CHAPTER SEVEN
A t home in New Orleans, Sunday was Aurore’s favorite day, the only one when she was certain to be allowed to travel through the city. Because she was usually shielded from the ever-present threat of disease, the trip was her only view of life outside her house. Invariably she and her parents attended mass at the palatial Saint Louis Cathedral; then the family called at Grand-père Antoine’s, where they were served an early dinner.
In contrast, summer Sundays at the Krantz Place were just one more day filled with wonder and possibility. Time drifted on the scented breeze of summer. Those who didn’t attend mass on the chénière might observe a quiet hour or two in the morning, but the rest of the day was filled, like any other, with languid summer pursuits.
There were often dances on Sunday night in the salon de danse, half of the dining room, converted for that purpose in the afternoon. For a child alert enough to notice, there were smoldering looks exchanged on the dance floor between the young dandies of Bachelor’s Row and the Creole beauties of Widow’s Row, temptingly housed for the summer in cottages that faced each other. Sometimes there were recitals, sometimes games.
On this Sunday, however, there were no entertainments. Dressed in lace-trimmed white piqué, Aurore knelt with her mother and prayed for most of the morning. In the afternoon, as wind blew and rain fell, she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling while her mother napped. Her grandfather had arrived unexpectedly the previous afternoon, but she had seen little of him. Her father had gone sailing again, but not before there had been another argument with her mother.
Aurore’s father had not returned by the time an early supper was served. Worried about both Lucien and the extraordinary pallor of her mother’s face, Aurore picked at her food. No one spoke, but the wind whistled loudly, and sometimes the cottage shook with its power.
She went to bed early, glad to escape the dread in her mother’s eyes. She fell asleep to the moaning of the wind. Once she awoke and thought she heard voices raised in anger, but she fell back asleep before she could tell whose they were.
The wind was much louder when Aurore felt arms lift her. It seemed she had just fallen asleep, and she didn’t want to awaken. In her dreams, the house was quiet and she was safe.
The arms lifted her higher, and a tuneless whine chased away her dreams. She opened her eyes and stared into her mother’s.
“We’re going to the house of Ti’ Boo’s uncle. But you must be quiet,” her mother whispered. “Grand-père Antoine believes we’ll be safer here. He’s asleep, and he mustn’t know.”
Aurore couldn’t remember ever being held by her mother this way. Sleepily she touched her mother’s cheek. It was wet with tears. “Ti’ Boo will help you dress,” her mother said. “But you must be quiet. Do you understand?”
“What’s that noise?” Aurore whispered.
“The wind.”
“Why are we going to Nonc Clebert’s house?”
“He’s taking Ti’ Boo, and he says we must go, too.”
Aurore wanted to prolong the moment. Her mother’s arms were wrapped around her, as if she would take good care of this daughter she so seldom noticed. Aurore looked into eyes that were the pale blue of her own, eyes that for once were focused on her. She nodded.
Her mother set Aurore on the floor. Only then did the child see Ti’ Boo across the room at the armoire, gathering clothes for her. “I’ll be back,” her mother whispered.
Aurore watched her go. Ti’ Boo came to her side, but didn’t speak. She helped Aurore dress. Aurore could feel Ti’ Boo’s impatience in the clumsiness of her movements. Then, when Aurore was ready, Ti’ Boo took her hand and led her into the main room of the cottage. Nonc Clebert was beside the door. There was no lantern, but the room was illuminated by lightning that flashed so steadily Aurore could read his worried expression.
She no longer felt brave. The courage her mother’s embrace had given her died. She began to sniff.
Ti’ Boo pinched her. She put her mouth close to Aurore’s ear. “If you cry, Ro-Ro,” she said, “I’ll pinch you harder!”
Aurore was so astonished by the pain, she forgot to sniff again. “Good,” Ti’ Boo whispered. “You must be a brave girl.”
Aurore’s mother came into the room, fastening a long cloak and bringing Aurore’s. Without a word, she wrapped and tied it tightly at Aurore’s neck. Then she took her hand.
