Iron Lace #1

CHAPTER SIX

T he church of Notre-Dame de Lourdes was Chénière Caminada’s proudest possession, and the church’s crowning glory was the massive silver bell that tolled the Angelus three times each day and called them to mass. On Sunday, Raphael counted its melodious notes. To his ears, there was no sweeter music.

His mother had told him the story of the bell. Years before, the people of the chénière had stopped their fishing, stopped their hunting and net-making, to build a church for God. And such a church it was. Le bon Dieu had looked down with favor, but he had been saddened that no bell rang out to the heavens, praising his name. So the priest had given a silver plate with his family coat of arms on it to be melted down, and the good people of the village had responded by donating all their gold and silver. In the dark of night, neighbor had watched neighbor steal outside on mysterious errands, and in the morning, shining doubloons and pirate treasure had been added to the collection.

When enough had been gathered, all the precious metal had been taken far away to be cast, and at last the bell had been lifted to the belfry to send its song over the peninsula.

Now the bell told Raphael that mass would begin soon. As always, his family would slip inside after the processional and leave before the benediction. Raphael did not understand why they didn’t stay longer; he only knew that, although his mother did not make or mend nets on Sunday, it was a day much like others for her. They had no family to visit; they did not seek out friends. Sometimes they took walks along the beach, but they were invariably alone, unless M’sieu Lucien was visiting.

As always, the mass had begun when they took seats on the last bench. Raphael only half listened to the familiar words. Father Grimaud was a kind man who had once given him a piece of sugarcane. His voice was deep and resonant, and Raphael was sure that God himself spoke with less power. He watched as the few others who had ventured out moved forward to take communion, but neither he nor his mother followed their path.

When they left, the wind was blowing harder, and rain splashed at their feet. Raphael had not spoken to his mother of Juan’s warning. Now he was torn between what Juan and M’sieu Lucien had told him. Despite his mother’s cloak and the thin overcoat she had made him wear, they were quickly soaked. The wind plucked his mother’s hair from the pins that bound it, sending it streaming wildly behind her.

At home, she sliced corn bread to dunk in thick cane syrup. They sat at the table and ate in silence, listening to the wind. Finally Raphael could be silent no more.

“Juan says a big win’ comes, bigger than this. He says we can’t stay here when it does.”

His mother poured herself some of the strong black coffee she had brewed as the children ate. “Does he say when?”

“ Non. But he says we must go to Picciola’s store. Then M’sieu Lucien said I wasn’t to worry you with Juan’s stories.”

“And did M’sieu Lucien think the wind would not worry me?” Marcelite wrapped her fingers around her cup for warmth.

Angelle stretched out her arms to Raphael, and he pulled her on his lap. She took the opportunity to finish off the rest of his syrup with the last crumbs of her corn bread. Her solid weight on his lap made him feel grown-up. He liked the scent of her curls, the touch of her chubby fingers against his cheek. Someday Angelle would be old enough to run as far as he did, and no one would tell her that she couldn’t play with him. Already, when he told her about pirates and treasure chests, she listened attentively.

“Many would go to Picciola’s,” Marcelite said. “There would not be room for everyone.”

“Angelle and I are small.”

Marcelite didn’t reply.

Raphael set Angelle on the floor when she began to squirm. She went to the driest corner of the hut to play with a toy that M’sieu Lucien had given her. He drank the small cup of milk his mother had poured him and waited.

“Father Grimaud would not turn us away,” Marcelite said at last.

Raphael thought doubtfully of the long walk to the church. But the church was high off the ground, and much care had gone into building it. Surely, with God’s help, it would stand.

Marcelite looked up at him and gave him one of her rare smiles. “You are a child, Raphael. You should not worry about these things.” She held out her arms.

Shyly he circled the table and let her pull him to her. She smelled like jasmine and autumn rain. He laid his head against her breasts and vowed that even if he was a child, if the big wind came, he would get his mother and Angelle to safety.

