The Exiles (18 page)
“Just coffee, if you please.”
“No wine?”
“No, we’re trying to quit,” Neville said.
Chantel giggled and said, “Water will be fine for me. Thank you very much.”
After the waiter left Chantel said in English, “Neville, you were teasing him.”
“He looks like he needs a little teasing. As a matter of fact, he looks like he has a bad stomachache.”
“Neville, what a thing to say!”
When the food came Chantel threw herself into it.
“I’m eating like a field hand!” she exclaimed. “It’s a good thing I’m so tall.”
“You mean it’s better to be tall and fat than it is to be short and fat?”
“It’s not easy for me to gain weight. I don’t think I’ll ever get fat. Neither will you. My mother was never fat, and your father wasn’t either.”
Neville’s father had died six months earlier of a sudden heart attack, and now she asked rather timidly, “Do you miss your father a great deal, Neville?”
“Oh, we weren’t as close as most fathers and sons—but, yes, I do miss him.”
“I still miss my mother and father dreadfully. I suppose I always will.”
“It gives us something in common. We’re both orphans.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word. It makes me sad. But it’s true enough, I suppose, and it does make us closer, doesn’t it? You’re my best friend, Neville,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know how I would have gotten through these last months without you.”
Neville was touched by her words. “We are best friends,” he said. “I want you to know that if there is anything I can do for you, you can always count on me.”
They finished their meal and then chose for dessert deberg cake, a vanilla sponge cake moistened with rum syrup and layered with strawberries and lemon-butter cream and topped with a dark chocolate ganache.
As Chantel ate with great enjoyment, she asked, “When are you going to get married, Neville? You’re getting to be an old man.”
“I guess twenty-three is fairly old to seventeen. But soon you’ll be eighteen, and I think, according to all the laws of such things, you’ll be classified as an old maid.”
“I think it’s better to use the term
maiden lady.”
“Well, as long as the thing doesn’t sound bad, I suppose it’s all right.” He sipped his black coffee, then put the cup down and grew serious. “What do you want to do now that your education is complete?”
Chantel folded her hands and leaned forward. “I want to move back to Fontaine Maison. It’s gone downhill since we left there, and I want to build it up again. I always loved it so, Neville.”
Her eyes glowed, and she did not realize what an attractive picture she made. Elise had fixed her hair in a French roll. Her skin, as always, was her best feature—creamy, perfect, and smoother than anything imaginable.
Neville toyed with his coffee cup, then shrugged slightly. “Sometimes it’s hard to go back to old times that we liked so much. Things aren’t the same.”
“But it will be the same for me. I just know it will.”
“Have you talked to your stepmother about this?”
“Yes. She doesn’t care.”
“Well, financially it would be possible. Your father left you a separate trust so that you’ll be independent. At least you will be, in a few days.”
“I’ve been wanting to ask you about that, Neville. Isn’t it unusual for a man to leave a daughter a separate trust?”
“As a matter of fact, it is. Most men are afraid women aren’t to be trusted. One of my clients left his daughter a fortune, but she didn’t get it until she was thirty-five years old. He didn’t think any woman younger than that would be able to handle it.”
“Why do you think my father did this for me?”
Neville squirmed a little in his chair and ran his hand over his hair. “You did it, didn’t you, Neville?” she insisted. “You talked my father into this.”
Neville shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I did use what influence I had with him, but he wasn’t really hard to convince. He loved you very much, Chantel, and he wanted you to have the good things in life. Or what he considered the good things.”
Chantel took Neville’s hand. “That was so sweet of you,” she said. “If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be able to go back to the plantation.” “Well, it belongs to the three of you—but Perrin won’t be a full owner until he’s grown, of course.”
“You’re always looking out for your little sister, aren’t you?”
Neville gave her an odd look and lifted his eyebrows. “You’re not my sister,” he said.
“Well, not really, but I like to think of you as my brother.”
Neville studied her for a moment, then suddenly grinned. There was an impish look in his eye. “I have a graduation present for you.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that! This dinner is present enough.”
