Rebels of Babylon (20 page)

She sat up quite primly. “I do not believe there is romance. I do not believe it, but I do not know truly. Sometimes Miss Peabody sends me away for this thing and that, for some hours. She says it is because I must not listen, that it is dangerous for
me to know too many things. I think she tells the truth. But who can say?” The lass looked me straight in the eye. For the first time in our acquaintance. “Who can know what is kept in the other’s heart?”

“Corazon”
is the word she used. I cannot tell you why, but I remember it.

“Were you,” I wrote, “fond of Mr. Pelletier yourself?”

She blushed when Mr. Barnaby put the question to her. She blushed and looked away.

“Such a man as that,” she said, “would never look at me.”

CAPTAIN BOLT BANGED on the door. He was an awkward fellow, hardly civilized. He wished to report that the body had been taken to the morgue. Along with the doll made of skin.

Had I not suffered the loss of speech because of my battered jaw, I would have told the fellow off, and properly. I gave no instructions to move the body, only to guard it well.

Of course, a fellow like Bolt was bound to do the wrong thing, if not given detailed orders. Which I had not been in a state to give. Twas more my fault than his.

I had wanted to have a gander in the daylight. With my mouth less pained and a rested, sharpened mind. To see what I might have missed in my haste and the gore.

Well, done was done, and that was that. Bolt was like a child. Our soldiers may be glad that he had been harnessed in the rear and not sent forward to lead them to their deaths. He had no sense of where he was wanted and seemed inclined to join us. The fellow had a touch of the old maid about him, ever hungry for gossip that did not concern him. I had to drive him off with a push, grunting to express what speech could not.

He stirred me up so badly that I bled again. But he left us.

During my frustrations with the captain, Mr. Barnaby calmed the lass with his chatter. She did not much like uniforms, not even blue ones, and kept a wary eye on our intruder. Mr. Barnaby tried to cheer her up. Beaten down and destitute himself, he always had a jolly word for others.

What better could we ask of a companion?

The lass wore a look just short of a smile when I sat back down between them. Although I am not great of stature, I believe that I possess a manly dignity. My gravity made the girl grow somber again.

“Do you know of a Mrs. Aubrey?” I wrote.

The instant she heard the name from Mr. Barnaby, the girl snapped like a terrier. A torrent of words poured from her lips, and the words did not sound gentle.

“The
Señora
Aubrey? She is the bad one! She is not a woman of sincerity! I think she does not like Miss Peabody, although she pretends to love her with much pleasure. I do not like her, I do not like her at all … she has only the money, not the heart.”

Corazon.
That word.

Abruptly, the lass fell quiet again. Shrinking into her garments. I understood that she feared she had spoken unwisely, that I might be a friend of the Widow Aubrey.

“Do not worry,” I scratched on the paper. “Only tell the truth. The truth will not hurt you.”

When Mr. Barnaby translated that, the girl replied, “The truth hurts everyone. Always. That is the law of the earth. Only sometimes the truth does not hurt so bad as the lie. The lie is like the young lover, I think, and the truth is like a husband. The lover is good for the short time, but the husband is best for the long time.”

As a proper Methodist, I found her comparison doubtful.

I wrote: “Mrs. Aubrey and Miss Peabody argued? Before Miss Peabody’s murder? About Mr. Pelletier, perhaps?”

“But that is not true!” she said, thrusting forward her shoulders. “They are in the relationship of the family. Although I do not trust this
Señora
Aubrey, there is not any quarrelling. No, I do not think there is the argument between them. Never the argument.
Señora
Aubrey was to be helpful. For a price.” She drew thin brows toward her deepset eyes. “Why would they argue about François? That I do not understand at all.”

“Because Miss Peabody tried to introduce him to Mrs. Aubrey’s abode,” I wrote.

The proposition baffled the girl. “But how can this be so? François is many times in the house of the
señora.
Many times. I have seen him. Sometimes he is meeting Miss Peabody there, sometimes they arrive together. But François and
Señora
Aubrey … they know each other for more time, I think. It is the
señora
who tells François about me.” The lass gave her head a snap. “I do not know why she asks François to inform Miss Peabody of this. I cannot say why she does not tell Miss Peabody herself. The
señora
knows my mistress well, there is old business between the families. There is no secret that I am to be sold to your Miss Peabody. It is a favor, an arrangement. But the
señora
is a woman of strangenesses.”

