Crescent City Part 9

"We can fit three hundred in here at home with no trouble at all," Ferdinand said. "We'll need that many. I'm on so many boards and they'll all expect an invitation. Let's see, there's the City Bank, the New Orleans Gaslight and Banking Company, the board of the Western Marine and Fire Insurance Company, and the Chamber of Commerce." His cheeks were pink with antic.i.p.ation.

Suddenly Miriam had become of chief importance. Before, she had been merely the daughter of the house, cherished and admonished; now she was an object of respect and envy. First among her friends at school to be married, chosen by none other than Eugene Mendes to be his wife.

Even f.a.n.n.y was tremendously affected. She was to go along into the new life as a wedding gift to Miriam with the dowry, the pearls, and the silver service. Excited and proud, she fluttered through the house, running up and down stairs as gifts arrived. With as much delight as though they were her own, she sorted through the Dresden shepherdesses, embroidered linens, lace mantillas, and silver trays.

Eulalie alone remained apart. She sniffed. "You could put enough punch in that bowl for an army. And so ornate. Those people always manage to overdo things."

"What people?" Miriam asked, although she knew quite well.

"Rosa and Henry de Rivera-isn't that theirs?"

"No." Miriam took satisfaction. "No. It's from Mr. McClintock at Papa's bank."

Eulalie flushed. "Well, I'm surprised at him, then. He ought to know better, I'm sure."

Caterers came to arrange for little round tables and gilt chairs. Florists came with estimates for orange blossoms. In the kitchen fruitcakes high as hats stood soaking in brandy. Dressmakers rushed their samples, strewing the beds and chairs with lengths of Irish dowlas and Swiss lawn, of muslin and calicoes for morning wear, gauze for dancing, of bombazine and velvet.

There had been no time to get the wedding dress from Paris as Ferdinand had wished, for the bridegroom was in a hurry, unwilling to delay the wedding for half a year in order that a dress might be brought from abroad. This seemed sensible enough, Emma and Ferdinand agreed, especially since there was a dress Miriam could wear, a family heirloom which had been worn by Pelagie and by Emma before her.

She was to wear her diamond earrings and a pair of narrow gold bracelets which had arrived in the mail along with a letter from David.

"These belonged to our mother," he wrote. "They were all the jewels she owned, Aunt Dinah said when she gave them to me. I was to keep them for you and give them to you when you married. Dear Miriam, wear them on your wedding day. They come to you with so much love that they should warm your arm. I wish I could be there with you, but it is so far .... Yet in a way, I shall be there. I am always with you."

She could have repeated from memory every word of that letter. He had written also: "You have not told me much about the man you are to marry. I understand it must be hard to put your deepest feelings into words on paper. But I know you must love him very much, and I am so glad for you ...."

Aunt Emma reminisced, "Oh, you should have seen me as a bride. I was married-I speak of my first marriage, naturally-on the plantation. There were five hundred guests; my father chartered steamboats to bring them, along with the hairdressers and all the confections which came from the city."

Pelagie clasped her hands in her typical gesture. "My wedding was so splendid, Miriam. Of course you'll be invited to a cathedral wedding sometime and then you will see. The Suisse seating the guests, he in his scarlet coat and gold lace and his plumed hat, and the bells all ringing like mad! Oh, it was splendid! Then home for the supper and dancing. But except for the cathedral," she said hastily, "yours will be the same. Little Miriam! I remember going down to the s.h.i.+p to meet you. You were holding a doll. And here you are," Pelagie cried, "And here you are!"

So, on a tide of generous enthusiasm, Miriam was swept along. Never once did it occur to her that she had not spent a single hour alone with the man she was to marry-although if it had occurred to her, there would have been nothing that she or any other girl in her position could do about it.

Roads were crossed and points were turned in this upstairs room, in the corner where the pier gla.s.s stood in its tall oval frame. When Miriam awoke, the afternoon sun had already gone round the corner of the house, but the tilted gla.s.s still shone, reflecting the couch on which she lay and the dog on the floor with her nose between her paws in an att.i.tude of watchfulness, as though she, too, knew that the day was to mark a change in their joint lives. Lifeless objects on the table and chests now took on life, announcing the hour; the veil, the white gloves, the fan, the diamond locket and lace handkerchief, waited in the basket, the corbeille de noce, the bridegroom's gift, to be worn for the first time on this day. She sat up as Pelagie, followed by f.a.n.n.y, came into the room.

