Crescent City Part 8

"Well," said Eugene Mendes, "no one denies it's a fine thing to give charity to all. It's his not giving to his own as well that rankles." And he went on, "He's had quite a history. Arrived here from Boston in 1802 with nothing in his pocket. New Orleans was under Spanish rule then and still under Bienville's Black Code. Catholicism was the only religion to be tolerated in Louisiana."

Miriam was engrossed. This conversation was so much more absorbing than Aunt Emma's trivia at the Raphael table. All heads were turned with respect toward Eugene Mendes, who spoke well in rapid, sparkling sentences.

"Got his wound under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. The man's been a fighter from the start. Worth a fortune today, of course. Shipping, West Indies rum, tobacco, horses-there's nothing he doesn't touch."

"You're describing yourself, too," the host said graciously.

"No, no, I'm hardly in the same cla.s.s. A long way from Judah Touro."

"It's an old story," Mr. Kursheedt remarked. "When Jews rise to great prominence there comes a temptation to take the easy social path and forget one's heritage. Touro is not the only one. Take Judah Benjamin."

"I knew him when he came to the city," Henry observed. "I was invited to his wedding in the cathedral."

"He's buying a plantation twenty miles south of here, Belle Cha.s.se. Very grand," said Eugene Mendes, adding ironically, "It's got silver-plated doork.n.o.bs, or so they tell me."

"But you have a fine place of your own," Rosa told him.

"Oh, you can't mention it in the same breath as Belle Cha.s.se. It's merely my quiet retreat from the heat and the fever."

"Don't you believe it," Rosa whispered as they left the dining room. "It's a splendid place. It's just that he doesn't like to talk about himself."

If it were Papa, Miriam thought fondly and ruefully, he would be telling everyone how many rooms there were and what it had all cost.

"I suppose you would call Mr. Mendes a modest man," she said then. "A simple man."

"Simple?" Rosa laughed. "That is the one thing I would never call him." She regarded Miriam, her eyes narrowing. "It's a lucky girl who will get him, I can tell you. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you were that lucky one."

"I don't really ..." Miriam murmured and, stopping, saw that Rosa was mistaking a mixture of pride and fright for modesty and joy.

"Oh, I'm almost sure of it!" Rosa cried, squeezing Miriam's hand. "It couldn't happen to a sweeter girl, either, or more deserving! Such an attractive man ..."

They were caught in a crush at the door, and Rosa was swept into the parlor, leaving Miriam for a moment alone with the echo of her words.

Such an attractive man.

If everyone else says so, Miriam thought, then I ought to think so, too. Shouldn't I? Yes of course, I should.

On the following morning a servant bearing a note and requesting an answer knocked at the Raphaels' door. Almost immediately after he had gone away, f.a.n.n.y came to say that Mrs. Raphael wanted Miriam downstairs.

"We have a visit to make this afternoon, Miriam my dear. Mr. Mendes sent his boy just now to ask whether we will call on him." Emma's smile was sprightly, almost mischievous. "He pays me the compliment of admiring my taste and asks my advice on the decoration of his new house. Do wear your new coat. I don't think we need ask Odette to do your hair, do you? The curls are still quite tight. Perhaps f.a.n.n.y could go over them a bit."

Once more Miriam stood before the pier gla.s.s. Just the week before the mantua-maker had finished a bottle-green silk coat with taffeta bow knots. She had not worn it yet. Her boots of gray cloth and black patent leather were also new. Gray kid gloves and a bonnet heavy with roses waited on the bed while f.a.n.n.y brushed her hair. For an instant their eyes met in the mirror before f.a.n.n.y's, quickly lowered, hid themselves under her lashes. f.a.n.n.y knows, Miriam thought. Servants know things before they happen. She may know better than I do what I'm feeling, too. I wish David were here to tell me what I'm feeling, because I don't understand myself, and he would understand.

I'm racing downhill, running so fast I can't stop, scared that I'll crash. Am I perhaps imagining things that are not there at all?

"You look beautiful," f.a.n.n.y said, fastening the last hairpin. "Now the bonnet. Back on the head a little more. Yes, that's it."

