Cold Bayou Read online

  ‘She’s an eighteen-year-old tavern slut who can’t write her name,’ retorted Olympe, and turned to replace the ifa tray on its shelf. ‘What else do you need to know?’

  In the bedroom, the voice of her youngest child, baby Zephine, rose in a fretful clucking. Olympe sighed, and knocked the last flecks of dust from her long fingers.

  ‘I see bad things in the ink, brother,’ she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Bad things at Cold Bayou. Fire and water, and blood soaking into the earth. There’s no need for you to be there.’

  ‘If Rose is going to support Uncle Veryl,’ he returned, ‘and there is danger there, I do need to be there.’ He leaned a massive shoulder against the bedroom door-jamb, as she bent over the crib. ‘And they’ve asked me – Veryl, and Minou, and Henri – to be there, not just to play at the wedding, but because I’m the personal physician to Uncle Veryl’s friend Michie Singletary – who’ll probably be the only person present who truly wishes Veryl happy, unreservedly and with the whole of his heart. Or anyway the whole of his heart that isn’t occupied with trisecting angles or squaring circles. He’s frail, Olympe. He needs me with him.’

  She turned from the crib-side, her baby in her arms, a whip-slim black Madonna with the five points of her red-and-gold tignon that marked her as a voodooienne like an incongruous halo. The anger in her voice had turned to exasperation. ‘To take care of this old white man’s old white friend?’

  ‘To take care of my family until Christmas—’ January smiled – ‘with the fifty dollars Uncle Veryl is going to pay me to look after his old white friend.’

  She made a noise in her throat, for all the world like their mother when confronted with yet another example of January attempting to run his own life. Then she was silent for a time, regarding him with those velvet-brown eyes.

  ‘Will you do something for me then, brother?’ she said at last. ‘Will you warn Minou of what I said?’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll keep her from going.’

  ‘Then at least warn her not to take their child. Tell her I’ll look after Charmian. And you tell Rose to leave Baby Xander and Professor John here as well. I don’t know what’s in the shadows that I see at Cold Bayou, nor whether the blood I see is a sign for you or for some other there. But if blood’s shed, and the “shady” side of the family are gonna be on hand for this fool weddin’, you know who’s gonna get the blame for sheddin’ it.’

  January sighed. ‘Then it might be just as well that I’ll be on hand.’

  TWO

  ‘Mesel’, ah mun bide here sooner nor go mixin’ wi’ yon cleckin’ crowd.’ Old Mr Selwyn Singletary sat back as January put away his stethoscope, and offered a fragile, bony wrist for the inspection of his pulse. A mathematician of some repute, the elderly gentleman had been mistakenly incarcerated in a madhouse for some months two years previously,fn1 and heavily dosed with opium the whole time. His friend Veryl St-Chinian had offered him a home during his lengthy recuperation, and had retained January as a physician, the only white person to have paid for the services that had been, in fact, January’s chosen career.

  From the courtyard of the dilapidated Rue Bourbon townhouse, Veryl St-Chinian’s slow, soft voice rose, against the counterpoint of Dominique’s bright chatter, both muted by the thick moisture of the sweltering afternoon air. Now and then a child laughed: Charmian Viellard, five years old, Minou’s daughter by her protector Henri.

  January was relieved to see the smile in his patient’s eyes at the sound of the child’s voice. Along with its agonizing physical symptoms, the ordeal of weaning away from opiates had been accompanied by a crushing depression of spirits which had frequently left Singletary barely able to eat or speak. Even for a recognized eccentric like Uncle Veryl it was considered inappropriate to introduce his friend to his nephew’s quadroon mistress, much less to the five-year-old daughter of that illegitimate union. Yet January knew that there had been weeks when visits from ‘Madame Minou’, as Singletary called her, and little Charmian, were the only reason the old man would get out of bed.

  ‘Veryl’s Frenchy relations, wi’ their skinny noses in t’ air an’ not a word o’ decent English amongst ’em …’ Singletary shook his head, and accepted his shirt back from the valet Uncle Veryl had hired for him, a hulking, grave-faced, gentle young man named Archibald.

  With his nearly-incomprehensible Yorkshire speech, January reflected that Singletary had little business criticizing his friend’s Frenchy relations.

