows we went.”

Aurore took one last look at the waves. She promised them she would be back next summer, too. Then she followed Ti’ Boo through the dunes.