"If he could have just gone to Paris, if he could have just gotten away! And you, you who could have the moon and you"re throwing it all away now, throwing it all away..."
"I love Richard Lermontant!"
Her mother turned away, grimacing again as if Marie had given her a blow. "You can"t do it!" she whispered. "You can"t do it to yourself, and you can"t do it to him!" Her eyes widened, staring right into Marie"s eyes. She took the gla.s.s from Marie"s hand. "Don"t you understand that, don"t you see? The Lermontants are nothing, they"ll make Marcel a clerk in that store, they"ll pay him a pittance and he"ll be threadbare and bitter all of his days. But you can change that! You can do anything, don"t you understand? I tell you in that first year, when it"s fresh, and they are crazy for you, you"ve got them in the palm of your hand! You walk into that ballroom and they will go down on their knees! They"ll be all too glad to get rid of your brother, they"ll send him to the ends of the earth if you ask them, Paris, what"s that to them, they have wealth of which you"ve never even dreamed. Ooooooooh," she rocked back in her chair putting the gla.s.s to her lips. "You can do it, you can state it plain in the beginning." She brought her left hand down flat on the table. "They send him to Paris or they don"t have you, and they will want you, ma chere ma chere, more than you can imagine, how they will want you, that white skin on a n.i.g.g.e.r wench, they will want you as you have never dreamed..."
Marie"s hand had risen slowly to her mouth, and she spread her fingers over her mouth tight, pressing them into her own cheek, her eyes growing wider and wider as she glared at her mother.
"You"ve got to do it, and will your aunts love it," her mother said, the grimace wide, the taut lower lip trembling, "oh, they will turn you out for a real real wedding day, they"ll drag out the gold thread for you, the pearls, oh, how they will love it, oh, they will be in their glory, they"ll be running to Celestina"s, they"ll be going through the old names, they"ll be inspecting all those eager offers, picking over those old pedigrees..." wedding day, they"ll drag out the gold thread for you, the pearls, oh, how they will love it, oh, they will be in their glory, they"ll be running to Celestina"s, they"ll be going through the old names, they"ll be inspecting all those eager offers, picking over those old pedigrees..."
Marie upset the chair. She was backing away even before she had risen, and the chair fell backwards, teetering and then to one side. She stood in the corner of the room, her hand holding the frame of the bedroom door.
Her mother rose slowly.
"Get away from me," Marie whispered. "Get away from me!" She backed into the bedroom, the hem of her dress coming perilously close to the fire. "Get away!" she glared at the woman who stood in the door.
"Marie, Marie..." Cecile reached out toward her, her teeth drawing blood from her lip. "Marie, you can give him that," she said, the voice strained to a hissing sound, "you can give him Paris where he can be a man."
"Stop it," Marie s.n.a.t.c.hed her shawl from the foot of the bed. She backed across the rear bedroom to the door. "How could you think I would do this!" she spit the words as Cecile advanced. "How could you believe I would live the way I"ve seen you live! How could you think I would take on that misery, the misery I"ve seen you suffer ever since I could remember, year after year? Never knowing when he was coming, if he was coming, if there"d be money again this month for the bills, if you could keep this roof over your head, and then to have him die like that, not leaving a sc.r.a.p of a will, not even a sc.r.a.p of paper in secret for you with Jacquemine. Seventy-five dollars and they called you lucky, did they? And you loved him? And you love him still? You"re mad, mad if you think I would live like that, mad if you think I would turn my back on Richard for that. Oh, you would sell me on the auction block for my brother, wouldn"t you? But you don"t know me, you"ve never known me, or you wouldn"t have shown your soul to me, your wh.o.r.e"s soul!"
And as Cecile moaned, Marie had pulled open the door and she ran down the alleyway toward the street.
Without knocking she burst into the Mercier hallway, and through the open doors of the cla.s.sroom saw Christophe. Quickly he came out to her, moving her to one side out of the prying eyes of the cla.s.s.
"Michie Christophe," she said breathlessly, "please, write to my brother, write him now, tell him to come home, I need him..." she said. "I know my brother, I know my brother..." she stammered, vaguely aware that he could not possibly understand. She clasped his hand. "Tell my brother I am with my aunts, and that I need him now!"