The same dog who had sniffed Lucien’s shoes yesterday crossed the path in front of him today. Tail tucked between its legs, it slunk toward a house with shuttered windows and began to howl.

Sailing to the chénière had been so difficult that now it was nearly three o’clock. As Lucien dragged his skiff to shore, he had noticed little that was unusual. The ebb tide had left small sea creatures and shells stranded in isolated pools, and a group of older children scavenged among them.

But as he neared the village, the sights no longer seemed as innocent. At every house he passed, there were women gathering everything they could carry and taking it inside. Even small children struggled under the burden of rubble that had once littered their yards. The men were outside, too, working to secure boats or make hasty repairs to houses, despite the fact that game birds often gathered on the ridges during storms and hunting on a day like this one would be a pleasure.

He hailed a young man with a cow tied to the end of a tattered rope. “What is everyone so worried about?” Thunder smothered his words, and he tried again, speaking slowly, since his own French differed so much from the patois spoken on the chénière.

The young man frowned, as if he resented having to point out the obvious. “There’s a storm coming.”

“But it’s already October, and there’s a low tide. The storm won’t be a large one.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Then you believe differently?”

“God himself knows what kind of storm it will be. Me, I think I’ll give him some help saving my cows.”

Lucien thought of his return trip to Grand Isle. What if the man was right and the storm was a particularly bad one? What would Antoine do if he wasn’t able to return in time for supper? The thought chilled him more than the rain seeping through his overcoat.

He moved faster along the path to Marcelite’s and wondered how she would fare if the winds were high. Her house might be damaged, perhaps beyond repair. He thought of Angelle and realized she would suffer if the house leaked badly. But she was a strong child, and one drenching wouldn’t harm her.

What would it do to her mother?

As he sailed from Grand Isle, he had considered and reconsidered how he would tell Marcelite that he was never coming back. She was not a submissive woman, nor a stupid one. Most of the people on the chénière had little or no education, but Marcelite spoke both French and English and read from her own prayer book. She was entirely capable of finding her way to New Orleans and confronting him with his bastard children.

He had promised her a house in the spring, and if she had a son, there was to be a lugger for him, as well. She would still demand these things, or more. And if Antoine discovered that Marcelite was still in Lucien’s life, he would destroy him. Lucien had brought little more than a good name to his marriage. His finances were so intertwined with his father-in-law’s that Antoine had ultimate control over them.

Despite the hours of pleasure she had given him, Lucien rued the day he had met Marcelite. The desire, the affection, he felt for her was nothing compared to the threat of losing everything that made him the man he was. Perhaps sometimes in New Orleans he had yearned for the simplicity, the warmth, of his life on the chénière, but never had he considered abandoning all that he possessed to live with Marcelite.

Now an answer to his troubles was thundering on the horizon. It was possible that the storm, if fierce enough, could work to his advantage. If she was frightened, Marcelite might realize how completely she was at the mercy of the elements. Anything he offered her afterward might seem a lavish gift.

For the first time since his talk with Antoine, he felt a ray of hope. The worsening storm could be an ally. He resolved not to tell her the purpose of his visit until the storm’s end. Choosing the right moment could make the difference between success and failure, and failure was out of the question.

As he approached the hut, he noted a crazy quilt of driftwood patching the exterior. He imagined Marcelite, with Raphael’s help, standing on a chair in the rain, trying to make the house watertight. It seemed she had already gotten a taste of what might await her when the storm expanded.

He paused at the door and tried to shake some of the rain from his overcoat and shoes, but it was useless.

“Marcelite!” He pushed the door open and peered inside. A lantern flickered, and he saw Marcelite and the two children across the room. He entered, pulling the door closed behind him.

“Lucien!” She leaped from her chair and crossed the room in three steps. He opened his arms and enfolded her. The children stared at him.

