Dark Masquerade (10 page)

“Are you?”

“You were not exactly diplomatic with Grand’mere at dinner. She only wants what is best for the baby. She is not trying to take anything from you, as you seem to imagine.”

She stared at him. “Do you think Callie was to blame for what happened this morning? Do you really believe she was pretending to be unconscious?”

“I can see no other alternative but to believe it.”

“Can’t you? I can.” Her voice was rising but she could not help it. His bland assurance was intensely irritating, as had been his attitude from the moment he stepped into the path.

“You think one of this family, in full daylight, attacked your servant, and leaving her unconscious removed your property, took the baby from his bed and left him at the head of the stairs where he could be hurt, even killed. Such a suggestion is preposterous. More than that, it is an intolerable insult!”

The fire of anger in his slitted eyes was frightening, but Elizabeth refused to be intimidated.

“And I tell you Callie loves Joseph as if he were her own. She would never allow him out of her sight, if she could help it, and even if he could have gotten himself that far. And she does not lie!”

“Just like all women, you are being emotional. Consider, Callie is a slave. Suppose she does love Joseph as her own? What if she knew your papers were gone and that she was at fault? Would she not be afraid that if her carelessness was discovered Joseph would be taken from her? That she might be sent to the fields, or even sold? What would be more natural than for her to try to place the blame elsewhere, even to hurting herself to make it convincing?”

“Callie knows I would never sell her,” Elizabeth said scornfully.

“But she no longer belongs to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“A woman’s property becomes her husband’s when she marries,” he answered, grim satisfaction in his voice. “Now that Felix is dead, his property and yours belongs to his son. And,” he ended softly, “I am in charge of the estate until Joseph reaches his majority.”

Her first thought was that Felix would not have done such a thing. Then she thought of Ellen, so fragile, so in need of protection from the least unpleasantness, and dread crept into her mind. She recognized her own ignorance of the law, but she could see no reason for Bernard to lie. What he had said could be checked with an attorney. She remembered that earlier, when he had told her about the money Felix had arranged to be put in his wife’s name, he had said that the amount would be controlled by himself. Helpless rage swept over her, and she spoke without taking time to think.

“Perhaps you can sell Callie, I don’t know. But I will tell you this. If you do, or if you try to replace her, then I will take Joseph and leave here immediately!”

Not a muscle moved in his face. “You may go when you wish. But you will not take Joseph. As his legal guardian I forbid it.”

His mouth was stern beneath hard black eyes. Dark in appearance, dark in spirit, Elizabeth thought. He was so different from his brother. Felix had been an example of the fiercely fun-loving type of Creole. He had been quick-tempered and reckless in anger, but his anger had always been short-lived. Bernard seemed to be the opposite type, the dark Creole. They were slow to anger or to judge, but equally slow to forgive. They made bad enemies, or good priests. Cynical by nature, they were not men who were easy to deceive.

Elizabeth did not doubt him. She believed that he did have the power to withhold Joseph from her. It seemed all a piece with the direction her life had taken in the past few years. A malevolent fate had decreed that she would be trapped at Oak Shade, in that cold temple draped in mourning with its cold, heartless inhabitants. It was the inevitable outcome of that string of deaths which included those of her father, Felix, and Ellen. It was also the result of her own try at deception. There was even, she felt, a certain strange justice in it.

Something hard and heavy settled in her throat. Not trusting herself to speak, she swung around and walked away a few paces.

Finally she said over her shoulder, “Felix must have trusted you very much.

“I suppose he did.”

“You will understand, I hope, if I am not quite as trusting as he? I think that you mentioned a letter this morning?”

“Perhaps you would like to see it? It was sent on to my attorney, but I can, of course, send for a copy.”

It was not the answer that she wanted. She had hoped to be shown all of the letters Felix had written while Bernard searched for the particular letter containing the instructions concerning legal affairs. The thought of those letters was a canker in her brain. She could not rest until she had seen them for herself and discovered what they contained about Ellen, and about her sister, Elizabeth. Thoughtfully she stared down at her hands with her head bent.