III.
IT WAS EARLY EVENING and Richard was tired. His mother had insisted he accompany her this afternoon to the house of her Vacquerie cousins, descendants of her mother"s brother, on the grounds that since he had become a young man he had hardly called on these cousins at all. As a child, he had played there often, loving these mild-mannered people, a house of women except for Cousin Gregoire who ran the family business, a grocery store, but it had been three years now since he had seen them anywhere except on the church steps. and Richard was tired. His mother had insisted he accompany her this afternoon to the house of her Vacquerie cousins, descendants of her mother"s brother, on the grounds that since he had become a young man he had hardly called on these cousins at all. As a child, he had played there often, loving these mild-mannered people, a house of women except for Cousin Gregoire who ran the family business, a grocery store, but it had been three years now since he had seen them anywhere except on the church steps.
They were a refined family, without the bl.u.s.ter of the Lermontants, their modest flat furnished about a handful of treasures rescued from the Saint-Domingue revolution, and they spoke of the old plantation regime as if that world were alive today. In fact, little anecdotes of daily life had come down through the family with pet names for people who had been dead for fifty years. And one had the feeling in their sedate shadowy rooms of living in an old world that could somehow not make its peace with the thriving New Orleans of today.
There were no surprises for Richard. The shaded yard with its twin oaks in back was as Richard remembered it, and the little playhouse built for his daughters by Cousin Gregoire, though sagging from the relentless Louisiana weather, was still there. All was ruin within, however, broken toys, neglected dolls and dust, for Isabella, the youngest, was sixteen.
And it was while they sat in the parlor together, Isabella showing him with enthusiasm the new Daguerreotypes that had been made of all the family, that Richard perceived the reason for this visit, and grew silent thinking with a shocking immediacy what it would be like to be married to this sweet girl. She would have been a good wife for anyone; generosity emanated from her small drowsy brown eyes, and she had a combination of features which he had always found beguiling, a full African mouth with a long thin Caucasian nose. All of them would make good wives, he speculated dully, this Cousin Isabella, Raimond"s cousins in Charleston, and even those green-eyed beauties, Renee Lermontants daughters, descendants of Jean Baptiste"s one illegitimate son, who had little to do with the Lermontants who had become la famille la famille, but lived in luxury, Renee Lermontant owning a thriving tavern on the edge of the Faubourg Marigny.
And in the last few months, it seemed, his mother had seen to it that he called on every one of these cousins with the exception of the Charleston people who came to visit often enough. It was Madame Suzette"s intent to distract Richard, to rea.s.sure him, to buffet him against the truculent and spiteful whims of Cecile Ste. Marie, and Richard knew it. But nothing could buffet him against the possible loss of Marie now. He had been desperate since Monsieur Philippe"s death, and his mother ought to know this, Richard thought, her timing, for once, had not been so good.
When they rose to go, Isabella walked with them to the side gate.
"You must come to call on us." Madame Suzette kissed her on both cheeks. "Next Sunday, after Ma.s.s, I insist."
But the girl"s soft yielding manner had a touch of melancholy to it as she made her curtsy. "And I am the cause of this," Richard thought darkly. He could add nothing to his mother"s polite invitations except his polite farewells.
They walked along in silence, Richard taking his mother"s arm in his as he guided her past the inevitable puddles and stones of the dirt street.
"I thought it was good for you to get out," she said finally. "Maman," he said. "I must see Marie. I want to go to Madame Louisa"s now."
"Son, don"t do it," she said. "Wait until Marcel comes home. Marcel is head of that family now, whether he is prepared for it or not. Your father will speak to Marcel."
"No, Maman," he shook his head, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I must see her now."
This was unlike Richard, this obstinacy. He led Madame Suzette across the Rue Rampart, helping her gracefully over the deep water-filled ditches, and lifted her slightly by the waist to the curb. A few steps ahead in the Rue St. Louis she saw the gas lamps beside the door of her home, burning already at five o"clock as the sky was leaden and dark.
"My son, there is no reason under G.o.d for us to endure insult," she said. "We are the Lermontants." And this last statement, spoken with simple pride, was as unlike Madame Suzette as obstinacy was unlike her son.
He stared ahead through the twilight, rendered so colorless by the winter sky.