“Of course I should.” Reaching into his inner pocket, he pulled out a package. “Congratulations. And please accept this little gift as a token of my admiration.”
It was a small package, no more than five or six inches square and an inch-and-a-half thick. Chantel removed the paper wrapping, then lifted the lid of the box. She gasped and then put her hand over her mouth with shock. “Neville, what a beautiful pistol!”
“It’s the one you wanted when you were just a little girl.”
Staring down at the pistol, she touched it and said, “It’s plated with silver.”
“Yes. It wasn’t very attractive before. I thought a silver-plated derringer might do for more formal occasions.”
“Neville, you’re crazy!” She picked the gun up, and Neville uttered a muffled grunt and leaned forward. “Please don’t wave that thing around in here. I’ll teach you how to load it and shoot it—but not in a restaurant.”
“It’s just what I wanted,” Chantel said. “Thank you so much.”
“Well, I hope you don’t have occasion to use it.”
“I promise to shoot only young men who become too familiar.”
“Good idea. Now, I expect I’d better get you home.”
Chantel took Neville’s hand and stepped out of the carriage. As she walked up to the iron gate that kept the courtyard secure, she fumbled in her reticule and found the key. He took the key and opened the gate, then Chantel turned and said softly, “Neville, this has been so wonderful! I will never forget it.”
“Won’t you?”
“No! You’ve made it a perfect graduation for me.”
Neville was watching her carefully. They were almost the same height, and a shock ran over him as he realized that the young girl he had known was gone forever. The girlish figure had disappeared. Her hair was glossy in the moonlight, her lips stirred with a pleasant expression, and there was a light of laughter in her dancing eyes.
“Chantel, I’m about to break a promise I made to my mother when I was much younger.”
“You shouldn’t do that, Neville.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to.”
“What promise did you make her?” Chantel asked.
“I said I’d never kiss a young lady until she was at least eighteen.”
Chantel giggled, expecting that he would kiss her on the cheek and make a joke of it. But Neville leaned forward, put his arms around her, and kissed her full on the lips. Chantel was unable to move, so surprised was she, and then she felt an unexpected pleasure. He had a clean smell about him, and his lips were firm against hers.
She had thought often about being kissed, but now that it had come it had caught her completely off guard. She found herself kissing him back.
Neville drew back, a startled expression in his eyes. He cleared his throat. “Well, you can shoot me with that pistol now.”
“No, I won’t do that.” Chantel put her hand on his arm and whispered, “Good night, Neville. It was a wonderful evening. And thank you for your gift.”
Chantel shut the gate and watched as he walked back to the carriage.
“Why, you’ve grown up! You’re a fine young lady now!” Simon Bientot and his wife had come to greet Chantel, who got out of the carriage and stood before Fontaine Maison. Marie came to embrace her, and Simon shook her hand.
“You’re all grown up!” Marie echoed, admiration glowing in her eyes.
“Well, I hope I won’t grow up any more. I’m too tall now.”
“Nonsense. You are just right,” Simon said stoutly.
“I’m five-feet-ten. Most men aren’t much taller than that.”
Chantel had reached a separate peace over her height. For a time she had tried to stoop over to make herself appear shorter, but Elise had kept at her until she finally straightened up, and now she had a fine carriage. She wore a gray traveling dress that outlined her figure well, and the fading rays of the sun caught the golden glints in her auburn hair.
“Let me get your bags, and you go in, Miss Chantel,” Simon said.
“All right, Simon, but tomorrow I want to see everything.”
When she stepped inside an eerie feeling came to her. It was as if she had stepped back in time, for just the appearance of the foyer took her back to her earliest memories. She knew that Marie was standing beside her, and Elise, who had accompanied her, was waiting, but for one moment she could almost hear her father’s voice calling her name. Quickly she shook her shoulders and said, “I’m anxious to see my room. I’ve missed it so much.”
“I haven’t changed a thing,” Marie said quickly. “I just cleaned it and aired it out.”
