Saratoga Trunk Page 7

  Clio giggled at the thought of beholding these stately New Orleans Creole women in the informality of the loose wrapper locally known as a gabrielle. She preened herself in the consciousness of her own rich finery. “Dowdy old things, in their snuffy black. I could show them black. I wish I’d worn my black ottoman silk with the Spanish lace flounces.”

  “Too grand for the street,” Kaka observed. “Ladies don’t dress up on the street. But then, you’re not a lady.” She said this, not spitefully or insolently, but as one stating a fair fact to another.

  “Not I!” Clio agreed, happily. “I’m going to enjoy myself, and laugh, and wear pretty clothes and do as I like.”

  “Like your mama.”

  “No, not like poor dear Mama. She didn’t have any fun—at least not since I can remember. Always moping and reading old letters and trailing around in hergabrielle, ill and sad.”

  “She wasn’t always like that, my poor bébé Rita.”

  “Look!” Clio interrupted, in French. “There! Coming in. Is it They?”

  The head in its brilliant tignon jerked sharply in the direction of the doorway. The spare figure stiffened, then relaxed. “No. No, silly”

  “Are you sure? You’re sure you’d know them, after all these years?”

  “I would know them, those faces of stone, after a hundred years. . . . Stop staring at the door. Drink your good red wine and eat another slice of that delicious liver. It will bring you strength and make your eyes bright and your cheeks pink.”

  Clio pushed her plate away like a willful child. “I don’t want to be pink. Pink women bore me, just to look at them, like dolls.”

  Indeed the naturally creamy skin was dead white with the French liquid powder she used, so that her eyes seemed darker and more enormous; sadder too, and the wide mouth wider. Almost a clown’s mask, except for its beauty. It was a makeup that Aunt Belle Piquery had taught her—Aunt Belle of the round blue eyes and the plump pink cheeks and the pert little nose. “I’m the type men take a fancy to, but you’re the type they stay with and die for,” the hearty old baggage used to say to Clio. “Like your ma.”

  “All right, pink or not, eat it anyway,” Kaka now persisted.

  “I won’t. I’m not hungry. I just ordered everything because I wanted to taste everything.”

  Like an angry monkey Kakaracou chattered her disapproval. “I told you! It’s that jambalaya you stuffed yourself with in the French Market.”

  “Oh, what’s it matter! I eat what I like when I like. . . . It’s getting late, isn’t it? They’re not coming. You said yourself They stopped coming after Mama and Papa—after They—when Mama moved into the Rampart Street house. It isn’t likely They started coming after Papa died. Anyway They’re millions of years old by now.”

  The eyes of the Negress narrowed, they were knifelike slits in her gray-black face. “They stopped. But They came again, after. Creoles are like that. Customs. Habits. Everything de rigueur.’’’’

  The girl leaned forward, eagerly. “Do I look enough like her? When They come in will it be a shock to Them to see me sitting here? Do I look like the picture Mama and Papa had taken together? Will They think I am Mama—just for that first moment?”

  The woman’s eyes regarded her sadly across the table; she shook her turbaned head. “You are like her, yes, perhaps even enough to startle anyone who knew her when she was your age. But she was beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman in New Orleans.”

  “I’m beautiful too.”

  “You’re well enough. But she! At the balls they used to stand on chairs just to see her come in. Pale pink satin—shell pink—with black lace, sent from Paris, and all her jewels.”

  “I’ll have jewels too. You wait. You’ll see.”

  “But you have hers.”

  “Second best.”

  “Her second best were finer than the best of other women.”

  The girl’s eyes were always on the door, though she pretended to be busy with her food. Each time it opened she glanced swiftly to see who it was that stood outlined against the bar of blinding white sunshine that leaped into the carefully shaded room. She smiled now a little secret smile. “Mama was more beautiful perhaps, but I have more chic and more spirit. You’ve said so yourself, when you weren’t cross with me. I’ll find a rich man—but colossally rich—and I’ll marry him. Not like mama. No Rampart Street for me.”

  Her eyes always sliding around to the door. Kakaracou saw this. Kakaracou saw everything. “Yes, that will be fine. That’s why you are watching the door like a spaniel. Don’t think you’re fooling me. It isn’t that you expect to see Them come in. You are watching to see if he has followed you here, that tramp, that roustabout, that cagnard in the French Market. That’s why you wanted the carriage to wait outside. He might see it there, and know.”