At that evidence of what he thought to be a lady-like submission Bernard stepped toward her.

“This will be difficult for you to accept,” he said, a vestige of warmth seeping into his voice, “but I am not much happier with the situation than you are. The responsibility was there and clearly I had to accept it. I don’t say that it is fair for the guardianship of your son to be out of your hands, but then again it is not, strictly speaking, unfair. Joseph’s inheritance, his land, his holdings, march with mine. The burden of management is not something to be undertaken lightly, certainly not by a woman. Who do you think is better qualified to guard Joseph’s interests than I? His interests are the same as my own.”

Though his explanation mollified her somewhat, she could not help but question him. “You mention Joseph’s land, but where is it? And what of this house?” She waved in the general direction of Oak Shade, which was hidden beyond the trees.

“Oak Shade happens to be mine, but you need not worry about what belongs to Joseph. There were six different plantations in my father’s estate, each with a habitable house upon it. Of these I hold three, including Oak Shade. Joseph now has two, since the sale of the smallest of his holdings to provide your pin money as Felix directed.”

Elizabeth blinked at this casual mention of what would no doubt comprise thousands of acres of land, and at the reference to her twenty thousand dollars as “pin money.”

“There are two reasons, you can see, for what you may regard as an injustice. Felix wanted to shield you from all that is disagreeable and provide someone to help you raise his son in the event that he would be unable to do so himself.”

“Yes, I—I can appreciate that,” Elizabeth said, but her understanding did not take away the rankling feeling of helplessness brought on by Bernard’s use of his authority.

A smile lurked in his eyes. If he sensed her reservation he did not show it.

“Shall we call an end to our differences then?”

There was nothing else for her to do but agree and place her fingers in his outstretched hand.

Because she felt that she had been less than gracious in her capitulation, Elizabeth tried to keep up a conversation on the way back to the house. She could not afford to sulk. Her position had become too precarious to encourage enmity. But though her mind told her this was the intelligent course, her heart was unconvinced.

The sun went behind a bank of clouds. The wind began to rise, sending mares’ tails chasing around the horizon and flattening the grass beneath the trees. It caught at her hair, loosening auburn wisps from her chignon, and pressed her skirts against her. There was a dampness in the wind’s breath, a foretaste of rain. Unconsciously Elizabeth hurried her footsteps toward the house.

“Wait.” Bernard put out a hand to catch her arm.

Obediently she stopped and turned to him.

The wind ruffled the dark hair that waved back from his forehead, and his eyes were narrowed against it. The collar of his black velvet frock coat with its black satin piping flapped against his shoulder.

“Come this way,” he said abruptly.

They circled the house, coming up behind it. Through the trees she could see the two double-storied, galleried back wings built at right angles to the house. In their upper stories they housed the house servants, while downstairs were the kitchen, the dairy, the still room, and the laundry. She knew that a wagon road led to the quarters of the field hands. Along the road between the quarters and the big house stood the smokehouse, the plantation jail and store, the barns and their adjacent stables and carriage house, the cooperage and the tool shed. It was a compact village of buildings hidden from the main house, its noise and confusion separated from the house by nearly two miles of woods. Somewhere beyond the slave quarters, the far stretching open fields began.

Directly behind the house a bayou looped and turned. A trail of beaten earth followed the curves of the bayou, and they walked along it, again losing sight of the house. Except for an edging of Louisiana phlox, its lavender blue flowers dancing in the wind, the path was clear, the way open. Here the undergrowth had been cleared front beneath the trees so that the ground was carpeted with leaves, but still there was an element of wildness in the intense encroaching quiet and the view of the untouched primeval forest seen on the opposite bank of the bayou. The tall, moss-hung cypress trees soared above them near the water’s edge. Bamboo, the native cane, stood in clumps. Turtles slid from their logs, falling into the water with plopping sounds, as they passed. The greenish black water of the slow moving bayou reflected the overhanging trees, the high, scudding, gray clouds, and a small white pavilion.