  ‘An’ not a good word amongst ’em to say o’ that poor lass that’s made Veryl happy as a lad, like ’tis any business o’ their’n who he weds. Ah couldna leave him frontin’ that lot alone, think on, not for all t’ relatives i’ this benighted land. Nor her, poor lass.’

  ‘Have you met her?’ All January knew from his mother was that the entire interlocked tribe of St-Chinians, Viellards, Janviers, Duquilles and Aubins – whose senior members controlled nearly three hundred thousand acres of the finest sugar-producing land in Louisiana – was in an uproar at the thought of its eldest living member marrying a ‘cheap Irish tavern-slut’ – ‘Not that I’ve ever encountered an expensive Irish tavern-slut, mind you,’ had remarked his friend Hannibal Sefton, whose experience of Irish tavern-sluts was fairly comprehensive.

  ‘Ah have an’ all,’ assented the old man. ‘A fair sweet lass I thought her, soft-spoke as any doo. Speaks French a treat, she does, an’ her English no more Irish than Mr Sefton’s, though she can’t read a word beyond her name. She come to this country a lass as young as Miss Charmian, an’ her father, she says, tewed all his days keepin’ books for some company in New York, an’ fell sick only after comin’ here to New Orleans. She’ll call of an evenin’, an’ Veryl’ll read to her, or I will. Veryl says when they’re wed he’ll have her taught proper.’

  He frowned, buttoning his shirt and letting Archibald slip him into an extremely shabby silk waistcoat cut in a style that January recognized as having been popular in Napoleon’s day. From the jungle of banana-trees and resurrection-fern that choked the courtyard, Dominique’s voice raised in silvery exasperation, ‘I honestly don’t know which is worse, Rose: M’sieu Singletary and Uncle Veryl going on about people who’ve been dead for thousands of years, or Uncle Veryl and Henri going on about bugs!’

  Singletary chuckled at this, like dry leaves rubbed together, as old M’sieu St-Chinian and his nephew protested in chorus that, strictly speaking, only members of the order Hemiptera could be classified as bugs, and that such creatures as the Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera were in fact no such thing …

  ‘A grievous unregulated mind, Veryl,’ sighed the Englishman. ‘Small wonder he canna grasp t’ basic principles of Pythagoras, think on, wi’ his mind all flittin’ off aboot if some attercop creepin’ up t’ wall’s a Mygalomorphus or a Araneomorph. But why, after leavin’ him much to his own for the whole o’ his life here—’ the gesture of one arthritic hand took in the crumbling Spanish townhouse around them, which for forty-odd years had been Veryl’s home – ‘they start fratchin’ now aboot him tumblin’ in love, has me reet flummoxed.’

  ‘It’s because of his brother’s death,’ said January, a little surprised that Singletary didn’t know.

  The old man’s frown returned. ‘What, Miss Chloë’s da’?’

  Miss Chloë – strictly speaking, Madame Chloë St-Chinian Viellard – was Henri Viellard’s very young wife, a cold-blooded and bespectacled little scholar who had substantially increased the voting rights of the Viellard faction in the family corporation.

  ‘It’s Miss Chloë’s grandfather, who was Veryl’s brother,’ January explained. ‘And no – Gilbert St-Chinian, his wife, his son Raymond, and Raymond’s wife all died of yellow fever in 1827, leaving Miss Chloë sole heir to Gilbert’s share of the family holdings. César St-Chinian – the oldest of old Aimé St-Chinian’s sons – died last year, leaving Uncle Veryl and Henri’s mother, Aurelié St-Chinian Viellard, in control of most of the St-Chinian lands. Under Lou
isiana law,’ he added, seeing the old man’s frown deepen, ‘land is left equally to all of a man’s children, not divided up. Most of the French planter families who control the sugar lands below Baton Rouge hold the property as shares in a joint family corporation, with all senior members having a vote on its administration … or its sale. Americans have been trying for decades to get the law changed, to make it easier to buy sugar plantations without the whole family having to agree to sell, because the old land grants were given under French law. It’s what allows the French to continue their hold on the state government.’

  ‘Ach.’ Singletary nodded. ‘So that’s why, the one time I went wi’ Veryl to them relatives of a Sunday dinner, t’ whole o’ the table got to slangin’ an’ shoutin’. Not knowin’ a word o’ Frogspeak I couldna follow, but Veryl did say, t’was land they was fratchin’ aboot. This Brother César you speak of was there, think on, bellerin’ loudest of all. A tall old yin wi’ a beard on him like a holly-bush?’

