Tarnished Gold

'How did such a thing happen, Gabrielle?' she demanded in a loud whisper.

'Just the way he described, Mama. I wasn't paying attention and I poled us right into a rock. I lost balance and fell overboard.'

'How did he get soaked, too?'

'He jumped in to help me.'

'He jumped in?'

'Oui, Mama.'

She stared at me a moment and then shook her head. 'Change your clothes,' she said.

By the time I came downstairs, Mama had Pierre dressed in Daddy's best pair of slacks and one of his best shirts. He was barefoot while Mama dried his shoes and socks, pants and shirt, on the stove. His underpants were hanging on the line in the sun. He looked up at me from the plank table in the kitchen. He had an impish grin and appeared to be positively enjoying every moment of my disaster. Before him on the table was a mug of steaming Cajun coffee and a bowl of gumbo.

'Our unexpected swim has made me ravenously hungry,' he explained. 'And I am glad of that because this is absolutely the most delicious shrimp gumbo I've ever eaten. So you see . . . at the end of every storm, there is some sort of rainbow.'

I started to smile, but Mama raised her eyebrows.

'Sit down,' she directed, 'and get some nourishment in your stomach, too. Honestly, Gabrielle, how could you take Monsieur Dumas into the swamp to show him a pond filled with alligators and snapping turtles and snakes and then be so careless as to fall out of your canoe?'

'I didn't take him to any pond filled with alligators, Mama.'

Pierre's smile widened. Just as I sat, we heard a car horn. 'Customers,' Mama said.

'I'll get my own gumbo, Mama. Thank you.'

She gave us a once-over, her eyes filled with suspicion and reprimand, before hurrying out to the stand.

'Your mother's wonderful,' Pierre said. 'The sort of woman who takes command. I was afraid to say no to anything.'

'When you leave, she will bawl me out for endangering a rich gentleman from New Orleans,' I told him, and dipped into the black cast-iron pot to ladle out some gumbo for myself. I, too, was suddenly starving.

'I eat in the finest restaurants in New Orleans, but I don't think I ever enjoyed a meal more,' he said, gazing around the small kitchen. 'My cook has a kitchen to rival the best restaurants, and your mother does so much with so little.'

'Where do you live in New Orleans, monsieur?' 'Please, call me Pierre, Gabrielle. I live in what's known as the Garden District.'

'What is it?'

'The Garden District? Well, it began as the area for the rich Americans when New Orleans became part of the U.S.A. These people were not accepted by the French Quarter Creoles, so they developed their own lavish neighborhood. My grandfather got our property in a foreclosure and decided we weren't above living there. Elegant gardens visible from the street give this section of the city its name. Tourists visit, but there are no buses permitted. There are some famous houses in the Garden District, such as the Payne-Strachan House. Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, died there in 1889.

'I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like a tour guide,' he said, laughing at his own enthusiasm.

'Is your house very big?'

He nodded.

'Is it bigger than any house you've seen in the bayou?' He nodded again.

'How big is your house?' I demanded, and he laughed. 'It's a two-story Grecian with two galeries in front. I think there are fourteen or fifteen rooms.'

'You think? You live in a house so big you're not sure of how many rooms?'

'It's fifteen,' he said. Then he paused. 'Maybe sixteen. I don't know if I should count the cook's quarters as one room or two. And of course, there's the ballroom.'

'Ballroom? In a house?'

'We have some rooms that haven't been used for anything yet. If I count them, too . . .'

'Mon Dieu! Is there much land around it?'

'We have some outbuildings, a stable, a pool, and a tennis court. I never measured it, but I bet it's over an acre of land.'

'You have a stable in the city?' He nodded. 'Are you the richest family in New Orleans?' I wondered, wide- eyed.

He laughed. 'Hardly. In this section there are a number of large estates like ours.'

'How tiny and poor our shack must seem to you,' I said, gazing down as ashamedly as someone caught with holes in the soles of her shoes.

'But how large and rich it is because you live in it,' he replied. I blushed and continued eating, feeling his eyes constantly on me.

'Perhaps one day you will visit New Orleans,' he said. 'Daddy says he will take us as soon as he earns enough