In the carriage Emma echoed f.a.n.n.y. "You look lovely, Miriam. I must remind you, though, to be more careful about wearing a veil when you're outdoors. You do want to keep your complexion so no one will ever get the idea you've a touch of the tar-brush. Not that there's any danger of that, you having been born in Europe." She laughed. "I so envy you your hair. It's like black silk. Enjoy it while you can before you have to start covering the gray with coffee."

The carriage rolled down Esplanade Avenue. "I'm really eager to see the inside of Mr. Mendes's house. It was built by Parmentier, a very wealthy auctioneer-before he lost his money, that is. Gambling," Emma said disdainfully. "It's one thing to make money and another to hold on to it. He came of poor stock, though; French, but Chacalatas, back-country people, not my sort. That's why I was never in the house. Well, here it is."

Stone cherubs held up the gallery, across which ran an iron-lace balcony in a pattern of acorns and twining oak-leaves. At the side of the house a brick wall surrounded a large plot of ground, which almost certainly contained a s.p.a.cious garden.

Eugene Mendes waited at the top of the steps. He looked taller than Miriam remembered. As Rosa had said, he was an imposing man. His hands reached down to help the women mount the steps. Miriam had a queer thought: He can get anything he wants.

Addressing Emma, he asked now, "Would you like tea, madame, or would you rather see the house first?"

"Oh, since you are kind enough to want my advice, let us see the house first."

It was a fine building in the Greek Revival style, finer and larger than the Raphael home. A clean breeze traveled through the tall windows, rippling the curtains. Lofty, shady rooms, twin parlors, a music room and a ballroom, were separated by double doors carved in panels of magnolia blossoms. At either end of the long back verandah was a cabin-size room.

"The cabiniers, for the boys of the house," Mr. Mendes explained. "The previous owner had many sons."

"Well, he was fortunate in that respect, anyway," Emma observed, adding with a daring, almost coquettish air, "You are well prepared in this house for whatever life may bring you, one sees."

The host smiled slightly, and the little procession continued through the rooms. Mirrors tossed their reflections back and forth, Miriam following in silence while Mr. Mendes courteously bent his head toward Emma's chatter.

"Think how many hundreds of hours of labor in that!" she exclaimed over an Empire sofa covered with flowers in needlepoint.

Miriam realized that this friendly stream of trivial remarks did serve some purpose. It covered silences that might otherwise be dreadful.

In front of a painting of a Renaissance n.o.ble whose velvet hat drooped over a dissipated face, Emma paused. "Is that not from the collection of the Duke of Tuscany?"

"You are most discerning, madame. Yes, like your husband, I am a founder of our National Art Gallery of Painting." For the first time Mr. Mendes spoke directly to Miriam. "You may be familiar with our undertaking. A group of us here in the city bought the Duke's collection and we're hoping that the Gallery will take it. If not, we shall keep these for private homes. Do you know as much about paintings as you do about literature?"

"I know very little about either, I'm afraid."

"You have read Ivanhoe, at any rate." And turning back to Emma, "Shall we go upstairs?" he asked. "It's really in sorry condition without carpets or hangings. I've had some furniture sent on approval from Seignouret. I should like to know what you think of it, madame."

"You couldn't do better than Seignouret, Mr. Mendes."

"Nevertheless, I should like your opinion. If you have other ideas, do be frank. And you, too, Miss Miriam. After all, I am without mother or sister to advise me.

Ma.s.sive armoires of rosewood and mahogany stood with huge four-poster beds canopied in tufted satin.

Emma spoke approval. "Most elegant! And, so wisely, he has used marble tops on the tables. He knows our climate."

"Yes," agreed the host, "dampness does the veneers no good."

A half-opened door revealed a little room at the rear of the hall. Miriam, pausing, saw a bare, shining floor, a narrow, plain bed, and a cypress wood chest standing between two white-curtained windows.

Mr. Mendes apologized. "That's just a spare room. A catch-all for some old things from my grandparents' country place."

Something in the spareness of the little room appealed to Miriam and she exclaimed, "Oh, but I like this best! It feels comfortable and peaceful."

"Then, you admire simplicity," Mr. Mendes said.

"Miriam!" Emma cried reproachfully.

And Miriam, aware that she had made a mistake, amended at once, "Of course, the other rooms are beautiful, they're very different, very grand ...."

