"No ceremony, nothing any priest or judge could say, will top this," Paul declared, "for this comes from the bottom of our hearts."
I smiled. I didn't think I could feel so good so soon after my ordeal with Buster Trahaw.
"How should we get married?" I wondered, and thought about his parents again.
"A simple ceremony. . . Let's just elope," he decided. "I'll come by tomorrow and we'll drive up to Breaux Bridge. There's a retired priest there who will marry us, legal and all. He's an old friend of the family."
"But he'll want to know why your parents aren't at our sides, Paul, won't he?"
"Leave it up to me," he said. "I'm to start taking care of you from the moment I wake up tomorrow until the day I die," he said. "Or as long as you'll have me around to do so," he qualified. "Be ready at seven. Just think," he said, "all the old biddies who have been quacking about us will finally stop."
Paul remained with me talking about the house, the things we had to buy and do even after we moved in. He was so excited, I barely got in a word. He talked until I grew so tired, I couldn't keep my eyes from shutting.
"I'd better get going and let you get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow." He kissed me on the cheek and then I watched him go off toward the canal to take his boat home.
Before I went back into the house, however, I walked out to the mailbox and took back the letter to Daphne. I wouldn't mail it, but I couldn't get myself to tear it up. If I had learned anything in my short life, it was that nothing was forever, nothing was certain. I couldn't close all the doors. Not yet.
But at least tonight, I thought, I would go to sleep easily, dreaming of that great attic and my wonderful studio and all the exciting paintings I would do in the days to come. What a great place for Pearl to grow up in, I thought when I looked in on her. I fixed her blanket, kissed her cheek, and went to bed looking forward to my dreams.
3
My True
Wonderland
.
Pearl's baby babble woke me. It was a heavily
overcast day, so there was no warm sunlight to slip through the curtains and caress my closed eyelids until they fluttered open. As soon as I awoke, the significance of what I was about to do returned. I'm going to elope, I thought. Questions rained down from everywhere. When would I actually move Pearl and myself into Cypress Woods? How would we announce our marriage to the community? Had he informed his family by now? What, if anything, did I want to take from the shack? What kind of a wedding were we about to have?
I rose, but I had the strange sensation that I was caught in a dream. Even Pearl had a distant, quiet look in her eyes and was more patient than normally, not crying for her breakfast, not demanding to be plucked out of her crib and held.
"It's a big day for you, my precious," I told her. "Today I'm giving you a new life, a new name, and an entirely different future, one I hope is full of promise and happiness.
"We've got to pick out a nice dress for you to wear. First, let me feed you, and then you will help Mommy choose her own wedding dress, too.
"My wedding dress," I muttered, my eyes suddenly filling with tears. It was in this shack, in this very room that Grandmere Catherine and I talked about my future wedding.
"I always dreamed," she had said, coming over to me to sit beside me and stroke my hair, "that you would have the magical wedding, the one in the Cajun spider legend. Remember? The rich Frenchman imported those spiders from France for his daughter's wedding and released them into the oaks and pines where they wove their canopy of webs. Over them, he sprinkled gold and silver dust and then they had the candlelight wedding procession. The night glittered all around them, promising them a life of love and hope.
"Someday you will marry a handsome man who could be a prince, and you, too, will have a wedding in the stars," Grandmere had promised.
How sad she would be for the now. How much I was feeling sorry for myself. A young woman's heart should be filled with so much excitement on the morning of her wedding day that she would be afraid she would simply burst, I told myself. Every color should be brighter, every sweet sound, sweeter. It should seem like every single creature that lived around her was delighted, too. There should be happy, deliriously excited voices around her, and everywhere she looked, she should fix her eyes on some preparation, some activity related and solely de-voted to the wonderful ceremony she was about to undertake with the man she loved.
And love. . . it should have blossomed and overwhelmed her. She would stop for a moment and wonder if it was possible to ever again be as happy and content as she was. Could any event bring her as much joy? She should be surrounded by dozens of friends, each and every one electrified, thrilled, the whole bunch of them chattering away, no one particularly listening to anyone else, but everyone listening to everyone, a cacophony of laughter, giggles, shrieks, and exclamations.
