Sweet Piracy (20 page)

Rochefort’s false title stuck in her throat; still, it was time, she thought, that it was used to some good purpose.

“Very well, you may go,” Madame said to Amélie. “I charge you though to remember what I have said. You are frittering away an opportunity such as may not come your way again.”

“Yes,
Maman
,” Amélie replied. The look she flung Caroline as she hurried past her was the hapless look of the hunted.

The day was bright and clear with a gentle breeze just stirring the treetops. In honor of the occasion Caroline had donned a gown of cherry-striped nain-sook mull. Like Estelle, she preferred a leghorn hat to the inconvenience of carrying a parasol. The crown of hers was flat and decorated with a small spray of artificial cherries. Its cherry ribbons she had tied rather daringly just under one ear. She felt a little daring that day, even a little defiant. She did not feel in the least like a governess, she felt young and full of life, ready to laugh or to quarrel, to shout or to sing. Nothing could dampen her spirits, not even the presence of Fletcher Masterson.

They were twelve on board by the time the
Egret
swung out into the river channel, not counting the crew. Rochefort and his cousin, Anatole, Theo, Hippolyte, and Fletcher made up the complement of men. Caroline and Amélie, Estelle, Béatrice and Bonita Gravier, and their cousin, Louise Roussel, comprised the ladies. The group gathered in the stern beneath the canopy at first, congregating around Theo who was the ostensible reason for the pleasure cruise. The boy was much recovered, enough so that he could withstand a great deal of cosseting from the ladies and raillery from the men on his escapade without losing his heretofore touchy temper. At last he was allowed to slip away and mingle with the crew as he wished in the warm and strengthening sunshine.

In a small lull in the conversation, Mademoiselle Roussel asked, “What is this place we go to, this haunted sandbar?”

Since her trusting gaze was turned to Anatole, it was he who sought to enlighten her. “It is a large sandbar in the river some miles above Cypress Grove, the plantation of M’sieur Masterson. Unlike smaller bars, this one has existed in the river’s channel for years, longer than any can remember, since the time when only Indians knew the river.”

Here, Fletcher interrupted. “It’s known as a sandbar because of the deposits of silt that have built up along one side. It should be more accurately called an island since it is almost certainly a section of land surrounded by the Mississippi when the river changed its channel to go around behind it.”

If Fletcher expected applause for this piece of information, he was disappointed. After a moment the company turned back to the original narrator.

“Thank you, M’sieur,” Anatole said with a polite bow. “As I was saying, the sandbar is of ancient age. Except for this fact, there is little or nothing to single it out from hundreds of others that occur in the river. It has trees, some small wildlife, a few birds — and its ghosts.”

Béatrice and Bonita gave a squeal followed by nervous giggles. “How exciting,” they said, clinging to one another.

Well pleased with the sensation he had created, Anatole agreed. “Yes, an affecting tale — at least most find it so. There was once a maiden of the Houma Indian tribe renowned for her beauty and sweetness of temper. Many braves desired her, but she was promised by her father to the son of the chief of the tribe. Her father neither knew nor cared that the maiden had given her love to the bravest, strongest warrior of the tribe. This warrior, unwilling to give up the maiden, challenged the son of the chief to fight for the maiden. He accepted, and in the cool of early morning the pair arrived by separate canoes at the agreed meeting place, the sandbar. It was a long and bloody fight. Though both were injured, neither would cry quits. Finally the warrior killed the son of the chief. But when he tried to drag himself to his canoe, he was too weak from loss of blood, and so he also expired. The maiden, suspecting what had taken place, went looking for the men when they were discovered missing. She found them, saw what had happened. In her grief she took up the knife of the warrior and plunged it into her own breast. In death the maiden and her warrior are together. Sometimes when the wind blows you can hear them talking softly, speaking words of love.”

Mademoiselle Roussel gave a soft sigh. Estelle said, “You see? Was I not right? So sad — and yet it is very romantic also, is it not? I think to have two men fight over you is the most romantic thing in the world, except, of course, for a runaway marriage to the Indian Mission.”

