The rector bristled. “The only ones who say that are agitators, my dear. Unprincipled Yankee agitators.”
Out of politeness, Madeline shrugged to admit the possibility, but then she murmured, “I wonder.”
Displeased, the rector snapped, “Shall we get some food?”
Madeline realized she had annoyed him. “Of course. Please lead the way.”
She gave her husband a smile, which he returned with a rather forced one of his own. After she and the rector strolled off, Francis squinted at his brother. “Your bride has opinions on quite a number of public issues.”
Justin chuckled. The sound was deep and mellow.
“You’ve noticed that have you?”
“She shouldn’t speak so freely. Intelligence is desirable in a woman, but only within limits.”
“Everything, my dear brother, carries a certain price. The dowry provided by old Fabray is no exception.” Justin gazed over the rim of his silver punch cup at the swelling bodice of Madeline’s wedding dress. He calculated the angle of the sun with sleepy, half-lidded eyes. In a few more hours he would be the possessor of everything hidden by that pristine satin and lace. He could hardly wait.
How curiously fate worked, he thought. Nearly two years ago he had decided to take a trip to New Orleans, even though he could scarcely afford it. He had gone there to indulge himself at the gambling tables and to attend one of the legendary quadroon balls in the famous hall overlooking Orleans Street. But before he went to the ball or got a look at the nigger beauties, chance put him next to Nicholas Fabray at the bar of a fashionable gambling establishment. Fabray didn’t gamble, but he frequented the place because it was one of several where influential men of the city congregated. It soon became evident to the visitor that Fabray must be one of those. He knew everyone, his clothing was elegant and expensive, and he spent money with the ease of someone who didn’t have to worry about it. Later, Justin asked questions and learned that all his suppositions were correct.
Two evenings later he ran into Fabray again at the same place. There he made the discovery that the sugar factor had a young unmarried daughter. From that point on, Justin fairly oozed politeness and good humor. Fabray was completely taken in; when Justin wanted to be charming, no one could rival him.
A few references by Justin to his status as a stranger in town prompted Fabray to invite him home for supper. Justin met the daughter, and from the instant he saw her, he was almost dizzy with lust.
He carefully concealed it, of course. He treated Madeline Fabray with the same restrained courtesy he lavished on her father. Before the evening was over, Justin concluded that although his age and experience awed the beautiful creature, she was not afraid of him.
He extended his stay in New Orleans a week, and then another. Fabray seemed pleased to have a gentleman of Justin’s caliber pay court to Madeline. And everything Justin learned about the father only heightened his desire to possess the daughter. For one thing, there were no religious problems. The family was German—the original name was Faber—and Protestant. Madeline attended church, although her father did not; he was not interested in his soul, but in making money. Sensing what Justin had in mind, Fabray hinted that he would bestow a good deal of that money on his daughter, as her dowry.
On one occasion Justin inquired about Madeline’s mother. He learned little other than that she had died some years earlier. She had been a Creole, which meant she was the New Orleans-born child of European parents—French, most likely, although they could have been Spanish or one of each. Justin, viewing Fabray’s small gallery of family portraits, asked whether there were any pictures of the lady, to which Fabray replied with a curious vagueness, “No, not here.”
Then and there Justin decided not to pursue the inquiry. Every respectable family, including his own, had a few skeletons hidden away; these usually belonged to wives who ran off with other men or who succumbed to a nervous disorder and had to be locked up until they died. He had heard nothing unfavorable about the late Mrs. Fabray—no one he had questioned had even mentioned her—so he would happily set aside this minor worry in exchange for Madeline’s irresistible beauty and the money he so desperately needed to support his style of life.
If Fabray’s daughter had any flaw at all, it was her obvious intelligence and her reluctance to conceal the fact that she had opinions about matters that were ordinarily the province of gentlemen. Fabray had seen to it that she received the finest education available to a young woman in New Orleans—that provided by the sisters of Saint Ursula. Fabray had many good friends in the city’s Catholic community and was known to be a strong supporter of the worthy causes of the Roman church. He had overcome the initial reluctance of the Ursulines to accept a Protestant pupil by donating heavily to the hospital and orphanage the nuns maintained.