"Maman, I cannot wait," he said and giving her his arm as she went up the front steps, he stayed on the banquette.
"What has this done to you?" she whispered. "What is it doing to you now?"
"I must go, Maman..." He stood firm.
"Don"t let your father know," she opened the door. And he smiled faintly, realizing that this meant she would not tell.
A cold rain had begun by the time he reached the dress shop in the Rue Royale and pulled the bell. He pulled it again after a wait of approximately three minutes, stepping under the carriageway arch where he could not be seen from the shuttered windows above.
A third time he rang, and then a fourth, and the rain was coming now with a dull force.
An unpleasant sensation paralyzed him. He moved very slowly into the center of the banquette and looked up at the flat over the shop. Rain poured down the yellowed plaster of the facade, and ran along the dark green slats of the shutters before it shot out in little jets over the street. It fell on his forehead and pelted his eyelids as he squinted against it. And suddenly lifting his hands, he cupped them about his mouth and taking a slow breath raised his voice out of the deep organ of his chest, "Marie! Marie!"
Nothing stirred above.
"Marie!" he called again, only to hear a sc.r.a.ping sound behind the shutters of the house next door. "Marie!" he cried again.
He backed slowly into the street, almost b.u.mping into a pa.s.sing cart. A little cl.u.s.ter of pa.s.sersby had stopped to stare at him from beneath an awning, and a woman pa.s.sed in front of the dress shop scrutinizing him suspiciously from beneath a dark bonnet brim. "Marie!" he shouted once more. And not waiting for an answer, he suddenly reached down, picked up a glistening lump of coal from the slush, and heaved it overhand so it struck the high shutters and fell to the banquette below. A murmur rose from those around him, a wagon groaned behind him forcing him toward the curb. He saw another rock, grabbed it, and threw it as well.
"Lermontant!" a voice intruded suddenly.
He was jerked from some acute state of concentration to find himself looking down at the notary, Jacquemine. A pace behind him on the curb stood a dark-faced woman, her head slightly averted, gazing at Richard from above her wool cravat with one enormous expressionless eye. He felt a chill pa.s.s over him as he stared at her, in fact, he hardly heard the notary"s voice. "Indeed, you are making a spectacle of yourself, Lermontant, what"s the matter with you?" It was Cecile Ste. Marie, that dark-faced woman, that bundle of wool and bonnet brim that turned now with a lift of the head. Again the eye fixed him, wide, wild, like the eye of a bird.
"Get out of the street, for the love of heaven," said Jacquemine. But Cecile Ste. Marie had turned her face away and walked on and the notary ran to catch up with her, as the clop of a horse sent a spray of wet mud over Richard"s coat.
Richard stood there motionless. A sickening spasm caught his stomach, as the two figures receded, the notary glancing nervously back as he panted to keep up with the marching woman.
And above, those windows shuttered as before like blind eyes.
Marie was crying. She sat in the darkened parlor with her elbows on the table. Tante Colette stood at the windows, looking through the gla.s.s and the dark slits of the shutters at the street below. "I want you to go out of here," she said over her shoulder to Louisa. Louisa said, "But why?"
"Because it"s time I had a talk with this girl," Colette said. "It"s time I had a talk with her alone."
Louisa didn"t want to go. She stood watching her sister. But then Colette ushered her into the hallway and closed the door.
Two oil lamps burned on the mantel above Marie, and Colette turned the little bra.s.s key in these, one by one, to raise the flame. Then she looked at the girl who sat at the round table, her hair down, her face covered with her hands.
"It"s time we cut out all this sweet talk," Colette said, "and get down to the facts."
"That was was Richard, wasn"t it?" Marie said through her tears. "I know it was." Richard, wasn"t it?" Marie said through her tears. "I know it was."
"Stop asking me that question," Colette said. "For days now, it"s been poor bebe," bebe," and "poor and "poor bebe bebe just lost her papa," and "poor just lost her papa," and "poor bebe bebe has had such a shock," and "let poor has had such a shock," and "let poor bebe bebe rest"..." rest"..."
"It was was Richard!" Marie said. Richard!" Marie said.
"Well, I think it"s time we got down to the facts."