  ‘That would be him.’ January recalled the old man well, from years of playing the piano at balls, weddings, and Mardi Gras festivities of the French and Spanish Creole elite. ‘He died last year, after disinheriting both his son and his daughter. In Louisiana it’s almost literally impossible to disinherit your children: the law requires a man to leave his children at least a third of his property if his wife survives him, half if she does not, and two-thirds if he has more than one child. I suspect,’ he added wryly, ‘that’s because too many men were leaving property to the sons of their plaçeés. But Locoul St-Chinian – César’s son – struck his father in the course of an argument, which is one of the handful of grounds for utterly disinheriting one’s child. My mother claims that César baited his son into striking him, because Locoul had defied him about something else, I don’t recall just what – at this point it scarcely matters. Fleurette, old César’s daughter, married at the age of sixteen without her father’s permission, which is another. What does matter is that there are now only two members of the older generation of St-Chinian landholders with a controlling interest in the family lands – and one of them is on the verge of taking a wife.’

  ‘Not like they can forbid t’ banns, think on,’ agreed Singletary, with a rusty laugh. ‘An’ as Veryl’s wife this lass’ll come to havin’ a voice i’ runnin’ t’ whole shebang?’

  ‘Exactly,’ January said. ‘The situation is usually dealt with by pushing the young men of the family into matrimony when they’re still young enough to be bullied, bribed, or blackmailed by their seniors. Veryl is what? Nearly seventy?’

  ‘Sixty-seven – an’ no so great an age,’ added the old man, poking an admonishing finger at January.

  ‘No,’ agreed January with a smile. ‘The problem is that this young lady – what’s her name, by the way?’

  ‘Trask. Miss Elizabeth Trask.’

  ‘The problem is that Mamzelle Trask will be Veryl’s first wife, and therefore entitled to a share of the management of the family lands. Subsequent wives – en second noces, as it’s called – don’t have the same rights.’

  ‘Dommed clever o’ somebody,’ grumbled the old mathematician. ‘An’ still no manner o’ their business, whate’er t’ law says. Why, you’ve only t’ look at t’ lass t’ see she’s right an’ sweet a child as’ e’er you’d meet of a summer’s day, think on! An’ no more guile to her than a wee cuddy in a hedge.’

  January stepped back as Archie helped his master to rise. ‘How did M’sieu St-Chinian come to meet her?’ he asked, well aware that old Mr Singletary – a lifelong bachelor who seldom lifted his nose from theoretical calculus – had slightly less experience of the world than Olympe’s six-year-old son Ti-Paul.

  ‘T’would break your heart, Mr J.’ Singletary’s silver brows pulled down over his great, hooked nose in real distress. ‘All that poor lass has suffered, after her da’ was took by fever. He’d been rentin’ a couple o’ rooms in St Mary’s up t’river, an’ when he passed, her hagwife landlady turned her out, an’ took what little money he’d left in the place, sayin’ as how he owed for the month, though poor Ellie knew he’d paid already. Ellie’d saved a little, sewin’, an’ hid it in t’back o’ a drawer, but when she went t’ look there, ’twas gone – taken, Ellie thought, when she was sleepin’, so wore down she was wi’ nursin’ her poor da’. She’d walked the whole of the way from St Mary’s to the place her da’s sister lived, clear downriver in Chalmette, only to find the woman gone, an’ t’rain pourin’ down – t’ fore-end o’ July, this was – an’ she turned the heel o’ her poor little shoe an’ twisted her ankle somethin’ cruel, an’ took shelter from t’rain reet down in t’ carriage-way there …’

  He stepped out onto the little gallery outside his window, pointed his thin, shaky finger past the overgrown garden, to the arched tunnel that led out onto Rue Bourbon.

  ‘Veryl found her, wi’evenin’ comin’ down, shiverin’ wi’ cold an’ soaked to her skin an’ faintin’ wi’ hunger. He took her in an’ give her a little wine, an’ a dollar to find her a place to stay the night, for she wouldna sleep t’night under a gentleman’s roof, she said; her ma had raised her better nor that, she said. Then t’next day she come back, to return Veryl his money, havin’ found a little sewin’ work. An’ by that time, you could say, Veryl felt as if she was in a way his own. She’d have died sure, had it not been for him.’