“Oh, Estelle!” Béatrice and Bonita chided as one.

“You don’t agree? But you are not as adventurous as I,” the girl said in a pitying tone. “I think it would be beyond anything grand to fly with your beloved in the dead of night along the river and through the forest, to be married by the good father by the light of a flickering fire and a rush candle.”

“Yes,” Hippolyte said, “and a good thing too, doing the deed in the dark. Just imagine what you would look like after such a flight, your clothes filthy with river water and grime, and the dirt from two days of sleeping out in the woods. And if you think any priest worth his frock is going to wed a pair of runaways without ringing a peal over their heads they will never forget, you are much mistaken. Nobody like a fat Capuchin for making a body feel small. Then when it’s all over, you’ve still got to come home and face the frowns, the cuts of the sticklers, and the interfering busybodies who will come around. Be lucky, too, if your parents don’t scratch your name from the family tree. No, no. Leave the runaway marriages to them that don’t want people to be able to count too close from the date. I want my marriage all right and tight, bands, engagement breakfast, basket of gifts for my bride, the whole rigmarole!”

Estelle fluttered her lashes at Hippolyte, pouting a little. “But what if your family objected, what if you and the woman you loved were to be torn apart?”

“That’ll never happen,” the young man said, the olive skin of his face darkening a little as he flushed. “The girl I want is — will be — acceptable to my family.”

“You are very sure of yourself,” she suggested.

He was not to be drawn. “Yes,” he said simply.

Watching them, Caroline thought there could be little doubt of the direction of Hippolyte Gravier’s thoughts. He and Estelle were well suited, if only the flighty young girl could be brought to see it. They balanced each other exactly. In addition, Hippolyte was much the same kind of man Estelle’s father was: kind, practical, hard-working, but with a well-developed appreciation for the pleasures of living. They were both indulgent to a fault to those they loved, but when it came to a final accounting, they would stand no nonsense.

“What are you smiling at?” Fletcher asked, leaning so close that she was aware of the smell of the lavender pomade he used on his hair.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Nothing at all.”

Rochefort, this day, was impartial in his attention to the ladies. With a giggling damsel clinging to either arm, he gave the Gravier girls a tour of the ship. His face solemn, he explained the name and use of everything the two ladies found strange, and they appeared to be familiar with nothing whatever.

“How odd that you should be so knowledgeable,” one of the sisters said, hiding her wide smile behind the spread of her fan, “almost as though you had once been a sailor.”

Caroline could not prevent the swift glance she flung at Rochefort. His gaze locked with hers, holding for a long moment before he replied, “Call it a pastime. One way and another, I have spent a goodly portion of my life at sea. On a long voyage, a man must do something with himself.”

When the strolling trio passed on out of Caroline’s hearing, she drew a deep breath of relief. She had given herself away, she was almost sure of it. Rochefort was far from stupid. Before now he must have wondered at her refusal to be alone with him or even stay in the same room where he was. It was not that she meant to snub him, only that she was afraid she would more surely betray her knowledge if she stayed.

What now? She could only trust to the tactics that had served her in the past few weeks and pray they would suffice.

The sandbar was perhaps a half mile long and half again as wide. A thicket of willow, oak, and cypress covered most of it, with the exception of the wide stretch of sand that fronted it like a beach. The trees were entwined with saw briars and grape vines near the edge where sunlight penetrated. Once inside the barrier of dense growth, the ground was clear, carpeted with a spongy mass of fallen leaves. In the approximate center of the bar was a cool, freshwater spring which at one time had been curbed with thick wood planking, now rotted and fallen away.

At no point on the island was it possible to get away from the rushing sound of the river or the murmuring of the leaves of the trees overhead. And yet there was an unearthly quiet about the place. When the dinghy, which had brought them from the ship, anchored in the channel, had grounded in the sand, a single giant white crane had lifted up to flap majestically away. There was no other sign of life. It was peaceful, still it was not an easy peace. It was as though at any moment the river could uproot the trees, dissolve the land, and wash the whole out to sea. It was not hard to see why the place was thought to be haunted.