She spoke in French, not even attempting the English that she knew he preferred. “I thought you were back in New Orleans.”

“I leave tomorrow. I hadn’t intended to come here today, but when I saw the storm approaching…” He let his voice trail away.

She circled his waist and held him tighter. He felt her gratitude, and was distantly ashamed because of it. “You’ll stay with us, then?” she asked.

“Until the storm is over.”

“A storm killed my father. He and my uncles were out on the water. A storm blew up. Weeks later the boat drifted in to shore, full of rotten fish, fish you could smell across the whole chénière, but there were no men.” She shuddered.

She had never told him anything about her past. Lucien held her and realized how frightened she must be.

Raphael got up from the bed where he and Angelle had been sitting. “M’sieu Lucien, if the storm gets much worse, we will go to the church.”

“Don’t be foolish! Soon the lightning and thunder will be closer. We’ll be safer if we don’t go anywhere. We’ll do what we can to make the house tight, and ride out the storm here.”

“But the wind!”

Lucien stared at Raphael. He saw that the boy’s black curls weren’t the innocent, silky curls of childhood; his skin wasn’t brown from hours in the coastal sun. And his nose—how could Lucien not have seen how much stronger and broader it was than Marcelite’s?

By all that was holy, the child had been like a son to him. How could he not have seen that Raphael was a quadroon? The signs of his mixed blood had been there all along, but Lucien had been too blinded by his infatuation with Marcelite.

He knew the penalties for such an error of judgment. Society sternly forbade any racial mixing. The color lines could not be breached, yet Marcelite had breached them in the most heinous of ways. And Lucien had lain with her repeatedly, indulged himself in her soft flesh whenever he could, without suspecting that another man to do so had been born a slave.

Now outrage filled him. “Am I to be ordered about by a child?”

Marcelite turned to her son and spoke so rapidly that Lucien missed much of what she said. But the essence of her message was clear when Raphael nodded reluctantly. The boy did not take his eyes off Lucien, however. Not for one second.

Marcelite turned back to Lucien. “He only tries to be of help.”

“Make us coffee and something to eat. I’ll see what needs to be done outside.”

“Raphael can assist.”

Lucien considered. The image of the boy wet and cold in the rain pleased him. “Yes, that would be good.”

She spoke to Raphael again, but he refused to move.

“Raphael, if you want to help keep your mother and sister safe, then you’ll come with me,” Lucien said. He walked toward the doorway, then glanced behind him. “If you don’t care…”

The child slumped at Lucien’s words. Then Raphael followed Lucien out the door.

Raphael watched his mother pour Lucien another cup of coffee. He was chilled and hungry, but he knew that as long as M’sieu Lucien remained with them, his mother would tend to his needs first. Only yesterday he had wished that Lucien was his father, too. Now he was no longer certain. Was his own father watching from heaven, saddened?

Raphael pondered this as his mother bent and whispered something in Lucien’s ear. Outside, the wind whistled louder, as if to keep Raphael from hearing what his mother said.

Angelle put her doll on his lap. It gazed blindly up at him, like old Leopold Perrin, who as a child had lost his sight during a fever. The doll’s blue dress was tattered, but the silk was still finer than anything Raphael had seen. Once his mother had told him that in New Orleans some ladies wore nothing but silk, and some men, like M’sieu Lucien, rode everywhere in carriages pulled by shining, prancing horses.

Raphael didn’t think that Lucien really wanted to be here. Usually he teased Raphael’s mother and laughed with her. Today he sat quietly, as if he could think of nothing to laugh about. He had not lifted Angelle to his lap. He had not ruffled Raphael’s curls or asked if he had dug for any pirate treasure.

Raphael didn’t think he would have told him about Juan’s mysterious instructions, even if he had been asked. Although Raphael didn’t understand exactly why Juan had taken him into the swamp, he did know their trip was to remain a secret.