The kitchen should be filled with the sounds of clanking pots, nervous cooks, aromas of wonderful fish and chicken dishes, cakes and pies. Orders should be shouted across rooms, cars pulling up and driving off, their drivers assigned various errands. Little children would be charged with some of the electricity, making mischief and being shooed from one place to another. The older women would be pretending to be annoyed and concerned but stopping every once in a while to recall their own special day, their own excitement, and now feeling overjoyed that they were sharing in hers, drawing from it like a bee drawing pollen from a flower and turning that excitement into honey-filled memories and moments of their own pasts. She should see it on every woman's face when they finally set eyes on her in her wedding dress.
I continued to envision my dream wedding. The limousine would be waiting outside, its engine idling like a horse anxious to get galloping. The door would be flung open. Everyone would start cheering and clapping as I made my way down the gallery steps and into the car. And then the whole entourage of friends and relatives would follow behind as I was brought to the steps of the church where inside, my wonderful, loving husband-to-be stood shifting his weight from one leg to the other nervously, flashing handsome smiles at his own parents and relatives but watching that doorway for signs of my arrival.
And then the music would begin and everyone would sit solemnly, but be eager to set eyes on me starting down the aisle toward the altar where the holy sacrament waited. My feet would never touch the ground. I would walk on a shelf of air and glide slowly toward the vows.
When I closed my eyes and thought of all this, my pictures were as vivid as my paintings, but I surprised myself when I saw myself in the wedding sequence I had conjured, and when I lifted my eyes, I saw not Paul waiting, but Beau. . . my precious love. .. Beau, at last.
I sighed deeply. It was not Beau who would be coming to fetch me shortly, I reminded myself. Another shivering thought came: I was probably not even in his thoughts this day, the day I would take the vows that would tear me away from him forever. Pearl's wail reminded me, however, that I was not doing this for myself. I was doing it for her and for the promising future and the security it would bring to her.
I chose a simple light pink cotton dress with a square collar and a skirt that fell an inch or so above my ankles. I still wore the locket Beau had given me more than a year ago just before I had left for the Greenwood School in Baton Rouge, but it was wrong to wear it now. I took it off and buried it under some of my other precious things in Grandmere Catherine's old oak chest.
I had a bright pink outfit for Pearl. It had a white bow at the collar. After I fed and dressed her, I placed her in the crib, dressed myself, and then sat down and brushed my hair, deciding I would simply tie it with a ribbon and let it lie as softly as possible over my shoulders and down my back. I had let it grow long, and when I brushed it out, it reached my shoulder blades. I put on a little lipstick, found a bonnet that had once belonged to Grandmere Catherine, so I felt I had her with me, and then went out on the gallery with Pearl to wait for Paul.
I heard him honk the car horn before he pulled into my driveway. His car was all washed and shiny and he wore a new blue suit, his tie loose around his collar. His
chatlin
hair glittered when he stepped out of the car, the strands still wet from brushing.
"Good morning," he said. We were both so nervous, it was as if we were about to embark on our first date. "Let's get going. Father Antoine in Breaux Bridge is expecting us." He opened the car door for us. "You look very pretty."
"Thank you, but I don't feel pretty. I feel. . . anxious."
"You're supposed to," he said. He took a deep breath, started the engine, and drove out.
A light drizzle began and the windshield wipers went from side to side, resembling two long
forefingers wagging warnings and predicting shame. I heard it in the rhythm . . . shame, shame, shame.
"Well, the house is ready for us to move into it. Of course, I just have the most basic furnishing right now. I thought after a day or so, you and I would take a trip to New Orleans."
"New Orleans! Why?"
"So you could shop in the best places and have more choices. I don't want you to worry about cost either. Your job is to make Cypress Woods into something very special, a house and grounds that even the rich Creoles in New Orleans will envy.
"You should set up your studio as soon as possible," he continued with a smile. "As soon as we return from New Orleans, we'll interview prospective nannies to help you with Pearl so you can have the time you need for your work."