“Where are you going?”
Aurore saw Grand-père Antoine in the doorway of the room that was usually her mother’s. Her mother’s hand trembled.
“I asked where you were going, Claire.”
Aurore looked up and saw her mother’s lips moving, but no sound emerged.
“You will go to bed,” her grandfather said.
“No.” Her mother gripped Aurore’s hand harder. “No, I will not. I’m taking Aurore to Monsieur Boudreaux’s house, Papa.”
“You will not take the child anywhere.”
“Come with us.”
“You aren’t well, Claire. You cannot make this decision.”
“I’ve made it.”
“I forbid it.”
“You cannot.” Claire clasped her daughter’s hand tighter.
“Have you even glanced outside? If you go out now, you could be killed by a falling tree. I forbid it!”
“We should have gone hours ago, it’s true. But you wouldn’t allow it. Now we must take our chances, even if you don’t approve.” Claire began to move across the room, pulling Aurore beside her. She passed as far from her father as she could.
“My house, it’s on a ridge farther from the shore,” Nonc Clebert said. He was a small man, but wiry and strong. Aurore had visited his home twice with Ti’ Boo, and she knew how quickly he could move. “It’s protected by trees. We will pass the storm safely there.” He stepped forward, as if to block Antoine from grabbing his daughter. “You would be welcome.”
“I forbid you to take them with you!”
“I’m afraid I must.”
Aurore watched her grandfather take several steps forward. Nonc Clebert turned to his side and raised a fist. Her grandfather seemed to grow smaller and older. He came no closer.
“My husband isn’t with me,” her mother said to her grandfather. “I don’t even know if he’s safe. Will you deprive me of my father, too?”
“This is folly. I’ll not leave this cottage, Claire. Krantz has assured me we’ll be safe here, and Krantz is a gentleman. If you must go, at least leave Aurore with me. She’s too small to survive out there.”
“She is my daughter. She comes with me.”
“Every moment we wait will make it more dangerous,” Nonc Clebert said.
“Aurore!” Grand-père Antoine held out his arms.
Aurore felt the pull between the two adults as surely as if each were holding a hand. Tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She looked toward the door, where Ti’ Boo stood, and saw sympathy in her eyes. Then Ti’ Boo held out her arms. Aurore wrenched herself away from her mother and flew to her friend.
“Papa, please come,” her mother begged. “Please!”
“You are as crazy as your husband believes,” he said sternly, “and as bad a mother. Now I understand why God does not send you more children!”
Aurore’s mother made a sound like the moan of the wind. Then, wrapping her cloak tightly around her, she joined her daughter. Nonc Clebert turned and opened the door.
Then they were inside the storm.
Lucien had convinced himself that the storm, though fierce, would blow over quickly. Although the water was rising steadily, he still refused to consider that he might be in danger. But by the time Marcelite returned to the front of the house, the wind had strengthened, too. Carrying the lantern in one hand and lifting her wet skirts with the other, she joined him at the window overlooking the gallery. “It’s growing worse.”
“Nonsense. You’re just frightened of storms. And who could blame you, living as you do?”
She set the lantern down. “But now, with your help, all that will change.”
He didn’t touch her. “When I go home after the storm, I won’t be back again.” He listened to her sharp indrawn breath. Even now, with an opportunity to tell the truth, Lucien couldn’t bring himself to admit that his father-in-law had given him an ultimatum. “Does that surprise you? Haven’t you always known that when I realized what race your son was, I would leave you?”
“My son is a small boy, a good boy. There’s nothing else to know.”
“Your son is a quadroon! His father was a slave. His mother is a whore!”
She faced him. “And what does that make you, Lucien? You’ve fathered two children by this whore, have you not?”
He struck her shoulder, and she staggered backward before he hauled her closer again and shook her. Despair welled inside him when he realized he didn’t want to let her go, even though she had denied nothing. Even though his future depended on it.
“I can have nothing more to do with you! Don’t you understand?” he shouted. The words were for both of them.