Madeline’s forthright nature was no great deterrent to Justin, however. He had methods for dealing with that kind of problem, although he intended to conceal those methods until she was legally his wife.
Before he left the city, he asked for and received Fabray’s permission to propose. Madeline listened to his rather long-winded declaration of love, and he became increasingly certain she would say yes at the end. But she said no, although she thanked him several times for flattering her with the proposal.
That night, to relieve his physical and mental frustration, he hired a whore and badly abused her with his fists and cane. After she had crept out of his hotel room, he lay awake in the dark for more than an hour, recalling Madeline’s expression at the moment she refused him. She was afraid, he concluded. Since she could not possibly be afraid of him—he had been the soul of politeness, after all—it must be the idea of marriage that frightened her. That was a common enough attitude among young girls, and one he could overcome. Her refusal represented a delay, not a defeat.
In the weeks and months that followed, Justin sent the girl long, flowery love letters repeating his proposal. She answered each with an expression of gratitude and another politely phrased rejection. Then, unexpectedly, her father’s stroke changed everything.
Justin was not exactly sure why the change had come about. Perhaps Fabray had feared he wouldn’t live much longer and had intensified his effort to get his child safely married before he died. In any case, Madeline had reversed herself, and the terms had been arranged. The financial rewards of Justin’s long campaign proved highly satisfactory. Beyond that, he would soon have the absolute right to put his hands on Madeline’s—
Rudely, Francis jolted him back to the real world. “I tell you, Justin, you may discover that Madeline is entirely too independent for her own good. Or yours. A wife should be discouraged from speaking her mind on political matters—and absolutely forbidden to do so at any public gathering.”
“Of course I agree, but I can’t achieve a transformation in one day. It will take a little time.”
Francis sniffed. “I wonder if you’ll ever be able to handle that young woman.”
Justin laid a big, well-manicured hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Hasn’t your experience with blooded animals taught you anything? A spirited woman’s no different than a spirited mare. Each can and must be taught who’s in charge.” He sipped from his punch cup, then murmured, “Broken.”
“I hope you know what you’re talking about.” Francis sounded doubtful, but then his knowledge of women was limited to slaves, prostitutes, and his dim-witted, downtrodden spouse. “Creoles are not noted for passive temperaments. All that Latin blood—you took a considerable risk marrying her.”
“Nonsense. Madeline may be from New Orleans, but she’s also female. Despite their pretensions, women are only slightly more intelligent than horses. She’ll give me no—good God, what’s that?”
He pivoted, startled by outcries and the crash of a table overturning. “A fight already?”
He rushed off.
A few minutes earlier, Cousin Charles had been seated against the trunk of a live oak, his coat discarded a
nd a second huge plate of barbecue in his lap. A shadow fell across his legs.
He looked up to see a thin, foppish boy and three of his friends. The boy, a couple of years older than Charles, was a member of the Smith clan.
“Here’s the creature from Mont Royal,” young Smith said as he postured in front of his cronies. He looked down at Charles. “Rather a secluded spot, this. Hiding out?”
Charles stared back, nodded. “That’s right.”
Smith smiled and fingered his cravat. “Oh? Afraid?”
“Of you? Not much. I just wanted to eat in peace.”
“Or is it that you’re ashamed of the appearance you present? Cast your optics over him, gentlemen,” Smith continued in an exaggerated way. “Marvel at the mussed clothing. Consider the crude haircut. Discern the dirt-stained cheeks. He looks more like white trash than a member of the Main family.”
The baiting infuriated Charles, but he didn’t let on. He figured he could get Smith’s goat if he acted nonchalant. He was right. While Smith’s friends made jokes about Charles, Smith himself stopped smiling and said:
“Stand up and face your betters when they address you, boy.” He grabbed Charles’s left earlobe and gave it a painful tweak.
Charles pitched the plate of barbecue at Smith. Meat and relish splattered the front of Smith’s sky-blue waistcoat. Smith’s friends began to laugh. He turned on them, cursing. That gave Charles the opportunity to jump up, grab both Smith’s ears from behind, and twist them savagely.