"A nanny? I don't think I'll need one, Paul."
"Of course you will. The mistress of Cypress Woods will have all sorts of servants. I have already hired our butler. He's a quadroon named James Humble. He's a man about fifty and he's worked in the finest homes."
"A butler?" It didn't seem that long ago when he and I poled in his pirogue through the swamp and fantasized about the very things we were about to do.
"And our maid. Her name is Holly Mixon. She's half Haitian, half Choctaw Indian, and in her mid-twenties. I got her from an agency, too. I know you are going to enjoy our cook the most," he said with his impish eyes twinkling.
"And why is that?"
"Her name's Letitia Brown, but she wants to be called Letty. She'll remind you of your Nina Jackson. She won't say her exact age, but I think she's somewhere around sixty. She practices voodoo," he said, lowering his voice to make it sound ominous.
"You've done all this already?" I asked, amazed. He blushed as if he had been caught naked.
"I've been planning for this day from the moment you returned to the bayou, Ruby. I just knew it would happen."
"What about your family, Paul? Did you tell your parents this morning?" I asked.
He was quiet for a moment. "No, not yet," he said. "I thought it would be better to tell them afterward. Once it's a fact of life, they'll be quicker to accept it all. It will be all right. It will be fine," he assured me, but that didn't quiet my thumping heart.
Although the rain stopped completely by the time we arrived in Breaux Bridge, the sky remained dark and ominous. Father Antoine lived in the rectory beside the church with his housekeeper, Miss Mulrooney. He was a man about sixty-five with thin gray hair cut so short, the strands popped up like a paintbrush on the sides, but he had gentle, blue-eyes and the sort of soft smile that would make someone relax and be at ease in his presence. Miss Mulrooney, a tall thin woman with dark gray hair, looked stern and unapproving. I knew why.
Paul had told Father Antoine that Pearl was his child and he wanted to marry me to do the right thing, only he wanted the marriage to be a quiet one, away from the disapproving eyes of his neighbors and his family's friends. Father Antoine was understanding and happy Paul had decided to go through with the marriage and uphold his moral responsibilities.
Our wedding ceremony was as quick as a religious one could be. When it came time for me to recite my vows, I did what might have been a sinful thing: I conjured up Beau, and I told myself I was pledging my heart and my soul to him.
Getting married had all been so much easier and quicker than I had imagined it would be. I didn't feel any different, but I knew from the beaming smile on Paul's face every time he looked at me that everything had changed. For better or for worse, we had gone ahead and bound ourselves and our destinies.
"Well, that's that," he said. "How do you feel, Mrs. Tate?"
"Terrified," I said, and he laughed.
"You have no reason to be terrified anymore. Not as long as I'm around," he vowed. "So what, if anything, do you want from the shack?"
"I have Pearl's and my clothes, the painting of Grandmere Catherine, and her rocker," I said. "Maybe her old chest and the armoire her father had made for her. She was so proud of that."
"Fine. I'll send some of my men over with a truck this afternoon and they'll get the furniture. It looks like the rain has stopped for a while. You can follow in your car," he added nonchalantly.
"My car? What car?"
"Oh, didn't I tell you? I bought a little convertible for you to get around in. . . for your errands and such," he added. I could tell from the way he was behaving that it was more than just a little convertible, and sure enough, when we pulled up to Cypress Woods, I saw a candy-apple red Mercedes with a white ribbon around the hood parked in the driveway.
"That's mine?" I exclaimed.
"Your first wedding present. Enjoy," he said.
"Oh, Paul, this is too much," I cried, bursting into happy tears. Here was the grand house with our servants awaiting us, our beautiful grounds, our oil fields in the background, and my new studio waiting. Had we defied Fate, blown smoke in the face of Destiny? Would Paul's newfound wealth be enough to keep the howling winds and cold rains of misery outside our doors? For the moment, at least, I couldn't help but be as optimistic and as happy as he was.
