bewailed, rocking with impending ruin on her gilded chair. 'All our wealth and security, lost. Forced to flee among the filthy Americains, mon Dieu! Penniless, you hear me, girl? Penniless and damned by every good Creole family whose happiness you have destroyed, bah!'
'She is mad, cherie' her father sternly declared. 'Her mind is gone. I have spoken to Docteur Robicheaux, who thinks she is utterly debile … perhaps has been for some time.'
'That will not excuse what she did, Hilaire!' Maman wailed, then sniffed into her handkerchief. 'The Spanish won't care when she…'
'Only if they ever learn the truth, Marie,' Papa cautioned, one hand raised to make his point in peaceful deliberateness. 'If we play our parts properly, they never will. The bishop knows nothing, and he will preach a fervent sermon against the rebel slaves, as if our sons truly died at their hands.' Hilaire de Guilleri hitched a deep sigh and daubed his own eyes as he said that. 'We must be too stricken to speak, so we will not be forced to say anything to the contrary. After, we will quickly return upcountry, along with Iphegenie and Marguerite, and may stay for months and months. She, well… will be too grief-stricken to attend, n'est-ce pas? Though the thought of placing deer bones and rocks in our dear sons' coffins, to rest forever in our mausoleum is… Ah, well. According to what she admitted to us, and what Capitaine Balfa wrote us, there can be no trustworthy witnesses to her perfidy. Maurepas too frightened of exposure? Bistineau, too? That Capitaine Lanxade and most of his crew dead or captured by the Anglais, who will quickly hang the rest on Jamaica? The three Anglais sailors, the deserters, are scattered to Baton Rouge or Natchez and have just reason to fear that the Spanish learn where they got their money…'
Charite stared unseeing at her hands, clenched white-knuckled in her lap,
her eyes averted and her chin down, as she had contritely been ever since she had reached New Orleans and saw her parents. She was just as heartbroken as they, perhaps even more so, just as deeply wounded by her brothers' deaths, the utter end of her dreams, hopes…
Yet Papa and Maman had scathed her for days, sputtering in spiteful, hateful rages or accusing tears. Speaking of her as if she was dead, too, over the top of her head as if she was not there, and frankly, she was getting irked by their waverings from dangerous hostility to bitter but arch grief. As if sorrow was the proper 'thing' to do, the sham to portray, whether their hearts were touched or not! And being spoken of, not to, worse than a dog, given less regard than a piece of furniture…!
'… only living witness would be her, in fact,' Papa Hilaire declaimed, sitting on the edge of his ornate desk, swinging a booted foot, a brandy glass in his hand, and a so-clever smile on his face. Charite snapped up her head to goggle at him, chilling with dread. Her parents had always been testy about anything that might taint their family's repute; beyond their semi-secret amours, of course, and everyone in Creole Louisiana would forgive those, Charite thought. But how far would they go to protect themselves, she had to wonder?
Her father gazed dispassionately at her for a long and somber moment, then shook his head in disappointment. 'Docteur Robicheaux is already convinced of her derangement,' Papa said as he turned his attention to his wife again. 'He has written us a letter to that effect. Such a condition will require years of… care.'
Charite winced, ready to burst into tears in fear of lifelong exile on their most remote and meanest plantation, a feebleminded exile confined to the garret to spare them embarrassment; there to turn old and cronish and desperately lonely, with only slaves for keepers. The rest of her life? She could not bear it! Dare they risk her with the Ursuline nuns, under a vow of silence? A convent might be better, but only just. New Orleans didn't have a proper mad-house, but… what sort of 'care' did he mean?
'She must leave New Orleans,' Papa gloomily intoned. 'She must leave Louisiana, sorry to say, Marie. We lose yet another child.'
'Leave Louisiana?' Charite dared wail in consternation. 'Where must I then go? Papa, please!'
'Hush, you ungrateful girl!' Maman spat, stamping a dainty foot. 'No matter how evil you turned out to be, still, we are your parents, and we love you despite… Trust us to do what little we can in the best interests of our family name, your sisters' futures. And in your own good, though you don't-'
Papa shushed her mother and crossed the room to flair his coattails, take a seat beside her, and pat Maman's hand. Charite knew she was completely doomed, seeing where his sympathy lay.
'Docteur Robicheaux suggests that there are several colleagues from his university days,' Papa said, squirming a little and unable to look his daughter in the eyes, not completely. 'Progressive and clever gentlemen who are achieving marvellous results with the, ah… deranged, Charite. In France.'
'In France ?' Charite gasped. Her fear of lonely exile fled her soul in a twinkling, and her mouth fell open in utter surprise.
A second later came a blossoming, blissful joy! She would go to France ? The very centre of the entire civilised world? The birthplace of the glorious revolution that she'd wished to emulate? A smile of wonder took her features, one she strove hard to disguise but could not quell completely; one she fervently hoped her parents interpreted as one of thanks for saving her life, out of their so- called love for her. Secretly, though, Charite was marvellously pleased, ready to leap to her feet and dance with glee, snap her fingers in their faces in elation!
'A Swedish ship is in port and will soon depart,' Papa intoned. 'We have booked you a cabin aboard her, and Docteur Robicheaux wrote a letter explaining your condition, and how you must be kept in isolation and at rest. A neutral ship, which the British will not dare to board. You will not be disturbed on- passage, n'est-ce pas? You will be safe, all the way to L'Orient. Then…'
'But… where will I go in France, Papa?' Charite cried aloud. France did have mad-houses, and even if the Revolution had conquered the Catholic Church, there still were convents! 'I mean… who will care for me, Papa? Maman?' she fearfully asked, play-acting as if she feared being separated from them forever more. 'Will you really have me… committed to… '
She bit her lower lip and sham-trembled like a chastised puppy
But, France! Yes! she thought.
'We have distant relations,' Papa told her, squirming a little more as he crossed his legs and put an arm about the back of Maman's chair. 'Your mother's kin, the Lemerciers. They live in a very nice little village, a peaceful and bucolic place called Rambouillet.'
Ghastly! Charite thought, shivering for real.
'… not too far from Paris, really, to the west, I think.'
Paris ? Yes, Paris, too! She would finally see Paris!
'… people of the strictest morals and rectitude…'
Boring! Charite almost giggled aloud. She'd find a way to free herself!
'… a sober example that might, in time, restore you to proper behaviour, near to one of Docteur Robicheaux's colleagues who will…'
Doubt it! Charite almost whooped in wicked glee; not with the fabulous city of Paris but a hop, skip, and a jump away.
'… do not mend your ways, Robicheaux's colleague will indeed commit you, Charite…' Papa sternly warned her.
'If you upset the Lemerciers in any way, you willful girl!' her mother threatened, and Charite's galloping imaginings came to a hoof-skidding halt, making her cringe for real, and gulp. If she did anything to displease her dull-sounding relations, they'd have leave to sling her into the mad-house? Eu, merde!
'We will, of course, provide you with a small remittance,' her calmer Papa explained. 'A letter goes to them, explaining how you've been, ah… bereft and driven witless. That we wish them to spend no more on you, and kerb your former extravagance, too. Once assured that your mind is clearer, they might go so far as to introduce you to some local lads of modest but upright nature or, that failing, settle you in some genteel circumstances, as a