  “That’s a lie!” Clio snapped, too hody. “I’d forgotten all about him until you mentioned him, that picaioun.” To prove this she busied herself with the dish before her, her eyes on her plate, so that though the door swung open she did not glance up to see who entered.

  Cupide behind her chair leaned forward suddenly and stood on tiptoe so that the great head was close to her ear. “There he is! That Gros-Jean! Shall I butt him again?”

  The girl’s face and throat flushed pink—the pink she despised— beneath the sallow white of her skin and the white powder overlaying it.

  “It is he!” breathed Clio, drawing herself up very fine and straight and looking tremendously happy.

  Kaka knew an emergency. “Come. We will go. Cupide, run, ask Madame Begué the bill. Vite! Vite!”

  “No!” Clio commanded sharply as the dwarf started off with his waddling bandy-legged gait. “Back, Cupide! I’m not leaving.”

  The man had not blinked or peered as he entered the room. Those eyes were accustomed to the white-hot sun of the Texas plains. He loomed immense in the doorway, then he smiled, he took off the great white sombrero and gave it a little twirl of satisfaction on one forefinger before he crossed the room with his long, loping stride, the high heels of his boots tap-tapping smartly on the flagstoned floor. He ignored Léon, who was about to approach him, he deftly sidestepped waiters with laden trays, he made straight for the table just next to the one on which his gaze was concentrated. Pulling out a chair he sank into it with a sigh of relief that almost drowned out the protesting creak of the chair as it received his great frame. His long legs sprawled under the table and into the aisle, he flung the sombrero to the floor beside his chair, he smiled broadly and triumphantly even as he summoned Hippolyte Bergué with one beckoning finger and a “Heh, cookee!” Monsieur Begué did not pause; he did not even look in the direction of the man; he walked on with the leisurely pushing strut of the potbellied and vanished into the kitchen.

  Kakaracou leaned forward. Her undertone was a hiss. “You see! He’s sitting at the next table. Come. We are leaving.”

  “And I say we’re staying. I’m not nearly finished. I’m going to have an omelette soufflée and after that some strawberries with thick cream.”

  Kaka glared, her wrinkled face working. “Yes! Burst your corsets! Stuff yourself! With a figure like a cow you’ll get a fine husband, oh, yes! Or maybe you’ve already picked that Texas vacher for a bridegroom. He’s used to bulging sides.”

  “Texas, Texas! How do you know he’s from Texas? Besides, what does it matter! I’m not even looking at him. What do I care where he’s from!”

  Kaka smothered a little cackle of contempt. “Well, look at him then. He’s mumbling over the menu. He can’t read a word of it; he never saw a French menu before. Beef and beans, that’s what he’s used to, that imbécile! Look. Léon is laughing at him; he doesn’t even care to put his hand before his mouth to hide his laugh. Now he points—the stupide—with his great thick sausage finger.”

  “I think he’s beautiful,” Clio said, deliberately. She put one hand to her throat. “I think he’s beautiful.”

  As Kaka said, the m
an was pointing with one forefinger; he looked up at the contemptuous waiter and smiled boyishly; there was something engaging, something infinitely appealing about this great creature’s perplexed smile.

  “What’s that, sonny? I’m no Frenchy. In Texas where I came from we print our bill of fare in American.”

  “I make no doubt,” sneered Léon.

  The Texan mopped his forehead with a vast red handkerchief. “It sure is steamy in New Or-leens,” he said.

  You would have said that Clio had not even looked at him. Industriously she had cleared her plate in the good French manner, pursuing the last evasive drop of sauce with a relendess crust. Her gaze was on her empty dish; she had not seemed to flick an eyelid. Yet now she said to Kaka’s horror, “If he were mine I would have for him four dozen of the finest white handkerchiefs of handwoven linen and you would embroider the initials in the most delicate scrolls.”

  “I!” Kaka’s remonstrance was pure outrage. “Embroider for that cowboy! He’s never seen a white linen handkerchief.”

  “Linen, too, for his shirts,” Clio went on equably. “Fine pleated linen and his initials on that too.”