"Oh, but I like your spirit," Mr. Mendes said. "You expressed your true feelings and you are right. There is a special beauty in simplicity. Shall we go down again? So you approve, madame? Now I need only to increase my plate service. I shall be entertaining rather a good deal now that I am permanently settled in the city. I suppose I ought to have two dozen settings?"

"Oh, indeed. Perhaps more, if you wish. Mr. Raphael frequently brings guests for lunch. It is nothing to find twenty-four in our house at two thirty in the afternoon."

"Then I shall put in my order tomorrow. Would you prefer refreshment in the garden, madame? It's very cool and pleasant, I think."

A bench encircled a round table in the gazebo, where cakes and coffee had been set out. Emma immediately praised the cakes.

The host acknowledged the praise. "My cook Gregoire was trained at the best eating house in Savannah."

Emma reached for her third. She admired the camellias espaliered against the wall, the jessamine and the daylilies; she loved the peal of the cathedral bells.

"We can barely hear them at our house. This is a perfect location here in every way."

"Yes, it is," he replied.

He was paying only partial attention to Emma. His eyes were on Miriam now. She was uncomfortably conscious of his stare.

Some distance away on the garden wall a plaque marked the spot where someone had been buried in the garden. She strained to read. "AIMeE DE-" The surname was concealed by a branch of hibiscus. "AIMeE DE-, DeCeDeE LE-FeVRIER, ePOUSE DE-" A young wife, died in February. Of the fever, or in childbirth? Had she gone singing through this house? Would it be a happy thing to be a wife in this house?

"You are very thoughtful, Miss Miriam."

Now she was forced to look at him. "I was admiring the statue."

A small stone figure of Aphrodite stood above a two-tiered fountain. Into a little pool the falling water splashed and doubled like flounces on a skirt. The city was so far away, beyond that wall. One might think oneself in a forest, in a grove, all green, and but for the quiet splashing, all still.

"What do you think of it?"

She hesitated. "It's a happy thing to have in one's garden. With the doves and the flowers. She was a love G.o.ddess."

"You know something about mythology, then."

"Miriam is a reader," Emma explained. "But not a bookworm, thank goodness! If there's one thing," she said meaningfully, "that you men despise, it's a bluestocking female, isn't it?"

"And do you like my house, Miss Miriam?" Mr. Mendes asked, not replying to Emma.

"Oh, yes. I hope you will be very happy in it," she said with the courtesy that was expected of a guest.

"Thank you, I expect to be." He turned back to Emma.

It was strange how different he seemed from what he had been at Rosa's yesterday. Today there was something too intense about him. He is so very strong, she thought again. He can manage anything. Under the tight gray coat was a body muscled like those of the Greek G.o.ds and Roman warriors in the engravings upstairs in that room. There had been a flowered china pitcher and a bowl where he must wash and shave in the mornings. From the mosquito bar on the bed the netting hung like a veil, a bridal veil. In one of those large carved beds, probably in the red room-she didn't know why, but it seemed that he would select the red room for himself and his bride-in that bed, the girl whom he brought there would be ... She would be different in the morning. The mysteries! Perhaps if David were here she could ask him. But no, of course not. He, too, was a man, even if he was her brother. What would she ask him, anyway? She wasn't even sure.

She was stiff and tense on the bench. Her hands were so tightly clasped on her lap that the fingertips went red. Mr. Mendes's hands were hairy. But they were clean. His fingernails had white rims. That was good; she liked his being so clean. But his forehead was too high. It was like a dome. Someday probably he would lose his black hair and be bald.

"You're shivering," Mr. Mendes said. "Are you cold?"

"A little. There is a chill in the wind."

"Is there? I don't feel it. Shall I get you a shawl?"

"She's in the shade," Emma said. "Move over into the sun, Miriam."

Now her skirt almost touched Mr. Mendes's knees. Why was she so afraid of being that close to him? She had admired him yesterday. Such a gentleman. So well thought of. And this fine house. What was there to be afraid of? And besides, he hadn't asked her, might not even want her, despite what Rosa thought. And she embarra.s.sed herself with her own thoughts.

But he will ask you, Miriam. And you will say yes. You will be expected to. Any girl would say yes to him, wouldn't she? But it will be wrong if you do. But a girl has to be married. But it will be wrong. And she had a terrible sense of dread.

The blood pounded in her neck. She had never fainted, but she felt so queer. It was unbearable to sit there any longer. She prayed that Emma would get up and leave.

