Another Small Kingdom (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

M
adame de Metz sat with her new friend, Marie de Valois. It was late morning and they were drinking chocolate in Marie's boudoir.The windows were open to provide some comfort to the room but beyond the balcony the rain storm, combining with the heat, made everywhere dark and oppressive. Marie was looking bored and idly fanned herself but Madame de Metz was lively and animated. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

‘But who is he, your husband's new friend, the mysterious Mr Macleod? Everyone is asking the same question, who is he? Is he anyone?'

Madame de Valois ceased her futile work with her fan.

‘How should I know and why should I care? He is someone who has attached himself to my husband. Other than that I know nothing and care less.'

‘I have heard he is a fabulously rich lawyer from the North down here looking to invest in cotton or tobacco. I'm told he seems to talk about business well enough, but as far as actually doing any he seems to prefer spending his time making his way in society. The question I ask myself is, does society want him?'

‘Society can do as it wishes.
I
don't want him, not even as a topic of discussion. Find something else, for heaven's sake, or I'll start to get a headache.'

‘Of course it might be a clever ploy. There's plenty looking to get money invested. Business is not being well served by this war. Saying you have plenty to invest and then dilly-dallying while people come to you with propositions might be …'

‘Oh for pity's sake! Don't go on so about business. Leave that to the men. It seems to interest them and keeps them out of the way, thank God.'

Madame de Metz changed tack.

‘Do you think him handsome?'

‘I don't think him anything.'

‘No, not handsome perhaps, but attractive in a clumsy, innocent sort of way. He makes me laugh.'

‘Ah, an amusing man. Now that is different. I might take an interest in an amusing man.'

‘It's as if he was a child playing a part in household theatricals. He takes himself terribly seriously and tries so hard, but is so hopelessly bad at his act that one ends up finding him rather sweet and encouraging him in his efforts, just as one would with a child.'

‘Playing a part?'

‘Oh, yes. He is acting the gay cavalier and the successful man of business at the same time. Now he might be the man of business but as a cavalier he has about as much understanding of manners and fashion as …' and she cast about in her mind for a telling simile but before she could finish the door of the boudoir opened and Marie's husband entered. He stopped dead when he saw Madame de Metz. He didn't like her, in fact he was a little afraid of her but, since she seemed to be everywhere and know everyone, he could not avoid her. But he definitely didn't like her. It was something about the way she looked at you, he thought, like some sort of dangerous animal marking down its prey. He spoke pointedly at his wife.

‘I am sorry, Madame, I didn't know you were entertaining company.'

‘Yes, sir, I do have company. May I introduce Eloise de Metz?'

Madame de Metz looked at him and smiled. It almost made him step back.

‘If you wish to speak to your wife alone, sir, I will, of course, withdraw.'

But she sat there looking immovable as a rock. De Valois read the eyes rather than the words, “try to move me if you dare, sir, and see what happens”.

‘Ladies, I will leave you. I just wished to let you know, Madame, that I lunch today with St Clair.'

Madame de Metz put a mocking surprise into her voice.

‘What, not your new friend from the North?'

‘Madame, the man to whom I think you refer is the merest acquaintance. I hardly know him and he is certainly not a friend.'

‘Indeed. But I hear he is your constant companion.'

‘I cast an eye over him, he values my opinion in fashion. Rightly or wrongly he relies on my judgement so I cast an eye over him, Madame. No more, no less.'

‘You are too good, sir, you are a saint to do as you do for a stranger, a nobody. You are too good for this world.'

De Valois finally managed to get his hand on the door knob and opened the door. He gave a quick bow.

‘Ladies, your servant.'

And he left hearing the laughter coming from the room as he walked furiously away.

‘I know I shouldn't do it but I can't help myself. He makes it so easy.'

Marie resumed the fan.

‘Pray don't apologise. I get little enough to laugh at so I take whatever comes my way with gratitude and, as you say, he does make it so easy. But tell me, why do you bother with the man?'

‘Macleod or your husband?'

‘Is that his name, Macleod?'

‘Yes. His father was Scottish but his mother was French. He is a lawyer and he is from Boston, although whether he is as rich as he acts I'm not so sure. My interest is that he plays the fool but is clever enough to have wormed his way into society through your husband. Perhaps our Mr Macleod is not at all what he seems.'

‘My goodness, Eloise, what a lot you know about him. You do make it your business to find things out about people, don't you?'

Not for the first time in their acquaintance Eloise de Metz wondered if this beautiful young woman was truly as innocent of worldly ways as she appeared. She was sure the indifference for the opinion of others was real enough but what lay behind that indifference? She would need to be more careful about the beautiful Marie Christine.