Now, this was a bit contradictory to what I had been told. My impulse was to suspect the lass of lying. After all, she was recently a slave, while Mrs. Aubrey held a social position.

Still, I remembered Mrs. Fowler, of the Philadelphia Fowlers, who had been crueler than Bloody Mary.

I wrote: “You say François Pelletier visited Mrs. Aubrey many times?”

“Verdad,”
she said. I remember that word, too.
Verdad
and
corazon
. “It is true! Of course, it is true! Many times he has sat there, speaking of the price of hiring the ships to take the negroes to Africa. They speak of every detail. Of the price of hiring the ships, of the insurance of the voyage. Of the cost of the food and the dangers of the passage. Of many things they speak. Miss Peabody only listens. I think she cannot decide what is the best. But she has the good heart, the very good heart. Always you must believe that she has the good heart.”

Corazon.

I wrote: “So Mrs. Aubrey did not believe there was an improper relationship between Miss Peabody and Mr. Pelletier?”

“Why is she to believe such a thing?” The girl went up like a mine under a redoubt. “And why will she care if there is, this
old woman who has had so many lovers, who is famous for such things?”

Twas clear the lass was not fond of the widow. And hate is not an honest judge of character.

I wrote: “How could you know such things, Missy? Do not lie to me.”

“Ask anyone!” she said. “The whole city speaks of it. In whispers. But they speak. The
señora
is a beast that devours. They say she has made the voodoo.”

“Who told you that?”

“Francisco. François.”

“Why would he tell you and not Miss Peabody?”

“Perhaps he tells her, too. I cannot say.”

“But why did he tell you?”

“He was afraid.”

“Why would he tell you even that?”

She caught a breath, then said, “We are lovers together.”

There. She
had
lied. Not half an hour before. And one lie begets another.

“You said that such a man would not even look at you.”

A single tear broke from her eye. “He does not look at me. He puts out the lamp and cries for Susan.”

“But you just said they shared no affections.”

“He is loving her, but she is not loving him. She loves only her ambition for the negro.”

“But Miss Peabody was plain as a mackerel.”

She looked at me mockingly, with an expression of majestic superiority. “You do not know the woman. It is only the little boys who die for the famous beauty. The men who are always only the little boys and nothing more. But Susan is the one who wounds the life of the man. He does not understand how she cannot love him. It amazes him. He burns.”

“Why do you hate Mrs. Aubrey?”

“Because she hated Susan. Because I fear her.”

“Why do you fear her?”

“Because she knows that I know, that I listen, that I see. That I do not believe her. She sees many things. She follows the voodoo.”

“But you’re a Christian. You don’t believe in voodoo. What harm can it do you?”

She smirked. As though I were the greatest fool on earth. “What harm did it do Francisco?”

“That was not voodoo. It was murder.”

“It was murder for voodoo. Of the goat without horns.”

I had heard that expression before. And had not forgotten it.

“And you are afraid of being murdered? For voodoo?”

“No. For wishing that Susan is not forgotten.”

“And is Mrs. Aubrey the one you are afraid of?”

“One of many. But I have more fear of the others. Not so much of the
Señora
Aubrey. Not now. Not yet. But of the others.”

“Why?”

“Because,” the lass told us, “
Señora
Aubrey knows that I am dead.”

“IT IS BECAUSE of Susan that I am dead,” she told us. “She has many worries. Now I understand such things. But she does not tell me of them then. She only returns from a visit that is not to Mrs. Aubrey and orders me to gather up my clothing. There are not many things that I have, but I go slowly, because I feel the wound. She speaks to me like the grand
señora
to the slave. She has never done this before. ‘Pack! Now!’ she says to me. I do not understand. Before this visit, she is so happy. Many negroes will go to Africa, she has agreed to this. She will pay, all is arranged. Then she is gone from me for two hours, perhaps three. And she returns in much anger. She is angry with me that I go slowly, she tells me that I am stupid. She is never like this before. Then she takes me in the carriage and pulls down the covers of the window, the way they take away the lepers from
good families in the night. When the carriage stops, we are at the
convento
.”