"Which are what!" Marie said bitterly, her eyes glimmering with her tears. She was shivering with her sobs. "That my mother wants me to take a white man for a protector? And that"s what you want, too! That"s what you always wanted, wasn"t it?" She meant to look away, but something caught in the corner of her eye. It was a stiff expression on Colette"s face, something quite alien to the soft chattering affection that perpetually filled this flat.
"It is what you want, too, isn"t it?" Marie said. "All the time you would have approved of it. It was all hypocrisy your taking me to Ma.s.s, all hypocrisy your receiving Richard..."
"I"ve heard just about enough," said Colette. "I"ve heard just about enough tears and enough complaining and enough foolishness to make me sick."
Marie stared at her, stunned.
""Course I took you to Ma.s.s, I go to Ma.s.s every Sunday of my life, don"t I, every feast day, every day during Lent! But what"s that got to do with what"s happening to your family now, may I ask, what"s that got to do with the fact that your brother hasn"t a cent to his name, that your mother can"t put food in her mouth, that you"ve got nothing, none of you, but that cottage and the clothes on your backs! Now when your papa was alive," she said, drawing near to the table, "that was a different time. Your papa was rich, and your maman was rich, and if you wanted to throw away your life on some colored boy that was your whim! But I"m sick to death now of hearing this spoiled selfish talk! What do you mean to do, march up that aisle in a white dress with everyone in the church thinking you"re a d.a.m.ned fool-and don"t think they won"t-and leave your mother and your brother to sell off the furniture for a living, end up selling that house? And what would your fancy people the Lermontants do, give Marcel some pittance for working for them with his sleeves rolled up, and enough to keep Cecile in a rented room? Or are they just supposed to be the poor relations? Living off the charity of the Benevolent Society with Marcel giving lessons to the children and escorting the old aunts to Ma.s.s? Are you crazy, girl! And you think your mother would ever live in that Lermontant house? Even if they would take her in and give her some attic room with the rats and spiders, your mother would rather die!"
She drew near to Marie, who sat mute staring up at her, and put her hands on the table as she leaned forward.
"Now you listen to me. For sixteen years, you"ve had the best of everything, now I mean the best! Any dress you wanted, any jewelry I had in my box, you had it, pearls, diamonds, silks from Paris, the hats right off the boat, the slippers, the pomade, the perfume, the best! And you got that because your mother got it for you, and I got it for you, and Louisa got it for you! And now it"s time for you to give something back! I haven"t begun to fight for you, oh, no, I haven"t begun. I haven"t begun to give you up to some colored undertaker and his penny-pinching bourgeois people, oh, no, not for this world. You are going to those b.a.l.l.s with me, you are meeting those white gentlemen who couldn"t take their eyes off you in the Theatre d"Orleans, who can"t take their eyes off you when they see you coming down from that Communion rail at Ma.s.s! You are going there with me and you are going to make the best alliance this family can get! And you are going to get your brother on that boat for Paris, you are going to get him to a place where he can marry a woman who will respect him and look up to him as if he were a man! Now, why do you think, why do you think your maman made your papa swear he would send that boy to France? Education, Sorbonne, all that foolishness? There"s no life for your brother here! And you are going to get him out of here, and you are going to get a comfortable income for your mother so that she can keep her house! And you can get all that, Marie, you can get it like that!" She snapped her fingers, holding out her hand. And as Marie stared at the fingers, Colette snapped them again with an unconscious tightening of her teeth. "Like that!" she said. And again, "Like that!"
She turned away. She folded her arms and commenced to pace the floor, her gray head slightly bowed, her lips pursed. Marie was not looking at her. She was staring at the surface of the table, her arms limp in her lap.
"Now, I tell you what you"re going to do." Colette said. "You"re going to rest a while. And we are going to wait until a little interval pa.s.ses, a decent interval, and then you and I are going to call on Celestina Roget. I don"t have to tell you who"s courting Gabriella, you know all about it, Alcee LeMaitre, one of the richest white men on the coast. Well, we are going to talk to Celestina, we"re going to talk about the b.a.l.l.s, whether that"s the best way to go. And then you are going to be the toast of this town."
Marie stood up. She looked slowly about the room. Her shawl lay on the chair by the door. She walked to the door and drew the shawl up around her shoulders.