  “Initials, initials!” barked the infuriated Kaka. “What initials!”

  “What does it matter?” Clio murmured with maddening dreaminess.

  The man at the next table had made his reluctant decision. “I don’t know what the hell runions are, but I’ll take a chance on it. They say anything here is licking good.”

  Clio tapped smartly three times with her knife against her water glass. At the sound Léon, smirking at the adjoining table, turned sharply toward her. “Léon!” She beckoned him, he sped toward her, he leaned deferentially over her table, forsaking his later client without so much as a word of apology.

  “Léon, please tell Monsieur Begué I will have one of his marvelous omelettes soufflées.”

  Léon was all admiration. “It is prodigieux, the fine appetite that Madame la Comtesse has! Monsieur Begué will be enchanted, he—”

  “P-s-s-s-s-st!” The sibilant sound came so venomously from Kaka that even the chunky Cupidon gave a jerk of alarm, stationed though he was so stolidly behind Clio’s chair. “They’re here! They’re entering. I told you so! See, Madame Begué herself comes down from her desk to greet them. Now will you try to act the lady!”

  “Good,” said Clio calmly, not even deigning to turn her head. “And Léon, tell Monsieur seated there at the next table—that one with the big hat and the boots—tell him that if he is having difficulty in choosing his breakfast I shall be happy to assist him.”

  Léon stared, his mouth agape. “What! That one, you mean!”

  “Oh, yes, we’re old friends. Only this morning we happened to meet him in the French Market. That’s why he is breakfasting here. Ask him if he wouldn’t, perhaps, prefer to be served here at my table. Then we can chat.” Stunned, he turned away. “A moment! Léon! That old couple there—Madame Begué is speaking to them—now Monsieur Begué is showing them to a table. Is that—are they the old Monsieur and Madame Dulaine?”

  The man stared, startied, then burst into discreet laughter. “Madame will have her little joke. For a moment you fooled me. Of course Madame knows that old Monsieur and Madame Dulaine are”—he coughed apologetically—”are, in a word, dead.”

  Léon approached the near-by table with a new deference. Clio turned a dazzling smile upon Kakaracou. The natural prune color of Kaka’s skin had turned a sort of dirty gray. Her lips were drawn away from the strong yellow teeth.

  “Wait out in the hallway, Kaka. Or go home if you like. Cupide will stay.”

  “You’re crazy. You’re as crazy as your mother was. Worse! I’ve a mind to slap you right here.”

  “Oh, have you! You’re not my nurse any more, you know. You’re my maid. You’ll do as I say, or I’ll send you away to starve. You’ll never see me again. Look! He’s coming. Now I’ll have a man at my table to protect me, like those other women. The handsomest man in the room. The handsomest man I ever—”

  He was standing by her chair looking down at her. He flushed, he stammered. In his haste and astonishment he had left his great white sombrero on the floor by his chair. “Did you—that fellow said you said—pardon me, Ma’am, do you want me to sit here—did you mean—”

  “Please sit down. Kaka, a menu. Cupide, fetch the gentleman’s hat at the other table beside the chair.”

  “Well, say, thanks. Back where I come from we carry our hats with us on account of not knowing just when we might want to pull out of a place quick.” He jerked out a chair and bumped the table so that the water and the red wine slopped over the glasses’ rims. His face would have grown redder if that had been possible; he sat down in embarrassed bewilderment yet with the kind of grace that comes of superb muscular coordination.