Maybe I was Alice in Wonderland, I thought. Maybe this was what was meant to be all along and I had had no business in the rich Creole world of New Orleans, and that was why all the terrible things had happened there, things to drive me back to the bayou where I belonged. Paul took Pearl into his arms.
"Instead of carrying you over the threshold,Ill carry Pearl," he said. "After all, she will be the princess."
I noticed the white powder sprinkled on the front steps. Paul noticed too.
"Letty's work, I imagine," he said.
The large, tall door was opened by our butler, James Humble. He was at least six feet two inches tall, a lean man with curly brown hair, caramel skin, and bright hazel eyes. He looked like the proper butler with his perfect posture, awaiting our beck and call.
"This is James," Paul said. "James, Madame Tate."
"Welcome, madame," he said with a small nod and bow. He had a deep voice with a cultured French pronunciation.
"Thank you, James."
When I entered the hallway, I found Holly Mixon standing to the side, waiting for us. She was a large-boned woman with stout arms and shoulders.
"And this is Holly," Paul said. "Holly, Madame Tate." She curtsied.
"Hello, Holly."
"How'd ja do, ma'am," she said.
"Where's Letty?" Paul asked.
"She's in the kitchen, monsieur, preparing for tonight's dinner. She don't want none of us in there when she works," she added.
"I see," Paul said, winking at me. "Why don't you take Pearl up to the nursery first then, Ruby. I want to go over to my parents and inform them myself. That's probably best. If you agree, that is."
"Yes, Paul," I said. The thought of their reactions put something hard and heavy in my chest.
"As soon as I return, we'll see about getting your things, okay?"
"Yes," I said, taking Pearl into my arms.
He leaned over, kissed me quickly on the cheek, and then hurried out.
"Now then," I said, turning to Holly. "Why don't you lead the way to the nursery and we'll see what has to be done."
"Yes, ma'am," she said.
If I hadn't lived in the House of Dumas with its servants around me, I would have felt uncomfortable having a maid and a butler and a cook. I was hardly one to put on airs and act like some grand lady, but Paul had really built a mansion and it required household help. There was nothing to do now but assume my place and become the mistress of Cypress Woods.
Letty did remind me of Nina Jackson. She wore the same sort of red kerchief with seven knots whose points all stood straight up, a tignon; but she was much taller and much thinner, surprisingly thin for a cook, with long hands ribbed with veins against her chocolate skin. She had a narrow face with a slender mouth and a thin nose. She told me her eyes were too close together because her mother had been surprised by a rattlesnake the day she became pregnant. I saw she wore a camphor lump around her neck, which I knew was to keep germs away.
Letty was a more formal cook who had learned from educated chefs. The first meal she was preparing for us proved it. We were to begin with oysters Bienville for an appetizer, followed by turtle soup. The main dish was
filet de boeuf aux champignons
with yellow, squash with peas. For dessert she had prepared an orange creme brulee.
"I noticed you put white powder on our front steps," I told her after we were introduced and had spoken awhile. Her small dark eyes grew smaller.
"I be not workin' in a house without it," she replied firmly.
"I don't mind, Letty. My grandmere Catherine was a
traiteur
woman," I said, and she brightened, impressed.
"You be holy child, then."
"No, just her granddaughter," I corrected. There was nothing holy about me, I thought.
I heard Paul return and went to greet him. He smiled, but I saw the pain in his eyes.
"They were very upset, weren't they?" I asked.
"Yes," he admitted. "My mother cried and Daddy sulked, but after a while, they'll warm up to the fact and accept it, just like I told you they will," he promised. "Of course, my sisters think it's wonderful," he added quickly. "They'll all be here tomorrow for dinner. I thought we should have the first night to ourselves. I have two of my men outside with the truck waiting to go to the shack for your things."
"Pearl's still sleeping," I said. Paul's report had quickly extinguished the excitement and happiness.
"Go on, lead them in your new car. I'll be here for her when she wakes. Go on. I've got Holly to help," he assured me.
"She'll be afraid, waking up in a strange place."