Bernard used his handkerchief to dust a place for her on the bench that ran around three sides of the pavilion. Then he stood with his back against one of the columns that made up the walls, tucking his handkerchief back into his pocket.

“When he designed this, place my father intended it as a destination at the end of a walk, a place for the ladies to rest. No one comes here, however. I don’t know why. But we are unlikely to be interrupted.”

Elizabeth thought she knew why no one came. It had a cold feeling to it, like the house it resembled, except there were no walls to give the illusion of privacy. It was open, airy, nothing more than a roof, a floor, the bench, and four walls of small-scale columns. The wind swept through it, sending a dry leaf scuttling across the floor. Elizabeth glanced at the sky, judging the possibility of rain.

“I won’t keep you long,” Bernard said. “There is a point or two that still needs clearing up. I don’t want you to feel that I am heaping all of this on you at once, but it is important.

“Yes. Go on,” Elizabeth encouraged him when he paused. He seemed uncomfortable, which struck her as so unusual that she became alert.

“You probably are aware that the country is in an economic panic,” he began doubtfully.

Though she had heard the expression, Elizabeth was by no means certain of exactly what it meant. Still, she knew that it had a direct bearing on money being scarce, and she was no stranger to that. She nodded.

“It affects us here with low prices for our produce. Cotton is at seven cents a pound; that is like giving it away. We grow some of the best staple in the South here on Oak Shade, and I would rather let it rot in the barns than let it go for next to nothing. I have been holding it since it was harvested, hoping for a rise in price, but so far things have gone the other way. Still, the economy cannot stay this way forever. If I can hold out long enough I stand to gain. In the meantime the money is tied up in the bales sitting in the barns and warehouses, and there are still the hands to feed, the expenses to be met, and a new crop to plant. More than that, I believe cotton will go as low as five cents per pound. Anybody with extra cash could buy up some of the cotton that is going begging, and take advantage of some of the acreage that has come onto the market now that so many planters are failing.”

He stopped as though expecting a comment, but when Elizabeth made none he went grimly on.

“The problem is cash. We are by no means poor, but like most planters we carry little cash reserves. This new house and its furnishings ate up most of my father’s cash resources. Profit the year before last was turned into more land, more hands, more equipment to work the land, and clothing, food, and medical supplies for the thousand or more slaves on the plantations. It mounts up. And as I said, we have not yet realized our profit from this past year.

“I can borrow, but I dislike doing it. The interest would have to be deducted from any profit made, payments would have to be managed—and the profit may be a year in coming, or longer, depending on how soon the economy recovers.”

Catching the trend of his discourse, Elizabeth thought she knew what was coming, yet she could not be sure. It seemed so unlikely that she kept quiet, letting him complete his explanation and come to the point.

“What I have in mind is this. The money set aside for your use is idle. It is being held in trust for you. If it was put to use it could be increased by as much as a third.”

“Or lost?”

“The possibility is remote. The country, and the Delacroix holdings, would have to collapse first.”

“You want to use my widow’s portion for these investments rather than borrowing?”

“Yes. The money is in my hands, of course, but I would prefer to have your approval. You will not lose by it, I promise you.”

There was something ominous in what he had said, but she could not quite put her finger on it. “I thought I was not allowed to use more than a thousand dollars at any one time.”

“You are not, not without my consent. That proviso was merely to protect you from fortune hunters and other hangers-on when you go into town, New Orleans. Naturally I stand in a somewhat different case.” A smile flitted across his face.

“Naturally,” Elizabeth repeated dryly, unmoved by his smile. Even as she put her questions to him she knew that she had not the slightest intention of granting his request. Why she led him on she could not say, unless it was to raise his hopes so that his frustration and humiliation would be greater when she refused him. But refuse him she would. He would pay for his earlier high-handed treatment of her. He was not quite all-powerful. His need must be very great, she told herself in puzzlement, for him to deliver himself into her hands in such a manner. Or perhaps he had not accepted her, the young, grieving widow, dependent on him for her “pin money,” to have the temerity to refuse his request.