Chantel stepped into her room, and the sense of the past was even stronger than it had been in the foyer. The very wallpaper, patterned with tiny pink dancing horses, made her catch her breath. Her father had let her pick it out herself, and she had loved it with all her heart. Her bookcase was filled with books from childhood and some later ones. The four-poster bed was turned back and looked inviting. She moved around the room and shook her head. “I have thought of this room so often. I’m so glad to be back home.”
“You can change your clothes, and then we will have a good dinner.”
“Thank you, Marie. I am hungry.”
Elise came forward and began unpacking. She was somewhat subdued, for she had not wanted to leave the excitement of New Orleans life for the rural scene. Chantel went over to her and gave her a hug. “You and Charles will like it around here, Elise.” Chantel had grown fond of the man Elise had married months earlier—Charles Watkins.
“Charles will like the hunting, but there’s so little to do!”
“Yes, there is. We’ll be busy getting this place together and making it like new again.”
After Elise left to go unpack her own clothes, Chantel pulled her diary out of her reticule. She sat down and noticed that the same pen that she had used as a child was still on the table. She also saw that someone had thoughtfully refilled the inkwell. She smiled as she dipped the pen into it and began writing:
June 15, 1831
I am home again! Elise is sad because she hates to leave New Orleans, but I am so glad to be here! To be able to ride over my own fields and see the workers and live the life I want to live!
It’s all possible only because of Neville, and I’m so thankful to him . . . I made him promise to come and see me, and I think he will. But I can’t wait until tomorrow. Simon’s going to take me over all the plantation, and I’m going to make a list of everything that needs to be done to the house. It’s so good to be home!
She dusted the writing with sand, blew it off, and tucked the journal under her clothes in the lower drawer of the armoire, just as she had done when she was a little girl.
Rising early, Chantel put on her riding dress and went down to a fine breakfast. Clarice Debeau was there, broader and seemingly shorter than when Chantel was a child, but still the same Clarice. Her voice was loud enough to break china, or so Simon declared. But the cook had a genuine affection for Chantel and after hugging her, she then sat her on a stool while she made breakfast—fluffy eggs, crisply fried ham, and biscuits that melted in the mouth. Chantel ate in the kitchen instead of going to the dining room, listening as Marie and Clarice brought her up-to-date on the latest gossip.
When she was finished, she went over the first-floor plan with Marie.
“I want to do so much. Some of the paper needs to be replaced, and the furniture needs to be refinished. And I want to enlarge the kitchen and put in a larger stove.”
Marie smiled at the exuberance of the young woman. “You’ll be too busy going to balls and having parties for all of that.”
“No, I won’t. I came back to make this the finest plantation in Louisiana, and I’m going to do it, too. You just wait and see, Marie!”
Chantel wandered over the rest of the house alone, coming at last to the room that had belonged to Veronique. She opened the door and stepped inside. The curtains were drawn, and it was dark. She stood for a moment until her eyes grew adjusted to the gloom, and then she went over and opened the curtains, letting the light in.
She turned and saw the small bed that had belonged to her infant sister. Brutus had made it out of black walnut, and it still had the rich gloss and sheen of fine wood. Chantel ran her hand along the bed, then reached down and touched the pillow, which was covered with a fine linen pillowcase. How often she had come to this room and held her sister close. Dear little Veronique, with the strawberry blonde hair and striking violet eyes.
Chantel found herself missing her sister as she had not for a long time. Finally she tore herself away and left, closing the door. She would keep the room exactly as it was, as long as she was alive to see to it.
“He’s a fine-looking animal, monsieur,” Chantel said. She walked around the steel-gray stallion, noting the perfectly arched back and strong hindquarters. She ran her hand over the muscles of the chest, and when the stallion turned to her, she reached up and held her palm out. He touched it with his velvety nose, and Chantel laughed. “He likes me already.”
Simon had brought Chantel to Fremont’s stables only a week after she had returned to Fontaine Plantation. She expressed her desire to Fremont clearly. “I want the best you have, monsieur.”
“I think this is too much horse for you, mademoiselle.” Fremont was a short, barrel-shaped man with steady brown eyes, and he had a reputation for breeding the best horses in the area.