"It's almost five o'clock. You've had a good nap," Pelagie said. "I wonder that you could sleep at all. I was much too excited on my wedding day."

f.a.n.n.y laid a wreath of orange blossoms on the dresser. "Maxim is bringing hot water for your wash in a minute. I'll just move these things and make room on the bed for your dress."

The two women bustled lightly as they prepared the bride. Pelagie chattered happily.

"I've just been in the kitchen and everything looks beautiful. They've brought mountains of ice from the ice house on Chartres Street. Papa must have ordered a hundred bottles of champagne, I'm sure. We mustn't let people drink so much that they stay all night, though I don't suppose it matters if they do. At midnight Mama will take you upstairs anyway and help you into your negligee. I'm sure she's told you-"

Emma had, several times. She had explained how she would go down to inform Eugene that the bride was ready, and how they would then stay five days in the bridal chamber. Miriam had been astonished. And Emma had laughed.

"Oh, honey, the servants will bring food. Is that what you're thinking about?"

"Imagine," Pelagie said now, "you'll have the same room where Sylvain and I began."

Through the partly open door Miriam could see the bride's traditional tester bed, refurbished with fresh sky-blue silk and glossy gilded cupids, from whose twining hands pink ribbons fell. Important, ceremonial as an altar, the bed waited.

Fingers fumbled at her back, fastening the b.u.t.tons which ran from neck to waist. Her own fingers smoothed and smoothed the two fine gold hoops on her wrist. Her mother's fingers might have smoothed them so. David had held them for her all these years! And she felt a sudden wash of loneliness, chilling and sorrowful: If only he were here! This minute, now, to say, in that positive way of his, that she still remembered: Yes, yes, this is right, this is good! And then to smile encouragement, with that smile that she remembered so well, too.

She straightened her shoulders. She mustn't look for her brother or for anyone at all to lean on; she must stand with her own strength. Of course this was right! Her fleeting doubts had been only natural! Hadn't Emma a.s.sured her that all brides were fearful? Why, even David had written how pleased he was with her marriage to a serious man of their own faith!

From the hall below now came the sounds of arrival and greeting.

"They're here!" f.a.n.n.y cried. "Come, look!"

Pelagie warned, "She mustn't be seen until Papa brings her down."

"You can peek," f.a.n.n.y urged. "n.o.body'll see you. Stand here on the gallery."

The courtyard was illuminated. Under a canvas ceiling a floor had been laid. White roses on the bridal canopy were opalescent in the descending dusk.

Pelagie pointed out the first arrivals. "There's Pierre Soule. They say he'll be in the Senate soon. And there's Rosa, there in the striped silk; what a handsome dress! And Henry-it does seem so odd, the men keeping their top hats on! Mama has got a separate table with kosher food for your Mr. Kursheedt and the others. The rest of us will have lobster salad and fried oysters and venison and chicken salad."

She spoke hungrily. Pregnant again, Pelagie was always hungry. And Miriam laid her hand tenderly on Pelagie's.

"My, your hand is freezing, Miriam! Come on, let's look over the banister and see what's happening. Oh, look what Maxim and Chanute are bringing inside!"

A bride and groom of nougat, a piece montee almost two feet high, was set upon the table and wreathed with more roses.

"Isn't that too beautiful, Miriam. Quick! Quick! Get in here, that's Eugene coming in. He mustn't see you, not even the hem of your dress. It's terrible bad luck. Oh, but he looks so solemn-"

"Good heavens!" Emma cried, rus.h.i.+ng upstairs. "You haven't got the veil on yet! Come, it's almost time."

Reverently, as though crowning a queen, the women set the veil and the coronet of orange blossoms on the bride's head. Clouded in white, the bride stared with blank eyes at the girl in the mirror.

Someone knocked at the door. "Now, now," said Emma, opening it for Ferdinand.

Along with his dark suit and satin tie, Ferdinand wore his triumph. "Mark my words, the Picayune tomorrow will say this was one of the most magnificent weddings the city has ever seen!"

Miriam took his arm. "I'm ready, Papa."

They moved toward the stairs. Stately music flowed toward them as they descended. The feet in the satin slippers moved with courtly rhythm. Not my feet, she thought. Not Miriam's feet. All this is happening to somebody else.

None of her imaginings had prepared her for the reality. Neither apprehension nor those most secret and suppressed, most embarra.s.sing and ravis.h.i.+ng imaginings had prepared her. For this was the most ugly and terrible thing that could happen. The impressive gentleman in gray broadcloth who could quote the cla.s.sics and the Bible, who brought proper gifts and paid compliments-this gentleman was-he was an animal. His touch was a horror.