Smith squealed. One of his friends said, “See here, you trashy little bastard—” The fellow attempted to grab him, but Charles dodged away. Laughing, he shot around the tree and raced toward the wedding guests. He bet that Smith and his friends wouldn’t make a fuss in public. But he didn’t bargain on their hot tempers; they charged right after him.
Charles slid on a patch of grass where someone had spilled a drink. He slammed down on his back, the wind knocked out. Smith ran up, took hold of him, and hauled him to his feet.
“Now, you lout, I intend to administer a lesson in deport—”
Charles butted him in the stomach, getting barbecue relish in his hair. The result was worth it. Smith clutched his middle and doubled over. In that position, his whole face was vulnerable. Charles gave him a thumb in the eye.
“Kill him,” one of the other boys yelled. Charles wasn’t sure that they didn’t mean it. He rocketed off in the direction of the food.
Smith’s friends raced in pursuit. Dropping to hands and knees, Charles scuttled underneath one of the tables. Fingers closed around his ankle and pulled him backward. He reared up and tipped the table—the crash that attracted the attention of Justin LaMotte, his brother, and many of the guests.
Charles had discovered that Smith knew nothing of frontier-style fighting. He presumed the same was true of the other three. Possessed of that advantage, he began to enjoy himself. He turned abruptly on the boy who had grabbed his ankle. When Justin and Francis arrived, closely followed by Francis’s ten-year-old son Forbes, Charles was straddling the boy’s chest, merrily pounding his head with bloody knuckles.
“Get him off!” the older boy gasped. “He—doesn’t fight—like a gentleman.”
“No, sir, I fight to win.” Charles raised the boy’s head by the ears and bashed it against the hard ground.
“Charles, that is enough.”
The voice startled and alarmed him. He was jerked to his feet and whirled around. There stood Orry in his splendid uniform, fire in his eyes. Behind him Charles saw Cooper, Aunt Clarissa, and a sea of guests.
He heard one woman declare, “What a shame. All that intelligence—those good looks—wasted. He’ll come to a bad end, that Main boy.”
Several others agreed. Charles gave the crowd a defiant glare. Orry shook his arm hard, and Aunt Clarissa apologized for the trouble and offered to pay for the damage. Her tone made Charles blush and hang his head at last.
“I believe it might be best if we left now,” Aunt Clarissa said.
“Oh, I’m sorry you can’t stay longer,” Justin said. Charles knew he didn’t mean it.
On the way home, Orry started to lecture him. “That was an absolutely disgraceful scene. I don’t care how badly you were provoked, you should have held your temper. It’s time you began acting like a gentleman.”
“I can’t,” Charles retorted. “I’m not a gentleman, I’m an orphan, and one isn’t the same as the other. Everybody at Mont Royal makes that pretty clear all the time.”
In the boy’s angry eyes Cooper detected a flash of hurt. Orry squared his shoulders like a general who had been disobeyed. “You impertinent—”
“Let him alone,” Cooper interrupted softly. “He got his punishment when all those people talked about him.”
Charles peered at Cooper. He was stunned to find that the thin, studious man knew so much about him. To conceal his embarrassment, he turned to gaze out the window.
Orry blustered and started to argue. Clarissa touched his hand. “Cooper’s right. No more discussion until we’re home.” A few minutes later she tried to slip her arm around Charles’s shoulders. He pulled away. She looked across at her oldest son and shook her head.
When they reached Mont Royal, Tillet thrashed Charles in spite of Clarissa’s protests. Tillet echoed the sentiments of the woman at the wedding:
“He’ll come to a bad end. Do you need any further proof?”
Clarissa could only stare at her husband in silent dismay.
Somewhere in the great house at Resolute, a clock struck two.
The night air was humid and oppressive, heightening Madeline LaMotte’s feeling that she was hopelessly trapped. Her fine cotton gown had tangled around her waist, but she didn’t dare move to straighten it. Movement might rouse her husband, snoring lightly beside her.