‘I'm insatiably curious, Marie, and there's precious little in New Orleans to be curious about so I have to settle for what I find around me. For instance, I'm fascinated by you. You're such an enigma.'

‘Me! I would have thought my life is an open book and certainly as dull as most books.'

‘You're the best-looking woman in the city yet you seem to have no lovers. Don't tell me you are faithful to your husband out of love. I won't believe that.'

‘Then I won't tell you it's for love.'

‘Duty?'

‘No, not duty nor loyalty either before you ask.'

‘Then what?'

Marie laid down the fan once more.

‘Tell me, Eloise, by what right do you question me about my most intimate affairs?'

There was a tone in her voice that Madame de Metz had not heard there before. It told her that her little game was up. She knew at once that she had gone too far too fast and the door to friendship had been slammed well and truly shut. Oh well, it would have happened sooner or later and she was fairly sure that neither of the de Valois's was involved in what she was looking for. She rose.

‘I must be going, my dear.' Marie sat in stony silence and did not offer her hand to her departing visitor. ‘I hope I haven't given you a headache with my chatter. If I were to have inflicted pain on such a dear friend I would be desolate, I assure you, absolutely desolate. Pain can be such a nuisance. Adieu.'

Marie sat staring ahead as Madame de Metz left the room. She had never liked the woman, but then again, whom did she like, man or woman? Her thoughts turned, unwillingly, to the topic she had so recently dismissed, Macleod.

Perhaps he was indeed different. But, if so, what could that mean to her? Nothing. Yet having been placed in her mind by Madame de Metz, he somehow lingered and this annoyed her. Dismissing men from her thoughts had long ago become the simplest of all simple tasks. They meant nothing to her and so they were gone. But Macleod would not be dismissed and this annoyed her. In raising even that small emotion she had to admit he was indeed different. She began again to fan herself and, reflecting on the empty day she would face, it occurred to her that M Macleod, absent and unknowing, might do her a favour. He might provide some small diversion in the unending procession of empty days which constituted her empty and meaningless existence.

Chapter Twenty-two

M
acleod sat in his rooms staring moodily out of the window at the afternoon rain.After a good start to his campaign he was bogged down and getting nowhere. True, he was now as well-dressed as any man of fashion in New Orleans and he was accepted into society as the minor protégé of de Valois. He was carrying off the part of the fashion dandy as well as he could and, it seemed to him, being successful at it. But although his plan had worked it had actually got him nowhere, he had entered the citadel only to find no enemy within. Nor had he got anywhere with the tailor, despite cajoling, flattery, veiled threats and hints of money. He was no nearer knowing how he got his up-to-date designs from Paris than when he had first met him. In fact the tailor now regarded him with a deep suspicion which he did little to hide. And, as to his high hopes that de Valois and St Clair might be the men he was looking for, they were soon dashed. He had spent enough time in their company to be quite sure that de Valois really was indeed a semi-imbecile and his friend, St Clair, was no more than what he seemed, de Valois's close friend. If there was any kind of intrigue going on it was too cleverly hidden for him to spy it out.

So here he was, with his story of great business ventures worn as thin as tissue paper and nothing more urgent to do than sit in his rooms staring out of the window with no more idea of what was going on than an onion in a stew. He freely admitted to himself that he had no strategy to move the situation on from its present position so that he might make some kind of report.

Jeremiah Jones had arrived three weeks after Macleod, just as he had said. Now, nearly one month on, Macleod guessed that Jones would be getting impatient, and if he wasn't, then he should be. A good officer gets results and the only result Macleod could report was that he was now a man of fashion who could drivel and prance with the best of them. Not a battle honour he cared to point to with any pride.

However, Macleod was not being completely honest with himself in putting down his feelings of anger and frustration to the lack of progress in his investigations. The truth was, it was his lack of progress in getting noticed by Marie Christine de Valois which so unsettled him. Perhaps if Macleod had applied the same effort to his duty as he had to attracting that lady's attention he might have had more than the improved cut of his clothes to report. But a man smitten for the first time by great passion, especially when well past youth, does not see the world as others do. Self-delusion is the greatest delusion of all and Macleod honestly believed he was doing his best to watch and listen and, in a way, it was true. But it was Madame de Valois that he watched and listened for.

The truth is Macleod had, for too long, brutally repressed in himself all joy in living, and tried to live on hate alone. In Boston he had almost managed that grisly feat. But the human psyche will not be ridden over roughshod by simple force of will. In taking on the part of the gay socialite Macleod had unwittingly opened the flood-gates for long suppressed, but very necessary, human urges, and Nature was busy restoring the balance with a vengeance.