His mother ladled out two more bowls of crab gumbo and called the children to the table. Lucien stood and crossed the room as they sat down. He didn’t open the door, but he peered through a crack next to the frame.

“The rain’s coming down harder.”

“Then come away from there,” Marcelite said.

Raphael took his first spoonful of the gumbo. Usually it was thick with crab and okra and spicy enough to warm the coldest belly. Today his mother’s thoughts had been elsewhere.

“Storms seem bigger here, don’t they?” Lucien asked. “Like God’s judgment. I think I would be frightened of them if I lived this close to the water.”

“Then be happy you do not.” Raphael’s mother sliced hunks of bread for both children and set it in front of them.

“And helpless. I think I would feel helpless, too.”

“There is only so much a person can do anywhere.”

“Still, it’s tempting fate, isn’t it, to live where the wind can blow you away?”

Raphael stopped eating and watched his mother, but she didn’t answer. She brushed the bread crumbs into her hand to store them in a can. Her hand did not seem steady to Raphael, and her lips were drawn in a straight line.

“We should go to the church,” Raphael said.

Lucien turned away from the door. “What would you know about it?”

Raphael caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head. He clamped his lips shut.

“You are nothing but a child,” Lucien continued. “A child who’s been too seldom disciplined.”

“Raphael is a good boy,” his mother said.

“You’ve said little about his father.” Lucien started toward the table. “Was his father stubborn, too?”

Marcelite’s eyes flicked to her son. “His father was many things.”

“Would you say he was stubborn?”

“I would not have called him that.”

“And what would you have called him?”

“Proud,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Proud and brave, just as his son will be.”

“Does your son have reason to be proud?”

“We’ll speak of this no more.”

“There are many things of which we haven’t spoken.” Lucien looked down at Raphael. “The boy’s father is only one.”

Whimpering, Angelle got down from her chair, clearly upset by the tone of their voices. The whimpering stopped when her bare feet touched the floor. She looked up at Raphael, her expression one of surprise. Then she sat on the planks of driftwood covered by woven palmetto mats and began to slide her hands back and forth.

Raphael looked down and saw nothing. He jumped from his chair and stood beside her. “The floor is wet,” he said.

“It should be, with all the holes in this miserable place.” Lucien stooped and felt the floor.

Marcelite stooped, too. “It’s never been this wet. This is more than rain from the roof.”

“It’s blowing in the sides, too.”

“It’s coming in under the door.” Raphael pointed. “Look.”

“Raphael’s right,” his mother said. She straightened, then started for the door. “It’s washing in underneath. What can this mean, Lucien?”

He muttered a curse in English. Raphael stepped far to one side, so as not to get in Lucien’s way as he passed. At the door, Lucien stood behind Marcelite and peered outside. They were both silent for a moment. Unconcerned, Angelle began to dance her doll along the wet palmetto mat.

“The ground’s covered with water,” Marcelite said. “Covered, Lucien. I’ve never seen it like this.”

“The rain’s falling fast. The ground can’t take it all in. When the rain slackens, the water will run off.”

“It’s never collected this way before.”

“Every storm is different.”

“Mais oui, and some are very big.” Marcelite moved away from him and felt along the floor. Then she lifted a wet finger to her mouth and touched the tip with her tongue. “It tastes of salt!”

Lucien stared at her for a moment, then bent to perform the same act. When he straightened, his expression frightened Raphael. “Fetch my overcoat.”

Marcelite hurried to the wooden peg and took it down. He snatched it away. “Stand away from the door,” he said. “Raphael, help your mother close this when I’m gone.”

Water poured into the room when he opened the door. He disappeared into the rain, and Marcelite and Raphael struggled to shut it behind him. Marcelite fastened it with a rope and peg.

“Light the candles on the shrine,” Marcelite told Raphael. “Hurry. We must say a last prayer.”