It had been an exhausting day, but worse than that, the last few hours had brought her nothing but shock and pain and disillusionment. She had expected Justin to be gentle and considerate, not only because he was an older man but because he had behaved that way in New Orleans. Now she knew it had all been a sham, designed to create a false impression for her and for her father.
Three times tonight she had been taught the bitter lesson. Three times Justin had exercised his rights. He had done it roughly, without once asking whether she was agreeable. There was only one small redeeming factor: the revelation of his dishonesty lessened her shame over the deception she had perpetrated on him.
This deception—the slight show of blood the first time—had been arranged with the help of Maum Sally, who knew about such things. The deception was necessary because Madeline had foolishly allowed herself to be seduced at a young age. That one mistake changed the course of her life. But for it, she wouldn’t have been forced to ignore her own beliefs about personal honor and resort to deceit on her wedding night. Indeed, she never would have found herself in this frightful situation at all.
Madeline’s seduction had occurred in the summer of her fourteenth year. To this day she carried a medallion-bright memory of Gerard, the carefree, good-looking boy who had worked as a cabin steward on one of the big Mississippi steamboats. She had met Gerard by chance one afternoon on the levee. He was seventeen and so jolly and attentive that she was soon ignoring the silent dictates of her conscience and sneaking off to meet him whenever his boat docked in the city—about once every ten days that summer.
Later in August, on a dark, thundery afternoon, she gave in to his pleadings and went with him to a sordid rented room in an alley in the Vieux Carré. Once he had her in a compromising position, he forgot about politeness and used her vigorously, although he was careful not to hurt her.
He failed to turn up for their next prearranged meeting. She took a great risk by going to the gangplank of the steamboat and asking for him. The deckhand to whom she spoke was evasive; he didn’t know exactly where Gerard could be found at the moment. Then Madeline chanced to look at one of the upper decks. Behind a round cabin wi
ndow she glimpsed a dim face. The instant Gerard saw her watching, he stepped back into darkness. She never saw him again.
For days she feared she might bear a child. When that consuming worry passed, she began to feel guilty about what she had done. She had wanted to make love with Gerard, but now that she had and she realized that he’d wanted nothing else from her, passion gave way to remorse and to a fear of all young men and their motives. The events of the summer drove her to try to atone, if that were possible, by means of adherence to new and more rigid standards of behavior she set for herself.
In the next few years she discouraged all young men who wanted to call on her, and in fact she avoided men almost completely until her father brought Justin LaMotte to dinner. The South Carolinian had two things to recommend him—kindly charm and his age. She was positive he was not driven by passions, as Gerard had been. That was one of the reasons she had finally changed her mind about Justin’s proposals.
The change actually took place a few days after her father’s seizure. One evening by the waxy light of bedside candles, he pleaded with her:
“I don’t know how much longer I can live, Madeline. Set my mind at ease. Marry LaMotte. He’s a decent and honorable man.”
“Yes,” she said as the candles wavered, stirred by Fabray’s slurred speech. “I think so, too.”
Only something as compelling as Nicholas Fabray’s plea from his sickbed could have overcome her fear of marriage. But even her regard for her father couldn’t banish her sadness at leaving her home, her small circle of friends, and the city she knew and loved. She made the long journey to South Carolina because she wanted to give her father peace of mind and because she trusted Justin LaMotte to be what he seemed.
How wrong she had been. How brutally, idiotically wrong. In terms of what he wanted, Justin was no different from younger men, and in one way he was worse. Gerard, at least, had tried not to hurt her.
She didn’t blame her father for what had happened. Yet she believed things might not have reached such a state if she had also had a mother to counsel her. Madeline had never known her mother, whom Nicholas Fabray always described as the finest woman in the world. Evidently she had been an intelligent, sophisticated Creole of great beauty. Fabray said Madeline resembled her strongly, but there was not a single picture to prove or disprove that. Just before his wife’s sudden and unexpected death, he had commissioned a miniaturist to paint her portrait. He said it was the second greatest disappointment of his life that he had not made the arrangements sooner.