She struck at his arms until he shoved her away, and she fell against the windowsill. “Do you think I’ll let you forget us so easily? I can’t raise your children alone! We struggle for every mouthful of food. We shiver in the winter and suffer storms in the summer! To feed your daughter I sell your little trinkets! But in the spring I’ll have another child to consider. I must have your help, and if you don’t give it willingly, I’ll be forced to take it from you!”
“And how will you go about that?”
“I’ll go to New Orleans, and I’ll tell everyone I see that Lucien Le Danois is the father of my children, a father who allows them to starve!”
He felt the color drain from his cheeks. “You wouldn’t!”
“Non? Don’t you think so? I have nothing but my children. I am dead to my family. I have no place here. I will go to New Orleans, and every day you will find me outside your fine mansion on Esplanade. Your wife and I will know each other well!”
He couldn’t remember ever telling her where he lived. Yet she knew. She knew because she must have considered this possibility even before his announcement. He tried to curb his panic. “I never thought to leave you without money. I’ll give you money. Some now, some later. You can find a better house. You won’t have to suffer from storms like this one.”
“Some now, some later?” She waved her hands to erase his words. “Do you think to buy me off so cheaply? A little here, a little there? Like an old family servant?”
“It’s more than you deserve!”
“Perhaps so, but it is not what your children deserve, and for them, I will go to New Orleans!”
He saw his future in the unveiled fury in her eyes. He saw a life without stature, without money or any of the comforts it bought. He saw all the doors of the city closed tightly in his face. And, standing in the only door still open to him, he saw a woman who had not loved him enough to let him go.
“What must I pay for your silence?”
She was breathing fast, as if their fight had diminished the air in the room. She seemed to be planning as she spoke. “I no longer want to live at the mercy of every puff of wind. I want to take the children to New Orleans. I want money to take care of them and, later, enough to teach them a trade.” She paused. “We would be near. You would always be welcome.”
None of it was possible, yet he saw nothing to gain by telling her so. He couldn’t give up all he possessed, and he knew that was exactly what he would be doing if he gave her what she demanded. Antoine would discover the truth before she and the children made the journey to the city.
“The storm makes us say these things.” He moved closer to the window. “We’re both uneasy. This isn’t the time to talk.”
“There is nothing more to say.”
“Be reasonable, mon coeur, you’re a woman without friends or funds. You can do nothing without my help.”
“For years I’ve saved every bit of money I could. Someone will take me to New Orleans for what I can offer. If you think to leave after the storm and never see me again, you’re mistaken. When the storm ends, I’ll no longer have a home. I’ll find a new one. Perhaps on Esplanade Avenue?”
“How can you threaten me, after all I’ve been to you?”
“The gull protects her nestlings from the hawk.”
He saw her desperation. She would not be silenced by promises. In his world, she was a woman of no consequence, yet she was about to ruin his life.
A crash outside made her turn. She peered into the darkness. Lucien was grateful for the interruption. “What was that?”
“Someone’s coming up the steps.” She pointed.
“The LeBlancs?”
“I don’t know.”
He moved to one side to improve his view. More than half a dozen figures were struggling through the rain. In a flash of lightning he saw one stagger, blown to the opposite railing by the wind. An arm shot out to help; then the sky went dark.
Marcelite disappeared into the back of the house. She was returning with towels when the door flew open and a man appeared.
“Someone’s already here!” he shouted behind him.
In moments, the entry was filled with people. Marcelite stepped forward as if the house belonged to her and helped the arrivals strip off their wet outer clothing and dry themselves. Lucien counted three men, two women and four children.
One of the women was sobbing. “Our house is gone,” she said between sobs. “Everything is lost.”
Lucien looked at the faces of the men, expecting to find that this was an exaggeration. Instead, her words were confirmed. “Your house is gone?”
One of the men nodded. “Collapsed.”
“Is anyone hurt?” Marcelite asked.