“Maman, the church—”

“It’s already too late to travel that far. We’ll have to find another refuge. But we must say our prayers first. Then we’ll gather what we can.” She spoke quietly, and he knew she was trying not to frighten Angelle. “You must be brave.”

“Like my father?”

She brushed the back of her hand against his cheek. “There are many things I’ve never told you.”

“Juan said my father was a good man.”

“He was.”

Raphael wanted to ask more, but his mother was already moving past him. “Light the candles,” she repeated. “There will be time to talk when we’re safe and the storm is over.”

They were finished with their prayers and their packing by the time Lucien returned. The children were dressed in their wet outerwear, and Marcelite had already tied Raphael’s small bundle to his back. When she heard Lucien’s summons at the door, she unfastened the peg. He brought the storm in with him.

“The tide’s turned. I’ve brought my skiff. We’re not safe here. There are waves crashing over a good part of the peninsula. I lost my footing on the beach and almost got dragged under. I saw a dog swept out. Some boat sheds are gone.”

“Where shall we go?”

“I passed a house set back from the shore. No one answered when I knocked.” He described the location of the house.

Marcelite nodded. “It belongs to Julien LeBlanc and his son. They’re probably at the oyster grounds.”

“I don’t want to try to go farther with the children. We’ll go there. I’m certain they’d give us shelter if they were home.”

“I’m not so certain.”

“Enough! That doesn’t matter now.”

“ Non. You’re right.” Marcelite went to the bed and lifted her bundle to her back, slipping her arms through two knots tied for that purpose. She reached for her cloak and fastened it, then stooped and held her arms open for Angelle.

“You and Angelle can ride in the skiff. Raphael and I will tow, unless it grows too deep for him.”

“That deep?”

“It grows deeper as we talk!”

Marcelite clasped Angelle to her and motioned for Raphael to join them. He passed the shrine and paused to blow out the candles, but the wind blowing through the cracks had done it already. He made the sign of the cross before he went to his mother’s side.

The world outside was one he’d never seen. The sky was dark, but flashes of lightning appeared one after the other, like sparks trailing from a divine lantern. The wind threw him forward, and only his mother’s arm stopped him from landing in water up to his knees. Objects sailed by, dried branches of palmetto, a torn patch of sail. Over the thunder and the moaning of the wind he heard the sickly lowing of the island’s cattle.

He took tiny steps toward the skiff that Lucien had guided almost to their door. His hand closed around the rope tied to the bow, and he no longer felt his mother’s grip on his shoulder. He turned and watched as Lucien helped her into the boat. She grasped Angelle and wrapped her cloak around them both. Immediately the wind ripped it open.

Raphael held tightly to the rope and waited for Lucien. He heard a roar from the direction of the beach, and he imagined waves as tall as trees. They would be fierce, those waves, fierce enough to slam against his house and turn it back into driftwood. What had the people of the chénière done to anger the waves?

He felt a tug on the rope and saw that M’sieu Lucien had joined him. He wished they were already at Julien LeBlanc’s.

They began to move. At first he stumbled frequently, but after a while he grew accustomed to the shoving wind and sucking water. He held tight to the rope until his hand cramped in place. As they made their way inland, the water was as deep as it had been at his house. He looked back once, but the rain was a solid curtain. He couldn’t even see his mother’s face.

There were others out in the storm. Men passed, towing boats larger than the skiff. At one house, two men were handing children into the arms of their mothers, who were already on board a large lugger. Raphael tried to imagine riding out the storm in the bowels of the fishing boat. He envied the children.

Someone shouted that Picciola’s store would be a good place to wait out the storm, but Lucien didn’t change course. They moved on, beyond the lugger, beyond houses, beyond trees bending low in the wind’s path. A new sound rang out over the peninsula. The church bell was tolling erratically, as if it were being tossed slowly back and forth by the storm. “La cloche! La cloche!” he cried. But if M’sieu Lucien heard, he didn’t answer.