Were all her nights to be like this? The first one had been especially humiliating. A tumultuous racket of cowbells, drums, and horns had gone on for hours in the street beneath their window. Miriam had been appalled, but Eugene had been merely amused.

"An old custom," he said. "The charivari." They wouldn't do it after the first night. Why did she let it upset her so?

She could not have told him it was because it seemed to her that they knew what had been happening in their room and were laughing at her-which was not true, and she knew it was not true, but was sick with shame nevertheless. And she covered her hot face with her hands.

Yet, perhaps all men were like that; perhaps it was supposed to be like that. Or maybe it would change in time and he would be different, or she would be different.

Now on the fourth morning she woke to see a lake of suns.h.i.+ne on the floor, which meant that it must be nearly noon. Under the sky-blue canopy her husband still slept with little puffing noises coming from his open mouth.

She got up quietly. The house was still and she understood that out of consideration for the bridal couple, the servants had been instructed to make no noise. On the table the wilted wedding bouquet lay in its frame of paper lace. Emma had offered to have it dried and framed. On the table also lay the ketubah, the marriage contract with its graceful Hebrew letters running across the page like bird tracks on sand. She picked it up. The thick parchment, the important signatures, the words which she was unable to read, all filled her with a sense of awe and gravity, a conviction of permanence. It was as if she were holding a tablet of the Law between her hands. Actually she was holding her own life, two lives. And she felt the terrible weight of it.

But at the same time something else said desperately: You're young, you're sixteen, what can you know? Nothing. Or not very much. Much is yet to reveal itself. Surely this can't be all there is ever to be?

From her basket in the corner the dog Gretel raised her head. Miriam picked her up, laying her own head against the warm hair and the delicate bones of the little skull. And her mind traveled through this link with the past, back to the road where the dog had first been found, to the village, the house, and her unknown mother. How far away and long ago! Maybe a mother would be able to explain- "You're deep in thought. What is it?"

Eugene was sitting up in bed. Wide awake and curious, he might have been observing her for some minutes.

Fl.u.s.tered, she answered, "Nothing, really. Nothing."

"Come, now. One doesn't stand without moving in the middle of a room and think about nothing."

"I was thinking about-yes, thinking about G.o.d," she said suddenly.

His eyebrows moved, giving his face an expression of amus.e.m.e.nt or faint mockery. In the confinement of this room she was already becoming familiar with his gestures and expressions. This one was habitual, she saw; the eyebrows moved, they slid on his forehead like black caterpillars. Strange that she had never noticed them like that before; otherwise perhaps she would have had courage enough to refuse him.

"Religion is certainly respectable and I have no quarrel with it. But now is hardly the time or place. Come back to bed."

"It must be almost noon. Shan't I ring for breakfast?"

"Later. Come back to bed. Come now."

"Please." she said. It sounded like a whimper. She despised the helpless sound of it.

"Please what?"

"I want-not-"

Eugene got up and moved toward her. Naked, he seemed twice as tall. He threatened her, although surely he had done her no physical harm and she had no fear that he would. Her pain was deep inside, a pain of the spirit. She closed her eyes. It was easier when she did not look at his nakedness; she could pretend she was not there at all.

She lay inert. Yes, this was happening to somebody else. Her pretense, if he could know it, wouldn't matter to him; it seemed as if what he was doing was only for himself anyway. Besides, a woman was not supposed to show pleasure, nor supposed to feel it, if she was a decent woman. Everyone knew that. It was only a pleasure for the man. Therefore it did not trouble her that she had no pleasure.

Yet it seemed fairly sensible to a.s.sume that she was not supposed to feel loathing, either. Surely one was not supposed to loathe one's husband. But if one did, if one hated "it," how far was that from hating him?

7.

From the bluff northwest of Lake Pontchartrain one saw the bronze s.h.i.+mmer of the great muddy river as it moved slowly toward the Gulf.

"Get out of the carriage. We'll walk the rest of the way," Eugene said. "I want you to see the view."

The light was green; moved by a wish to see its s.h.i.+mmer on her hand, Miriam turned her palm up into it. The light was tender, a veil on the waving corn, and beyond to a line of sweet gum trees, and beyond to a low rising hill, and beyond ... To walk there, to keep on walking in an unswerving line through the corn, past elm and hickory, up the hill, to keep on walking, keep going- "You're not even looking at the house," Eugene said.