"But she's not with a stranger," he replied confidently. "She has me." I saw how much he wanted to establish himself as her father as soon as he could.
"Okay. I won't be long," I said.
At the shack I pointed out the pieces of furniture I wanted. I told Paul's men I would take the painting myself. After I put it safely in the car, I went back inside the house and stood in the living room gazing at everything. How empty and sad it looked without the few pieces of furniture. It was as if I were losing Grandmere Catherine once again, cutting off whatever spiritual attachments still bound us together. Her spirit couldn't go with me. It belonged here in these shadows and corners, in the little toothpicklegged shack that had been her mansion, her palace, her home, and mine, too, for so long. All the days here weren't happy ones, but they weren't all sad ones either.
Here she had comforted me during my moments of fear and anxiety. Here she had woven the stories and conjured up my hopes. Here we had worked side by side to make our living. We had laughed and cried and collapsed with fatigue beside each other on the old settee that Grandpere Jack had practically beaten to death in his drunken rages. These walls had soaked up the laughter and the pain and inhaled the wonderful aromas of Grandmere's cooking. From these windows at night, I had looked up at the moon and the stars and dreamt of princes and princesses and wove my own fairy tales.
Good-bye, I thought. Finally good-bye to childhood and all the precious innocence that kept me from seeing and believing there was any real cruelty in this world. I thought I had moved into Wonderland at Cypress Woods. So much of it seemed too wonderful to be real. But here was my true
Wonderland. Here I had felt the special magic and here I had done some of my best art.
Tears trickled down my cheeks. I wiped them away quickly, took a deep breath, and hurried out of the house, down the steps of the gallery, and into my car. Without looking back, I left my past behind me a second and perhaps final time.
Now it was Paul's turn to see the sadness in my face when I returned. He had Holly and James take my things up to my room and to Pearl's nursery and then he took me out back to look at our pool and cabana. He talked about his plans for landscaping, the trees and the flowers and the walkways and fountains he envisioned. He talked about the parties we would have, the music and food. I knew he was talking a blue streak just so I wouldn't have time to brood on the past and be sad.
"There's so much to do here," he concluded. "We don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves anymore."
"Oh, Paul, I hope you're right."
"Of course I'm right," he insisted. We heard someone calling and turned to see that his sisters had arrived.
Jeanne had been in my class when I lived in the bayou. We had always been good friends. She was about an inch or so taller than I was, with dark brown hair and almond-shaped eyes. She looked more like their mother and had her deep, dark complexion, her sharp chin and nearly perfect nose. I always
remembered her as a bright and happy girl.
Toby was two years younger, and although she didn't look like her mother as much, she had her mother's serious demeanor. She was a little shorter but with broader hips and a fuller bosom. She kept her dark brown hair trimly cut. Her eyes were more perceiving, studious and inquisitive. She had a way of twisting the corner of her mouth downward when she doubted or disapproved of something someone else had said or done.
"I told them to wait until tomorrow," Paul said angrily.
"It's all right. I'm glad they've come," I said, joining them. They both hugged and kissed me and then followed me up to the nursery, Jeanne chattering away as I changed Pearl's diaper.
"Of course, this is all a shock," she said. In a breathless gush, her words spilled forth. "It's so unlike Paul, Mr. Perfect Little Man."
"Why did you two do it now?" Toby asked. "Why didn't you do it as soon as you knew you were pregnant?"
I didn't look at her when I spoke, for fear she would see the lies in my face.
"Paul wanted to," I said, "but I didn't want to ruin his life."
"What about your life?" Toby countered.
"I was all right."
"Living by yourself with a baby in that shack?"
"Oh, Toby, why drag up the past? It's over now, and now look where they are," Jeanne cried, her arms extended. "Everyone's raving jealous over this house and Paul's good fortune."
Toby came up beside me and looked down at Pearl. "When did you two. . . make her?" she asked.
"Toby!" Jeanne exclaimed.
"I'm just asking. She doesn't have to say if she doesn't want to, but we're all sisters now. We shouldn't have secrets from each other, should we? Well, should we?" she asked me.