To himself, Macleod was as in control as ever, playing a part to gain an end. To anyone who knew him, Macleod would have appeared to be undergoing a metamorphosis, a sort of re-birth.

His thoughts, as he looked absently at the rain, should have been about trying to work out some way of furthering his objective. But it was another objective that, as usual, his thoughts slid to and the beautiful face of Madame Marie de Valois rose once more into his brain.

A gentle knocking broke into Macleod's reverie. Annoyed at any intrusion into his thoughts he got up and went to the door. If his visitor had bounced a cannonball off his head she could not have stunned Macleod more effectively as he stood, struck dumb, staring.

Marie Christine de Valois had been stared at too many times to take offence and, in any case, she wanted something from this man so she smiled at him.

She shouldn't have done that. Her smile hit Macleod between the eyes at a moment of weakest resistance, and any small sense of what was fitting between a gentleman, receiving a visit from an unaccompanied married lady, expired.

‘It is Mr Macleod, is it not?'

Macleod snapped out of his trance. He had stood staring at her like a common lout. He was in no more than his shirt, practically naked! And he was forcing her to look at him in this state. Beast!

‘Madame, a thousand apologies.'

He turned, went to where his robe lay over the back of a chair, hastily pulled it on and returned to the door.

She smiled again but Macleod, with difficulty, this time managed to hold his ground.

‘Please, Madame, forgive me. I never expected this pleasure, this honour.' Macleod knew he was close to babbling but he was on fire with delight and humiliated with confusion. ‘Please, come in. Madame, I apologise for …'

Marie interrupted.

‘No, thank
you
, sir.'

Macleod was at a loss. She was refusing to accept his apology. Why?

‘You do not …'

‘For a lady alone, sir, a married lady, to enter the apartments of a man who is not her husband …'

Macleod at once recognised the enormity of his blunder.

‘Madame, what a fool you must think me, but …'

But what indeed? Why was she there? Why had she come? It was wonderful that she had. But why?

‘I thought I might find my husband here, that he may have called on you. But I see I must have been mistaken.'

Macleod's mind raced for a response, a witty reply, a subtle compliment, something charming or perhaps tender.

‘No, he is not here.'

Desolation!

Madame de Valois turned as if to leave but stopped.

‘Perhaps you would be so good as to escort me home. The lady who accompanied me here has gone on elsewhere and I have no carriage.'

Delight!

‘But of course, Madame, it would be my pleasure and an honour. If you would …'

He stuttered to a halt. He couldn't leave her at the door and he couldn't ask her in. What could he do? Confusion!

It was too much for him, he gave up.

Fortunately women are better constituted than men to deal with such situations. Marie Christine had not felt real passion for many years, not since she was thirteen and had fallen hopelessly in love with the young woman her family had hired to teach her to dance. But she could still recognise passion in others. She had seen it many times in the looks and manners of young men who had been captivated by her beauty and desired something more than just her looks. She was rather charmed to see such feelings at work in as mature a man as Macleod. Madame de Metz had been right, she decided, he was indeed sweet. If it turned out he was also amusing something might be made of him.

‘I will wait downstairs.'

Of course, only a clod would not have seen it.

Buffoon!

She left and Macleod quickly threw off his robe and found his most dashing coat and best hat and, snatching up his silver-topped stick, hurried after her. Almost as if by some miracle the rain had stopped by the time they stepped out into the street together. Macleod's mind desperately searched for some suitable topic of conversation to captivate her with his wit and fluency.

‘How fortunate that the rain has stopped, Madame.'

‘Yes, it is fortunate.'

‘Rain is always so, so …'

Words again failed.

‘Wet?'

‘Precisely.'

Clod! Imbecile!

His mind redoubled its efforts.

But his mind didn't get a second chance. Marie had manoeuvred this meeting for a purpose, the purpose of her entertainment, and she didn't propose to waste any time in polite chit-chat. The sun now shone brightly so she put up her parasol and began to walk with Macleod, who was thinking furiously, at her side.

‘Tell me, Mr Macleod, why are you really in New Orleans?'

Macleod stopped dead and Marie, looking for all the world as if she had merely remarked that it was now a warm day, waited. Macleod's mind reeled from the suddenness of the question.

‘I don't understand, Madame.'

Marie moved off again and Macleod fell once more into step.