"You just go on to your room," Colette said. "And you leave the details to me."
"I"m going home," Marie said in a small voice. "I"m going to see if my brother"s come back."
"Your brother"s not coming home, not till your mother tells him to, and your mother does not want you at the house."
Marie drew the shawl up over her head. She turned to her aunt, her eyes level and wide.
Colette glanced anxiously at the lamp. When she looked back, Marie was still staring at her, and she looked away again with a slight shudder.
"You"ll be back," she said, "soon as you get a taste of what your mother"s got to say." She pursed her lips. "After all, where else have you got to go!"
IV.
IT WAS LONG AFTER DARK when Marie rose to leave the Cathedral. The sacristan was putting out the lights. Thunder rumbled beyond the heavy doors, and dully, Marie thought of the black streets. But it was fear of her mother and her aunts that had kept her here till this alarming hour, and lingering in the vestibule of the church she stared numbly at the distant tabernacle, bewildered that the serenity which had always visited her under this roof had not visited her when she needed it most. A thousand desperate considerations had inundated her mind in the past hours, all of them floundering ultimately upon the same rock: Marcel was on his way home, she must wait for him, she must not make matters worse. But prayer had not fortified her, the figures and forms of her faith were beyond her reach. It was almost as if the hypocrisy of those around her had drained all of its meaning, or had her own anger cut her off from G.o.d, her own bitterness burnt her prayers dry? A chaos threatened her, gaping wider and wider with the mounting intensity of her anger, becoming fathomless with her rage. when Marie rose to leave the Cathedral. The sacristan was putting out the lights. Thunder rumbled beyond the heavy doors, and dully, Marie thought of the black streets. But it was fear of her mother and her aunts that had kept her here till this alarming hour, and lingering in the vestibule of the church she stared numbly at the distant tabernacle, bewildered that the serenity which had always visited her under this roof had not visited her when she needed it most. A thousand desperate considerations had inundated her mind in the past hours, all of them floundering ultimately upon the same rock: Marcel was on his way home, she must wait for him, she must not make matters worse. But prayer had not fortified her, the figures and forms of her faith were beyond her reach. It was almost as if the hypocrisy of those around her had drained all of its meaning, or had her own anger cut her off from G.o.d, her own bitterness burnt her prayers dry? A chaos threatened her, gaping wider and wider with the mounting intensity of her anger, becoming fathomless with her rage.
And as she ran through the pitch blackness of Pirate"s Alley toward the Rue Royale, she was dogged by one terrifying thought. What if he were not coming, what if they could keep Marcel away? And she must prevail against them night after night, day after day?
Lightning flashed as she turned into the Rue Ste. Anne, and as she ran toward the corner of the Rue Dauphine, there was a light crackle of it again, illuminating the street as if it were midday so that she could see the bleak deserted facade of the Mercier house. If there had only been a light there, she thought suddenly, she would have pounded on Michie Christophe"s door, maybe even gone inside to stay for just a moment by his hearth. But the house lay dark beneath the pelting rain. Her shawl was soaked, her chest ached. And bracing herself against the swirling wind she went on toward the dull lights of the cottage ahead.
The rain came faster Or was it just that it shot off the low roof and caught her in shimmering blasts? She stopped in the walkway beside her mother"s window and saw her shadow on the blinds. Her mother was walking back and forth. Marie slumped exhausted against the wet wall and covered her face with her hands. Her shawl fell loose, the cold rain fell on her hair, and making a lattice of her fingers she saw in a sudden silent flicker of lightning the distant unlatched kitchen door.
"Lisette?" she whispered as she stepped inside. All was blackness save for a pulse of red light from the dying coals. But she could hear little sounds, near imperceptible sounds, breath in the dark, cloth folding against cloth. "Lisette?" she whispered again. "Let me come in?"
"n.o.body"s stopping you," came Lisette"s low voice in the darkness. She sat against the wall, her legs stretched out across the width of her cot. Marie padded softly across the floor and settled in the wooden rocker by the stove. She saw a flash of gold in the shadows and knew it was whiskey in the gla.s.s. She saw Lisette"s head now in a thin gleaming line of light from the kitchen coals. And that gleaming line followed the bulge of Lisette"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s as a soft ugly sigh came from her lips. Marie, her elbow on the arm of the rocker, began to cry.