  Times were hard, January knew. More than one young girl in New Orleans had genuinely found herself tramping the streets in quest of a fugitive aunt … And God knew there were hagwives aplenty who wouldn’t turn a hair at ejecting a tennant’s child after cheating her out of her father’s remaining few coins.

  And he supposed that pretty young ladies did sprain their ankles just outside the carriageways of unworldly old bachelors who had recently acquired control over several hundred thousand acres of sugar land, too.

  ‘’Twas but a few weeks ago,’ Singletary went on, ‘she’d come of an afternoon to ask how he did, an’ he was took sick, an’ she stayed on here, nursin’ him turn an turn about wi’ me, James an’ Archie – though she’d all her own sewin’ work to do as well, poor lass. Veryl’s own daughter couldna cared for him better. I don’t ken what passed betwixt ’em, but ’twas a beautiful thing to see, him comin’ back to strength an’ her weepin’ wi’ joy at it.’

  I’ll bet. ‘And it was then he asked her to marry him?’

  Singletary nodded, lined face wreathed with tender happiness for his friend’s sake. Just as if, thought January, herbs like so-called Indian tobacco didn’t exist which would reduce a man to vomiting and weakness, so that a clever woman could ‘nurse’ him to health with simple tisanes and win his gratitude.

  Particularly an inexperienced old scholar, separated from the affairs of business and family, in love for perhaps the first time in his life.

  ‘Oh, M’sieu St-Chinian,’ cooed a lovely voice down in the court below, ‘please excuse me, I didn’t know you had guests.’

  It was the voice of a very young angel, her French just tinted with a slight Irish lilt.

  ‘It’s nothing, mignonne. M’sieu Janvier – M’sieu Singletary’s physician, you know – was in the neighborhood …’

  January stepped onto the gallery, and ascertained – without an atom of surprise – that Miss Ellie Trask was one of the most beautiful young women he had ever laid eyes on. Her hair, under a neat bonnet whose curtailed poke framed rather than concealed her face, was the mellow gold of evening sunlight, clustering in curls at her ears and trailing in fragile whisps around her temples. Even at this distance January could see the delicacy of her features, the perfect shape of her mouth – wide and gentle with its suggestion of kindness and smiles – and the healthy (though slightly augmented) rosiness of her porcelain skin.

  When he and Singletary descended to the court and he was presented to Mamzelle Trask, the eyes she raised to his were brown, doe-like under eyelashes whose natural length and thickness had been accentuated – he had
watched his mother do it a thousand times in his childhood – by the skillful application of kohl.

  Altogether she was enough to make the most austere saint in the calendar burn his books.

  He found himself wondering how quickly she’d gotten over that sprained ankle. Quickly enough to return her benefactor’s money to him the following day, anyhow.

  ‘I’m ever so pleased to meet you, sir,’ she cooed, when he bowed over her hand. Then she turned those tender eyes upon Veryl, filled with the adoration of a young girl. ‘I do hope M’sieu Singletary is well?’

  ‘Perfectly so, yes, Mamzelle.’

  Rose was introduced to her as January’s wife, Dominique as his sister, along with her child. Henri Viellard, fat and balding and bespectacled in a modishly cut green linen coat, remained at his uncle’s side with the expression of a chance caller who had happened to arrive at the same time as the advent of the Janvier family party. Even Charmian – a vision in white gauze – knew, January noticed, at the tender age of five, to keep her distance from her father and cling to her mother’s hand, seen and not heard, in the presence of a white stranger. The custom of the country, as he’d said to Olympe. New Orleans was full of dusky-complexioned little girls and boys who knew from toddlerhood that they weren’t to greet their fathers in the street unless spoken to first. But the knowledge that it had to be so, like the bitter gleam in Olympe’s eye, lay sour on his tongue like the backtaste of poison.

  A glance at the young planter’s stolid face and unhappy eyes showed him that Henri Viellard tasted the poison, too.

  Mamzelle Trask exclaimed over Charmian’s prettiness, and stooped – with a dancer’s suppleness – to admire the child. ‘You must be so proud of her, Madame,’ she said to Dominique, with such obvious enthusiasm that Minou, despite her initial reserve, smiled warmly back.