A little girl extended an arm, as if to show an injury. One of the women snatched her from Marcelite’s grasp, but Marcelite stepped forward so that the woman was forced to meet her eyes. “We’re all neighbors, are we not? Especially now.”
“Let her look,” one of the men said.
The woman ignored him and held tightly to the child, but when Marcelite continued to wait, she finally dropped her hands. Marcelite murmured soothing words to the little girl as she wrapped a towel around her arm.
“How did you come here?” The first man to enter the room addressed himself to Lucien.
He explained. “I hope Monsieur LeBlanc will understand.”
The man shrugged. “And if he doesn’t? What’s one man’s fury next to that of the storm?”
“Was your house near the beach?”
“Not as near as some. And I built it myself. I bolted it into the ground!”
“Surely the worst will be over soon. Enough of your house may be standing so you can rebuild.”
“Even now my house is driftwood for people on Grand Isle to pick off the beach. We thought to tow my boat to the trees in Leopold Perrin’s yard, but the water swirled too quickly, and the wind was too strong. The storm isn’t dying, mon ami. It’s just playing with us.”
Lucien glanced out the window. “No. Impossible.”
“There was another storm.” One of the other men joined them. He was old, the patriarch of the family, Lucien guessed, and his voice quavered from age and fatigue. “I was young. The winds raged and the water rose, but the worst of it passed over us here. Then, the next day and the next, when the skies were clear and the wind friendly, we saw bodies washing ashore, and pieces of houses. They were from L’Isle Dernière.”
The younger man had obviously heard the story many times before. He seemed resigned. “If we’re lucky, this one will turn that way, too. But no one lives on L’Isle Dernière now. If the storm is hungry for more than sand and palmetto, she’ll come ashore here.”
“She is coming,” the old man said.
“How high has the water risen?” Lucien asked.
“It was up to the fourth step when we got here. It will be higher now. It’s rising quickly.”
“Someone else is here.” One of the women pulled the door open, and more people entered on a blast of wind-driven rain. The two men left to talk to the newcomers. Marcelite passed close enough for Lucien to grab her arm.
“These men think the storm will worsen,” he said.
“Will we be safe here?”
He thought about the old man’s story, and the others he had heard before. Once, L’Isle Dernière had been a summer resort community, like Grand Isle. A dance had been held in the hotel ballroom during the storm, and the water had swept inside and carried the dancers away. Could he really be in danger? Had he been so sure of what he knew that he had refused to see the truth?
“There won’t be a better opportunity to go somewhere else,” she said. “If we’re not safe here, we must leave now.”
The door crashed open, and two more people entered. “These men know the chénière, and this is the house they’ve chosen,” Lucien said. “What do I know that they don’t?”
“Then I’m going to bring the children out here.”
“No. Let them sleep.”
Marcelite shrugged off his hand. “I want them with me.”
The door slammed again, and a man entered carrying a young woman in his arms. The voices in the room fell silent until one of the men who was already inside took the woman from him. Everyone crowded around as he laid her on the floor.
Lucien saw that her face was as pale as death. An old woman, still wet and trembling herself, laid her head on the young woman’s chest and pronounced her alive. Immediately others began to work on her, turning her on one side and pounding the water from her lungs. Someone brought a quilt.
Lucien approached the man who had carried her this far. His eyes were fixed on the scene before them. “How did it happen?”
For a moment, the young man seemed unable to speak. Other men gathered around, and this seemed to steady him. “Sophia fell. She was carrying little Rosina. They…slid under the water. When they sur—surfaced, they were far apart. I could only reach for one of them.”
The house shook so hard that Lucien could feel the floor heave under his feet. The other men charged into action. One led the man who had just told his story to a chair, where he put his head in his hands and sobbed. Another lifted Sophia off the floor and carried her, wrapped in the quilt, to a rug in the parlor, where the women continued to tend her. Two others began to dismantle a table and fasten the boards over the window. Lucien watched his view of the world disappear.