  Kaka had risen; she stood at the side of the table as though rooted to the spot; she clung to the chair back with one skinny hand so that the knuckles showed almost white. But the two were not looking at her, they were looking at each other. He sat forward in his chair, one great arm thrown across the white cloth; she sat back in her chair, cool, silent, her eyes enormous in the white face, the pearl and onyx brooch at her throat rising and falling quickly, giving the lie to her cool silence. So they faced one another, measuring quiedy as combatants eye each other with wary curiosity before the beginning of a struggle. Then in a kind of exultant hysteria she began to laugh her deep-throated deliberate laugh. After a moment he joined in, ruefully at first, like a giant boy, then delightedly, like a man who senses victory. The restaurant rang with their laughter. Begué breakfasters looked up from their plates, frowning at first. Monsieur Begué in his towering white cap stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen; Madame Begué of the shrewd black eyes held her busy pen suspended in momentary disapproval; the waiters glanced over their shoulders at the unwonted sound. Then the infection of hysterical laughter made itself felt. As the fresh high sounds of young laughter pealed through the sedate room you saw Monsieur Hippolyte Begué’s great white-aproned belly begin to shake with sympathetic mirth; Madame Begué’s vast black silk bosom heaved; the waiters giggled behind their napkins; the guests smiled, chuckled, laughed foolishly and helplessly. A plague of laughter feel upon the place. Only Kakaracou showed no taint of senseless mirth. And Cupidon behind his mistress’s chair, though he smiled broadly, was too bewildered by the sudden favors accorded the lately despised Texan to relax into the mood of the room.

  “Forgive me,” Clio gasped, rather wildly. “You looked, sitting there, so—so big!”

  “Far’s that goes, you look kind of funny yourself, Ma’am, with all that white stuff on your face.”

  As suddenly as it had begun, the laughter of the two stopped. The Texan wiped his eyes. Clio Dulaine pressed one hand to her heart and leaned back in her chair, spent. The breakfasters, looking a littie foolish and resentful, applied themselves again to their food.

  He said, companionably, as though they had known each other for years, “I don’t know what we’re laughing at, but I haven’t had so much fun in a coon’s age. And down in Texas they told me people were stand-offish in New Or-leens.”

  “New Orleans,” she said, gendy correcting him.

  “You fixing to learn me the English language? They told me you were French.”

  “I’m not French. I’m American. And it’s teach, not learn.”

  “All right. Play schoolma’am if you want to. I’ll learn anything you say. When I first saw you there in the Market I thought you were a town woman parading around with those two, all dressed up—”

  “How dare you!”

  “Well, I’m just coming out and telling you like that because I want to explain how come I spoke to you there. I had you wrong. I want to start fair with you because something tells me you and me—”

  “Pardon.” The waiter placed before him the dish at which he had pointed just as Clio had summoned him to her table. It turned out to be Begué’s famous kidne
y stew with red wine, at which the Texan looked rather doubtfully. Hours had gone into the preparation of the dish before it had reached the stage of being ready to serve at a Begué breakfast. Hippolyte Begué allowed no one but himself to take part in the rite of its cooking.

  “Rognon. Ragoût de rognon

  The Texan stirred it doubtfully with his fork. He looked up. “Got any ketchup.”

  The waiter recoiled. “Ketchup! But this ragoût is cooked with Monsieur Begué’s own sauce, it is prepared by the hands of Monsieur Begué him—”

  “Ketchup!” commanded Clio, crisply. Then, in French, “In Paris now everything is eaten with ketchup. It is the chic thing for dinner in Paris. Ketchup for Monsieur.”

  Stunned, the man went in search of the condiment. “What’s that you’re talking—French? I thought you said you were American.”

  “I am! I am American. But I was brought up in France. I am Comtesse De Chanfret.”

  “Shucks! You don’t say! Well, honey, I don’t believe it. But just to prove to you I’m playing square with you I’ll tell you my real name though I’d just as soon they didn’t know where I am, back in Texas. My name’s Maroon. Clint Maroon. Now come on—tell me yours.”

  “Clint Maroon,” she repeated after him, sofdy. She looked up at the grim-visaged Kaka still stationed behind the chair in which she lately had been seated. “Do you hear that, Kaka? The initials to be embroidered are C. M. You may go now and wait in the hall.”

  V

  He had driven her home behind the high-stepping bays that Sunday afternoon—home to the Rampart Street house. Cool and straight and fragrant she sat beside him in the clarence. Now and then he turned his head to look at her almost shyly. His was not a swift-working mind. His growing bewilderment aroused an inner amusement in her mingled with a kind of tenderness; a mixture of emotions whose consequences she did not yet recognize. She looked at the muscles of his wrists and at his strong bronzed hands as, gloveless, he held the reins. The two had been voluble enough in the restaurant. Now they were silent. Once, as though obeying an overmastering impulse, he shifted the reins to one hand and reached over as though to touch her knee. She drew away. He flushed, boyishly; flicked the bays smartly with the whip.