‘Really? I would have thought it quite clear. I asked you what was your real reason for coming to New Orleans? My husband tells me that you say you are going into business but he also tells me that you don't go. You don't seem to do anything except be seen.' She looked at him, the question now in her eyes rather than her voice. But Macleod had no answer. ‘Of course, if your reasons are secret then you cannot tell me, I understand that.'

‘Madame, just to have seen you is justification enough for coming to New Orleans.'

Macleod was delighted with the remark. It was almost gallant. He was disappointed and confused that Marie's response was to laugh.

‘Sir, I appreciate the compliment but pray don't evade the question. Either tell me your reason or tell me I am not to know. Either way you will end my unforgivable intrusion into your private affairs.'

Macleod thought about it. There was no question of allowing her to know why he had come, that was impossible. But for some reason which he could not fathom she had taken an interest in him. If he repulsed her now, any chance of getting to know her would almost certainly be gone. He had to tell her something.

‘Madame, if it were possible for me to tell anyone my reasons for being here there is no one I would rather confide in than yourself.'

He paused and Marie waited until it was clear to her that nothing more was immediately forthcoming.

‘But you are not going to.'

‘Not going to?'

‘Confide in me. I must assume then that your reasons are secret. How intriguing. What a man of mystery you are. You come here from Boston, deposit a large amount at the bank used by the best people in society and put out some story through the bank that you are looking to go into business. Very cleverly you engage the attention of my husband and use him to introduce you into society. But nobody really knows anything about you, and as far as going into business is concerned you take considerably less interest in that than you do in me. As I say, a man of mystery.'

Macleod couldn't believe his ears. This woman, this stranger, had just thoroughly and comprehensively described to him what he thought was his cleverly concealed plan. Had his actions been as obvious to everyone, even down to his fascination with the woman who now walked at his side?

‘Really, Madame, I don't know what to say.'

And he really didn't.

‘May we cross the street? The sun has become tiresome and there is shade on the other side.'

‘Of course.'

He offered her his arm on which she rested her hand ever so lightly, and he led her across the street into the shade.

‘Shall I tell you what I think, M'sieur Macleod? I think you are a very clever villain who marked down my husband as a simpleton and used him to get into society so that one night you can choose the easiest and richest victims, cut their throats and make off with your loot.' And she laughed. ‘Yes, I think you are a dangerous cut-throat and I'm terribly afraid of you.'

Macleod was not so smitten by passion as not to recognise that he was being made a fool of.

‘Madame, make jest of me if you wish but I assure you that …'

But of what could he assure her? Nothing. Then he had a flash of inspiration. He remembered seeing a lurid poster in Boston for a play. At the time he had treated it with utter contempt. Now he thanked God it had made enough of an impression to rest in the recesses of his memory.

‘Oh very well, Madame, since you have found me out I will confess. I am Black Jake, the Philadelphia cut-throat, come to plunder all that is rich and fair in New Orleans. Except you, of course. Not even Black Jake could bring himself to harm such a pretty neck. I will not plunder you, not unless you ask it.'

Now it was Marie's turn to stop for a moment. She had not expected such a sally and she did not like the way he now looked at her. There was something about him, something that might indeed be dangerous. He was no longer sweet, no longer a source of innocent entertainment.

Then Macleod tried to give her a knowing smile and Marie found she could laugh, genuinely laugh. He was a sweet and innocent fool after all. They moved on again, Marie now sure of herself, Macleod confused.

Up to now Macleod had, of necessity, worshipped from afar. As a result, the object of his desire existed more in his head than anything else. But this Marie at his side was no image and had an existence quite outside his head, and Macleod was finding that of the two he preferred the former to the latter. Lust can easily overcome laughter, but love will not so easily survive and Macleod did not try to hide the bitterness of his feelings at her treatment of him.

‘I'm glad I amuse you, Madame.'

‘Oh, don't be offended. If only you knew how tired one can get of clever, witty men who always know what to say, just how to say it and never mean any of what they say. You are like a breath of spring air for me. But I ask myself, what brings this breath of spring to New Orleans? Everyday I watch shallow and vain fools playing their parts and I play mine alongside them. What else can one do? Now, sir, you play your part with great diligence, but I'm afraid that to anyone who cares to look at all closely it is obvious that it is an ill-fitting part. You wear the right clothes, know the right people and visit the right houses, but you are not one of us. You move among us to watch us. You want something from us, but what is it you want, I ask myself? And all of that makes you different and, being different, interesting. If I seem hard and callous it is because I am surrounded by hard and callous people. Innocence, honesty and simplicity are rare things indeed in my world and, when found, usually die young.'

They walked on for a while in silence.