Lisette having been in this dark room for three hours could see Marie perfectly, her hair cascading down over her arm, the rustling shadow of her taffeta dress. The rain on the taffeta had given off a funny fragrance which mingled now with the heat from the coals in the kitchen and the coals in the stove. Lisette lifted the gla.s.s again and barely tasted the whiskey and then put it down. This was Michie Philippe"s whiskey, delicious and strong. An elixir compared to the corn whiskey to which Lisette was accustomed or the drams of rum or wine which she could buy for herself. She had four bottles of this whiskey under the bed, stolen from his gambling rooms upstairs, and she saw no end to the warm and numbing feeling that had come over her sometime early this evening with her fifth gla.s.s.
Lisette was thinking, however, thinking. This calm and warmth had given the course of her deliberations a certain freedom and, strangely, a certain relief. At dark, her mistress had come home, with the notary to inform her that Michie Philippe had not left her free. "You belong to me, now," Cecile had hissed at her, the soul of the woman coiled like a snake in those fancy clothes, "Monsieur Dazincourt is sending your papers from Bontemps Bontemps to me! And if you think Marcel can help you, you"re wrong!" She had smiled as she leaned forward from the kitchen door: "Why don"t you run off," she had said, "go on, run off the way you"ve done it before, go to that Lola Dede, live hand to mouth in back alleys, go on. You think I won"t find you, I"ll post a notice on every wall, on every tree! You"ll never work for a decent family in this city, not so long as I have breath. Go on. Run off, let me tell Marcel when he comes home, you"ve run off again." to me! And if you think Marcel can help you, you"re wrong!" She had smiled as she leaned forward from the kitchen door: "Why don"t you run off," she had said, "go on, run off the way you"ve done it before, go to that Lola Dede, live hand to mouth in back alleys, go on. You think I won"t find you, I"ll post a notice on every wall, on every tree! You"ll never work for a decent family in this city, not so long as I have breath. Go on. Run off, let me tell Marcel when he comes home, you"ve run off again."
Wild-eyed, panting, oh, if only the rest of them could have seen that ladylike face then. "Go into the country," the curling smile. "Go on, let them catch you and put you on those slave gangs, let them sell you when no one comes for you. But you won"t do any of that! Even if I get that notary to execute copies of those papers, even if we don"t wait for them to come from Bontemps! Bontemps! You"re going to be a good girl, you"re going to stay right here. Because when I take you to that yard, you want me to say you"re a good girl, you"re a good lady"s maid, or else they"ll sell you right into the fields!" You"re going to be a good girl, you"re going to stay right here. Because when I take you to that yard, you want me to say you"re a good girl, you"re a good lady"s maid, or else they"ll sell you right into the fields!"
Smart she was, wasn"t she? Smarter ten times over than Michie Philippe, oh, ten times over than that driveling sentimental lying man! My papa, the rich planter, going to take good care of me, going to set me free.
She let the whiskey slide down her throat.
And this one, look at her, poor Missie Marie, rocking, crying in that chair. She could see Marie"s white hand gleaming like a light; and now the white skin of her forehead as she lowered her hand to the dark taffeta of her lap. What"s it like to wear a dress like that, to feel that taffeta next to your skin? Marie"s hair almost closed on the whiteness of her forehead, the dark taffeta almost enveloped the tiny white hand. There was the almond of the face flashing again as she lifted her head. "What am I to do, Lisette, what am I to do," to do, to do, to do.
In a way, it was good that it was over! It was good that all hope was gone. It seemed she"d been born with a fever and it had raged in her, raged in her, year in and year out ever since she had known. "He"s your papa, honey, that"s right, but don"t you ever tell anybody, honey, he"s going set you free when you"re grown-up, you"re going to be free!" And how she had played it all out in those little dreams. She would work for some nice lady, she would take her wages every Friday afternoon to the bank, they would know her name there after a while, and when she made her little deposits the clerk would say something nice to her, like, "My, Lisette, aren"t you a thrifty girl." "Oh, I have my own rooms, Monsieur," she"d explain. Maybe some day even, "I have my own little house." "Don"t you take any liberties with this girl," she would say to the slaves who tipped their top hats, those arrogant swaggering men at the corner grog shop, "I"m free!"