“I’ve seen rabbits here, and squirrels,” Theo said as they stood around the spring. “They aren’t afraid of people, or much of anything. They’ve never been hunted, I guess, not even by a fox or wolf.”

“They may not be afraid,” Bonita said — or was it Béatrice? — “but I am. I say we go back to the sandy part. I do not like it here.” With a tiny shiver, she looked back over her shoulder, as if she expected to see the shades of the Indian maiden and her lover peering at her from behind the tree trunks.

Luncheon was spread on the grassy verge between the sand and the forest. It was shady there as the sun moved an hour past its zenith. The smell of the crushed grass was sweet, and there was an ample number of cushions and cloths and coverlets to assure the comfort of everyone. They sat in a semicircle with the view of the river rushing past before them.

The food baskets came not only from the kitchens of Felicity, but from those of Beau Repos and Bonne Chance also. The ladies parceled out a portion of the contents, the gentlemen made excellent inroads on that and more, and still the baskets were far from empty when everyone had declared themselves unable to swallow another morsel.

Theo did not linger over his repast. An apple tart in each hand, he wandered off along the edge of the sandbar, disappearing at last around the far end. He returned just as the desultory conversation the others had been holding trailed off and half their number were threatening to succumb to an afternoon nap. There was, he informed them, a gigantic duck’s nest filled with eggs and newborn nestlings on the other side of the sandbar.

The reaction to his announcement was all he could have asked. Estelle at once professed a desire to see this wonder, and Hippolyte offered to escort her. Anatole volunteered his arm should Mademoiselle Roussel also feel inclined. Gazing soulfully at Rochefort, the Mesdemoiselles Gravier declared they had never before viewed such a spectacle. There they hung fire, however. Rochefort was much too wily to be caught in so coarse a net.

“I’ve seen many ducks’ nests,” he drawled, “but never such a pretty little spring as lies in the haunted woods there. Would you not rather return with me to see it again?”

The young ladies, with a nervous giggle and a backward glance over their shoulders, disclaimed any such notion.

“Then perhaps M’sieur Masterson will stand your escort. I am certain he is much more knowledgeable about the native wildlife, in any case.” There was a glint of humor in Rochefort’s eyes as he neatly cut the ground from under his neighbor’s feet.

Fletcher looked to Caroline for direction. Callously she waved him onward. “Go by all means, but don’t try to persuade me to any such effort so soon after luncheon. I am just going to put things away and then do nothing but lie here in the shade.”

“And you, M’sieur Victor?” Bonita asked with an arch smile. “Are you too lethargic for a little exercise? Come with us, do.”

Victor had been staring fixedly at Amélie. When she refused to look at him, busying herself with helping Caroline, he shrugged and allowed Bonita Gravier to take his arm. “Why not?” he said readily enough, and walked away in the wake of the others.

Rochefort hesitated. “Are you certain I cannot persuade either of you ladies to explore this paradise with me? No? Then, Theo, my lad, I suppose we must bear each other company.”

Theo was nothing loath. From the corner of her eye, Caroline watched the pair of them stride off into the woods. Beside her, Amélie reached for a wineglass and knocked it over. Her small cry of distress mingled with the sound of breaking crystal as the glass struck the edge of a dish. Suddenly tears of silent anguish streamed down the girl’s face.

“Why, Amélie, did you hurt yourself?” Caroline asked in distress.

The girl shook her head, hastily drawing her handkerchief from her reticule. “No,” she answered on an indrawn breath.

“Then — what is it, my dear?”

“N-nothing!”

The denial was accompanied by fresh tears and a hiccoughing sob. Caroline was silent for a considering moment, then she placed her arm around the girl’s slender shoulders. “Perhaps I can guess? You have been looking a bit off-color since this morning when I found you with your mother. Was something said, perhaps, to upset you?”