Presently Emma did.

On the way home in the carriage Emma spoke with a satisfied sigh. "I'm almost certain he's going to speak to your father about you, Miriam. Tomorrow, I shouldn't wonder. Of course that's why he wanted you to see his house."

"I'm sure he only wanted your advice about the decorations, Aunt."

Emma laughed. "Nonsense! How innocent you are! Not that that isn't very becoming. To tell you the truth, your father and I have already discussed it. Your father is delighted. And why shouldn't he be? We both think you're a very fortunate girl. New Orleans is scarcely filled with eligible Jewish men, and while, as you have seen, many Jews and Christians marry each other, we understand that you wouldn't do it. And certainly it's your privilege to have a husband of your own faith."

Miriam did not answer. The blood still pounded in her neck.

"And since it's so important to you, you must consider: How many are there like Eugene Mendes? He's educated and a man of taste, as you have just seen." Emma spread her chubby fingers apart, counting. "He has a prosperous business and they tell me his country place is delightful. Beau Jardin, it's called. Yes, you will have everything you want, a position in the best society of the city. I have inquired, you see, as if you were my own daughter, my dear." And she laid her hand on Miriam's arm.

Yes, she has been good to me from the beginning, Miriam thought. No one could have been better.

"It must seem like a fairy tale to you sometimes, all that's happened since you came here. Why, what is it? You're not crying?"

Miriam turned her head away. "I don't know. I'm not sure how I feel."

"Well, you're young, and this is very sudden. Although you're certainly not too young. I was married at fifteen and my Pelagie was sixteen, like you. You see how happy she is, don't you? Only my poor Eulalie ..."

Now the lament would come, as it always did whenever any girl of Emma's acquaintance became engaged. Yes, if Eulalie weren't married by twenty-five, all hope would be over. From that time on she would wear a hooded bonnet with chin ribbons and she might never wear a velvet dress, something that seemed to Miriam to have no relevance to anything whatever. Well, Eulalie had better get all the wear she could out of her velvet dresses; she had only two months to go before turning twenty-five.

"Eulalie was never admired," Emma mourned for the thousandth time. "I don't understand it. She's an excellent housekeeper, comes of a fine family, and certainly we had a good dowry for her, some forty thousand dollars, Miriam! Why, there were at least a dozen young men on neighboring plantations who would have been suitable. Goodness knows they knew us all for generations; our families had played together as children, so they knew there could be no danger of the tarbrush. You know, so many of the FPC are so white you can't always tell. Some of them have a lot of money, too. One has to be very careful of bloodlines. Well, there was never any fear of that with Eulalie, so I just don't know." The mother sighed. "So, she'll just be another old auntie, a tante, that's all. She can help Pelagie with her children as the family grows larger. Help with yours, too, Miriam."

Not with mine, Miriam thought fiercely. Not with that sour temper.

"But you don't have to worry, Miriam. You have your future before you now. And your father will be very generous with you, I know. Of course," Emma said, "you're thinking there's more than that. A young girl dreams of love. That's ideal if it's there. But if it's not there at the start, it will develop."

It will develop. What a terrible life never to have love! Not to be loved, not to love anyone but some other woman's children.

And suddenly Miriam remembered something. "It was the same in Europe, in the village. When I was very little, Opa wanted my Aunt Dinah to marry a man who had the best house on the street. But he was fat and ignorant, and she wouldn't. She wouldn't do it. So he asked my Cousin Leah instead."

"And did your cousin marry him?" Emma inquired with interest.

"Yes, and they had four of the most beautiful babies when we left."

"Ah! You see? It all worked out, didn't it? I should imagine your aunt is sorry now. A girl should listen to her elders. It's the same the world over. But you don't have to worry about that!" Emma laughed. "Mr. Mendes isn't fat and he certainly isn't ignorant. He's a fine-looking man. And ten or twelve years older than you, that's good. A man is more steady when he's older."

It all went very quickly. The engagement was celebrated at a formal breakfast, the dejeuner de fiancailles, with the giving of the traditional ring, a ruby in a setting of fiat gold. The wedding date was set for a Sat.u.r.day night in spite of Emma's protest that Sat.u.r.day was common and the better people always married on Monday or Tuesday night. Eugene Mendes wanted Sat.u.r.day.