Well, it was over, wasn"t it? It was done.
"What am I to do, Lisette," Marie was crying. "What am I to do?" Other words, small dusty sorrowful little words about Richard Lermontant and that shrew Louisa and that shrew Colette and that shrew "Maman" and that knight in shining armor, "my brother," Marcel. What"s it like to have a dress like that, hair like that, that skin! And she whines in that chair, helpless, never able to do the slightest thing for herself, weak, whining, "Lisette, what am I to do!" O G.o.d, to have that for an instant, to look like that, walk like that, speak that perfect lady"s French. Back alleys, Lola Dede"s, cheap men and filth in bed, and back alleys. But not! Not the auction block!
No, there had never really been any question of that, had there? No, that wasn"t it at all. And good Michie Christophe, begging her to be brave, promising her he would reach Michie Dazincourt himself, tell him the truth. You needn"t bother, Michie, good as you are, you needn"t put yourself out. Again her arm like a machine went out for the gla.s.s of whiskey and the whiskey came into her mouth. Some sudden impatience made her drink the gla.s.s down; and setting it back on the chest, she lifted the bottle with that same arm and filled the gla.s.s again. It had not been necessary for her to move any part of her body other than that left arm for two hours and a half. Go on, run off, live from hand to mouth in back alleys, go to that Lola Dede, why don"t you? Go on, run off, live from hand to mouth in back alleys, go to that Lola Dede, why don"t you? Yes, that is exactly what is going to happen, and it will be just as terrible, just as dreadful as she said it would be. Yes, that is exactly what is going to happen, and it will be just as terrible, just as dreadful as she said it would be.
"They want me to go to the b.a.l.l.s, Lisette, they want me to give up Richard, to take a white man..." Oh, you poor baby! Such a dreadful fate!
"Lisette, what am I to do?"
Steal those dresses, why not, you"re going, aren"t you, she"ll hunt you down no matter what you do. Steal those dresses, the green taffeta, the muslin, that rose silk...hmmmm...steal the pantaloons, the chemises, you"ve washed them, ironed them, washed them, ironed them, you know every bit of thread, every seam. And the money, what"s she got in that secretaire secretaire, one hundred dollars? Take it! You"ll never work for a decent family in this city, not so long as I have breath! You"ll never work for a decent family in this city, not so long as I have breath!
"If only Marcel could come home, Lisette..." Marcel, Marcel, Marcel.
"What the h.e.l.l d.a.m.n can he do, Missie, he"s just a child!"
And now Marie was sobbing, those white hands up to that white face. Steal it, steal it, those corsets, sachet, taffeta, silk, perfume. "He"s got to help me, Lisette, he"s always been on my side."
I"ll make him set you free, Lisette, have faith in me, I"ll get him to do it, but this takes time!
Ooooo G.o.d. But had she ever really done anything like that in her whole life, steal the dresses, steal the money, run. What did Lola Dede say once, about a poison, you put that in your maitresse"s maitresse"s food and you just sit back, food and you just sit back, chere chere, and watch it work. Dreams, that"s what it was, dreams of making that b.i.t.c.h suffer the way she made me suffer, making her afraid the way that she made me afraid. Only I"m not going, not going on that block!
But she"d never had the courage, never had the strength. Poison, charms, it was dreams over and over again so that it made her sick. Could you even steal those dresses, could she even break the lock on that secretaire? Lisette, why do you run off like this, why do you drink like this, you just hurt yourself! secretaire? Lisette, why do you run off like this, why do you drink like this, you just hurt yourself! Dreams of taking that black shrew by the neck, of breaking that neck, breaking it. Dreams of taking that black shrew by the neck, of breaking that neck, breaking it. Honey, you have to be nice to the Honey, you have to be nice to the Maitresse, Maitresse, that"s the way it is now, and you just have to be patient, Michie Philippe"s your papa, Michie Philippe"s going to set you free! that"s the way it is now, and you just have to be patient, Michie Philippe"s your papa, Michie Philippe"s going to set you free!
"I don"t know what to do if Marcel doesn"t get here, Lisette, I can"t go back to them, I can"t go into the house..."