She smiled wistfully. “Susan has been many times in the company of the nuns, although poor Susan is a heretic who follows
El Rey
Henrique of England, who worships the Great Sinner of Canterbury. Susan gives the money to help the negroes who are very poor. For this, perhaps, she will not burn so long in the flames, I cannot say. But all has been arranged. I will stay with the sisters. Always, I have wanted to be a nun. But not now. Now I wish to be with Susan, who is my friend. And with François. But she leaves me with the nuns, and the
madre
tells me I must not go out even into the square. I must not look out of the window.”

“Where did Miss Peabody go? That made her fearful?”

The lass shook her head. “I cannot know this. Many things she does not tell me. She visits many people, many places, for the good of the negro. The
Señora
Aubrey. The newspaper office where François makes his work. The Yankee soldiers, who do not like her because she disturbs so much. The homes of
los abajos.
But I cannot say where she goes that day to become so angry.”

I had already pieced some bits together, but wished to hear the matter from her lips.

“Did Marie Venin go to the convent to find you?”

When Mr. Barnaby spoke that name, Magdalena made a cross over her breast as the Catholics do. If she had no current fear of Mrs. Aubrey, she had fear in plenty of the voodoo witch.

“Yes. But I am not there. François has come, he has taken me away, because you are too slow. At first, he believes that you will find me and protect me, but you are too slow. All things had been arranged, but he could not make you go fast. He spoke of the little soldier who limps, who is
el hombre sincero,
but who is slow. And then Marie Venin is coming first, so François must hurry to take me away from the
convento.
And I am glad to go with him, you understand.”

Her features lessened into sorrow. “But he is different now. He is fearful and speaks only of the disappeared ones, of things
I do not understand. Only then do I learn that Susan is dead, that she has been dead so long. I am like a prisoner in the
convento,
you understand. I know nothing. I wait. I think Susan has abandoned me. I weep. Then there is François, who tells me that Susan is dead. I begin to understand that she has protected me, not left me. It tears at my heart.”

Corazon. Mi corazon.

“What did François fear? Who had disappeared?”

“He never fears before. But now he fears everything. Always he is strong and very brave. But now he fears. Perhaps he fears that he will disappear, too. I cannot say this. He does not tell me. He tells me only that I am dead, that he has told the
Señora
Aubrey this.”

“Why did he tell Mrs. Aubrey you were dead?”

She found new tears. “Everyone is protecting me, only to die. Everyone I am loving. I do not understand, he will not tell me. But
Señora
Aubrey must think that I am dead. He says it is important.” Unexpectedly, she smiled. “It is so funny, how he speaks Spanish like a Frenchman! But why François makes so much difficulty to help me, I cannot say. Perhaps it is for Susan, for her memory. Because she has wished to protect me. But he has told this
Señora
Aubrey that he has murdered me himself. Mother of God! Such a thing to tell her!”

The lass made the sign of the Cross again.

“Why would he tell her
he
killed you?”

“I cannot say.”

“He would make himself guilty on the charge of murder. If she went to the provost marshal.”

“I do not know. But I think she will not go to the Yankees. François knows this.”

“So Mrs. Aubrey and Marie Venin both want you dead? Why?”

Again, the Cross. Then she patted herself below her throat, where that small gold cross was hidden.

“I cannot say.”

“Did François or Miss Peabody speak of ‘fishers of men’?”

She shook her head. Mystified. “I think they have not so much religion, those two.”

“Does ‘fishers of men’ mean anything at all to you?”

“Of course! This is in the Gospel, it is spoken by Jesus.”

“You did not answer earlier. Who were the ‘disappeared ones’?”

“Perhaps the negroes. Many are going from the city. No one knows where.”

“Perhaps they went to Africa? In Mrs. Aubrey’s ships?”

“No. This is not yet. Some money is paid, I think. Susan receives money from New York, this I know. It is very much money. But there is no ship, not yet.”