Shivering with every step, he began to wish he could ride in the skiff. He had lost his bearings, and when they finally stopped in front of another house, he was surprised to realize that this was their destination. Water lapped at the pillars, but the rest appeared untouched. This house would ride the winds and laugh at the rain. Raphael said a quick prayer of thanksgiving.

Lucien dragged the skiff to the steps. The water wasn’t as high here, and he waited until Marcelite and Angelle had climbed out before he pulled the boat to the railing and tied it there.

Marcelite helped both children up to the gallery, but the roof was little protection. The rain seemed to be falling from all sides. Angelle was crying. Raphael wanted to tell her that they were safe now, but he wasn’t sure she would hear him over the storm. When Lucien joined them, he pounded on the front door. No one answered.

“We’ll have to go in anyway!” he shouted.

Marcelite clasped Angelle tighter. “They aren’t here. Their canot ’s not in its place.”

“Then we’ll keep the house safe for them and pray they’re out of the storm somewhere else.”

In seconds, they were inside. For Raphael, the house was as much a surprise as the sudden end to the battering of rain and wind. The walls were as white inside as out, with ceilings that stretched high above even Lucien’s head. There were mats on the floor made of cloth, and chairs covered with cloth, too. He wanted to run through the house and explore, but his mother took his arm. “I’ll find something to dry us with. You take care of Angelle.”

He slipped off his coat and the bundle tied to his back. Angelle wrapped her arms around him, and he patted her wet curls and whispered that she was safe now.

M’sieu Lucien lit a lantern that hung by the door; then he disappeared into the next room as Raphael’s mother returned. She handed him a square of rough linen and used another to dry Angelle.

“We’ve chosen a good place,” Lucien called from the back of the house. “This is well constructed, and there aren’t many windows.”

Angelle clung to her mother and sobbed. Marcelite lifted her and swayed gently back and forth until Lucien returned. “There’s a bed in the back where the children can sleep,” he said. “I left the lantern burning there.”

“Angelle is exhausted.” Marcelite held her closer.

Raphael protested. He wasn’t tired; he wanted to stay awake and watch the storm. Now that he was no longer in it, it seemed the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

Lucien turned his back on them. “You will go to bed.”

Marcelite put her hand on Raphael’s shoulder. He knew what the hand was telling him, but he didn’t want to give in so easily. “But I could help, Maman. I could watch to see if the water rises.”

“You will watch from outside if you don’t do as I say,” Lucien said.

“You’re not my father!”

Lucien whirled, and Raphael could see he was furious. “Of that, at least, I’m certain! It’s not my blood that’s made you what you are.”

Marcelite clenched Raphael’s shoulder and pulled him toward the back of the house. “Raphael, you’ll go to bed. Someone must stay with Angelle, or she’ll be frightened.”

Raphael wanted to shout that he was glad now that M’sieu Lucien wasn’t his father, but his courage deserted him. If he fought with Lucien, it would hurt his mother.

There was a bed finer than any he had ever seen in one of the two back rooms. Marcelite set Angelle on it and covered her with a quilt that had been folded neatly at the foot. Reluctantly Raphael climbed up and lay beside her, and Marcelite arranged the quilt to cover him, too.

“Rest now.”

“When will the storm end?” he asked.

“Soon.”

“Will our house still be there tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Pray that it will be.”

“Why is M’sieu Lucien so angry with me today?”

Marcelite was silent.

“Maman?”

“M’sieu Lucien is worried about the storm. It only seems he is angry.”

Raphael didn’t believe her, but he couldn’t tell her so.

“Take care of Angelle,” she said. “Keep her warm.” She leaned down and kissed his forehead, then she kissed Angelle, who was already sleeping. “In the morning the sun will be shining.”

Outside the wind screamed, and through the window Raphael watched the skeletal branches of a chinaball tree claw the sky. He tried to imagine sunshine, but when his mother finally left and took the lantern, it was the storm he saw. Even when his eyes were closed.