Obediently, she turned. There it stood, much as it had been described, perhaps even more imposing than she had imagined. Its brick was rosy. Twenty-two Doric columns upheld the gallery. On the left lay a long camellia garden. The oleander hedges were a ma.s.s of pink.

"Beautiful," she said, adding, since one was expected to produce more than a single word of praise, "Beau Jardin. It's well named."

"That beech is a treasure. A hundred fifty years old. Unfortunately it hides one wing of the house. What's behind it are the garconniere and a schoolroom. I had that built last year."

And as Miriam had no comment, he continued smoothly. "Over there is the pigeon house. You should find that pleasing, with your love for animals. That's a wine house and that's a smokehouse. Behind the kitchen wing are the stables, the cabins, and the sugar house. But you'll have time enough to see it all after you've rested."

She stood quite still. Where the live oaks were hung with moss, where the ground was sandy, that must be the way to the bayou. There, some afternoon, if you were lucky, you might see a heron feeding in the brackish water.

"Come. Why are you standing there?"

"I was only listening to the silence."

"Silence? But the servants are waiting to be introduced. Come, will you?"

Entering the house, coming from outdoors, she blinked into the dimness. In a blur she saw a two-storied hall, a spiral staircase, black-and-white marble squares, black faces, white teeth, and a bust of Homer on a pedestal. Beau Jardin.

In the heat everything sagged. The curtains were limp and the crystal pendants on the chandelier were cloudy.

"Ah, but it's lovely, lovely." Emma sighed.

"Nothing to compare with the Labouisse place," Eugene responded, choosing to a.s.sume modesty. "I've only eight hundred acres here, and fifty hands. But that's all I want. There are so many problems-floods and plant diseases and freezes. Anyway, I'm not a planter at heart. Tell them about our visit to the Valcour Aime plantation, Mrs. Mendes. There's something to see if you want splendor." And as Miriam hesitated, he continued almost impatiently, "It's modeled after Versailles, but of course you know that The parterres, the gardens, the furnis.h.i.+ngs, everything's French. My wife doesn't like it."

Miriam said quietly, "Why are you surprised? You've known I was not intended for grandeur."

"Well," said Emma, glancing uncertainly from one to the other, "I should think Beau Jardin was grand enough for anyone. You're a fortunate young woman, my dear, to be mistress of this place at your age. But I'm sure you realize it."

She was being wistful, Miriam knew, about Pelagie, who would not become mistress of her home until the death of her father-in-law.

"Yes," Ferdinand added, "it's a blessing to see one's child so happy. The happiness I see in your face is worth everything to me. The most wonderful time in a woman's Ufe," he finished, making a tactful oblique reference to her pregnant state.

The happiness in her face! Blind! Blind! She could scorn her father's insensitivity and at the same time pity it; but he had been diminished in her eyes; she had been diminished in her own eyes. There he sat, unseeing, accepting service from the platter which had been borne in by the siffleur, the pathetic boy who must whistle all the way in from the kitchen wing to prove that he was not sampling the food. Behind him another small boy waved a fly brush made of peac.o.c.k's feathers. In the pleasant stirring of the air Ferdinand smiled his contentment. Through his greed he had beguiled his daughter, tempted and coaxed her, using Emma, willing Emma, to aid with motherly advice.

Then Miriam straightened in the chair, stiffening her spine.

I despise self-pity.

And blaming someone else for your own folly.

Well, then, stop doing it! You betrayed yourself! Why do you blame your father and Emma and Pelagie and even Rosa and even f.a.n.n.y? True, they persuaded you, but the fact is, you were yourself beguiled by the dignity of the Mendes name, by the house and the garden, and being the first of your age to be married.

How could you have demeaned yourself so?

Yet people everywhere spoke as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a young woman to desire a proud name and a fine house, and for a young woman's family to seek them for her. So Ferdinand, like a thousand other fathers, had only meant the best for his daughter. It was simply the way things were.

Eugene had warned her against snakes in the bayou area and alligators coming up on the gra.s.s at night The first time she had ever seen him at Pelagie's christening party he had warned her.

And then one night Gretel did not return to the house. f.a.n.n.y and Miriam went calling round and round the lawns until long after dark, when Eugene, becoming impatient, ordered them to come back.

"I'll sleep on the verandah," f.a.n.n.y whispered, "so I can let her in. She'll come, she can't have gone far."