The two men left to cover the few other windows in the house. Everyone seemed to have a mission, but Lucien was left alone. He couldn’t see outside, but he could feel wind and water shake the house. He wondered how high the water had risen now.
Would the skiff be safe? It must already be in pieces. And if it was, he would have no escape if this house was destroyed. He wondered if he should go outside and secure it, perhaps even bring it up to the gallery. If the water rose that high, launching it would be the small matter of one push.
At the front door, he put on his overcoat, although as wet as it was, it provided no comfort. He explained his intention to one of the other men, who told him he was a fool to go back outside.
On the gallery, he realized the man was right. Before he could cross to the railing, the wind threw him against the front of the house. He dropped to his knees and crawled the distance, grabbing the railing to look below. The water was still rising. Had the house not been so high, it would have flooded already. The current was swift, and waves crashed in assault.
He saw the trunks of trees wash past, and something that looked like the section of a roof. One flash of lightning revealed the horns of a bull drowned in the rushing water. In the distance he thought he heard screaming over the roar of the wind. But one sound was unmistakable. The church bell pealed loudly and continuously, as if it were calling the people of Chénière Caminada to their own funeral mass.
Horrified, he dragged himself to the top step to look for the skiff. He spotted it during the next flash of light. The current had pinned it against a massive post, where it was temporarily protected. But any change in the wind could destroy it. He weighed his safety against that of the boat. Without the skiff, he might be helpless.
Helpless! He was filled with rage that his life was no longer his own. Marcelite and Antoine controlled his destiny. And now the storm was taking what was left of his future and twisting it to suit some demonic fancy.
Rage carried him into the water. Clinging to the porch railing, he lowered himself step by step until his feet touched the ground. The water was deeper than his knees, and miserably cold. Objects swirled in its depths. A tree eddied toward him, and he dived beneath it so that it would not pin him against a pillar. He surfaced and discovered that the current had already carried him beyond the skiff. He was completely exhausted by the time he fought his way back. He threw his arms over the stern and clung there, floating until he had regained some strength.
He thought he could feel the water rising beneath him. How could it rise so quickly? What power did this storm possess that it could turn the tide and flood the land in hours?
For the first time, he thought about Claire and Aurore. Was the storm as bad on Grand Isle? The cottage where his family was staying was an old slave cabin, never fortified against this kind of wind. He and Claire had fought about Chighizola’s prophecy. Had she found the courage to seek stronger shelter?
Something brushed against his chest, something soft and yielding. Horror gripped him. He couldn’t force himself to investigate. He prayed the object would wash beyond him, but whatever it was wedged itself between his arm and the skiff. He tried to make his way around the boat, but the object seemed to follow him. Finally, he forced himself to look down. The body of a child—a girl, he guessed from the length of her hair—had snagged against the hull. Lightning flashed, and he could see her sightless eyes staring at him. Bile rose in his throat. He thrust himself away from the boat, and in seconds the current had ripped her loose and carried her away.
He struggled for a deep breath, but water filled his lungs. He floundered as more water closed over him, but as his panic grew, his hands closed on the skiff once more. He inched his way to the bow to begin the fight to get the skiff to the gallery.
The water had risen higher by the time he made his way back inside. A large family of refugees had found their way to the house. There were now twenty-five people inside.
After his immersion in the storm, the house seemed almost silent. Lucien scanned the room to locate Marcelite and the children, and found them in a corner. He took Angelle from her mother so that he could rock her against his chest. She was warm, and her eyes stared curiously into his. He saw only the dead child by the boat. When he could look at her no longer, he averted his eyes. Raphael was watching him.
He could feel nothing for the boy now except pity. He switched his gaze to Marcelite and acknowledged for the first time the strength that had helped her survive her disgrace. She would never give up easily. Tonight she would struggle for her family’s survival. She would struggle until death.
She rose. “I’ll get you some coffee. I’ve been saving a cup for you.”
He stared after her. She was as much a part of him as the dreams he had each night. How could he have believed he could walk away? He closed his eyes, and the dead child stared back at him.