Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1955 Read online

“Had I my life again, Pd stay a civilian,” Ben seemed to hear his father’s voice repeat. “It’s best to be a soldier in war and a civilian in time of peace. I found that out a little late, and I pass the knowledge on to my son. One Parker in the army’s enough. Go to the university at Chapel Hill, learn French and business arithmetic, and your Uncle Frank will take you into his New Orleans office. . . .”

  Here he was in New Orleans, and in his first ten minutes here he’d fought, and he’d almost drowned. His uncle might be angry—if so, so much the better. Ben Parker despised New Orleans. What sort of town would so resent the sight of his strange clothes, the sound of his alien voice, as to offer taunts and challenges? If Frank Parker sent Ben back to North Carolina, that would suit Ben through and through. Again he squinted ill-humoredly at the red-tile roofs, the blue sky, the scrambling crowds. His nostrils flared at the manifold odors of ships, wharves, cargoes. New Orleans—he did not value its whole population and promise at the worth of a copper penny.

  He felt his hair. Drying in the sun, it stood up in bushy disorder. His coat had steamed away much of its soaking, and his boots, also drier, could be put on again. As he donned his things, he saw a closed carriage that turned and trundled over the stout planks.

  A Negro driver reined in and sprang down to open the door. Out stepped a stout, florid gentleman in a gray coat and a bell- crowned hat. There was something familiar about the strong- featured face and the fair, fluffy side whiskers. Ben rose.

  “By your leave, sir,” he said, “am I—am I addressing Mr. Frank Parker?”

  “The same,” replied the stout gentleman, turning critical blue eyes upon Ben’s draggled person. “What! Might you be—”

  “Yes, sir, I’m Ben.”

  Frank Parker’s plump hand shook Ben’s. “So you are! You’ve the look of Captain Lucius. How does he fare? And your mother? I’ve not seen North Carolina since 1802, the year before the purchase—nine long years . .

  He paused, and his hand tweaked a side whisker. His eyes examined Ben’s waterlogged clothes, his tousled hair, his frowning face. “I take it you’ve had an accident.”

  “No accident,” said Ben sourly. “It was a fight.”

  “A fight you say? Tell me about it.”

  Ben did so. His young voice grew increasingly harsh and angry as he told of the sneers his appearance had evoked near the market, and of the young Creole who had tried to flog him with a cane, had been thrown on the planks for his pains, and had then helped fish Ben from the river. Frank Parker listened, and at last a smile touched his broad face.

  “You’ve the hot Parker head,” he observed. “It’s a word and a blow with you—as with your father at your age, and I fear it was so with me. You’ll learn to keep cool if you would thrive here.”

  “Thrive here!” snapped Ben. “This town can sink in the mud for all of me. I’m ready to go home to North Carolina.” Frank Parker clasped his hands behind his coattails. “Run away, eh?” he said. “That’s not like a Parker. We face things, sir.”

  Ben had not thought of departure seeming like flight. “But if I have to fight every time I wear these clothes on the streets—”

  “New Orleans has tailors; you’ll have other clothes,” broke in his uncle soothingly. “Into the carriage with you. If I came to good terms with the Creoles, and if Governor Claiborne and Edward Livingstone did likewise, surely you can manage it.”

  The driver had hoisted Ben’s trunk and bags into the rear of the carriage. Ben, feeling very young and foolish, got in. Frank Parker spoke in French to the driver, and they rolled away.

  “I’ve engaged for you to live with a Creole family,” announced Frank Parker. “The family of my friend Achille Beaumont.”

  Ben remembered the message of Horner Banton, and repeated it to his uncle.

  “Aye, Banton’s a successful trader in fifty enterprises,” nodded Frank Parker. “He’s been here since the Spanish days before the Purchase.”

  “He sides with Creoles against Americans,” suggested Ben, thinking of Banton’s applause at the Creole’s cane play.

  “Not he. Four years back, when President Jefferson ordered the embargo against trade, Banton spoke out more loyally than any of us on the side of government. It took courage to argue against free trade and free shipping. . . . Look at the trees, my boy. They bear peaches, oranges, cherries, bananas. And not a day of the year but flowers bloom in New Orleans.”

  Ben, only half listening, was painfully aware of his wet trousers. Unhappily he gazed out at buildings with brick or plastered fronts, iron-grilled balconies, and wide-shuttered windows j at strolling dandies in smart coats and curly- brimmed hats; at blue-jacketed dragoons from the barracks, at a chocolate-brown laundress with a mighty bundle on her kerchiefed head, at a trio of backwoodsmen in fringed buckskin.

  The carriage stopped before a dark arched doorway, and the driver stepped down. Frank Parker got out, and Ben entered the archway at his heels. Inside was a dim flagstoned passage. Stairs rose at the rear, and to one side, a door creaked open.

  “My friend, Frank,” said an accented voice. “And this, sans doute, is the young nephew?”

  “Achille!” cried Frank Parker. “Allow me to present Ben Parker. Monsieur Achille Beaumont, Ben.”

  The Creole might be fifty years old, but his spare figure, his strong handclasp, and his direct black eyes were youthful. He dressed in a bygone fashion—foamy shirt ruffles, buckled knee breeches, a full-skirted coat. His gray-streaked dark hair was tied in a queue. He gestured them into a large, shutter-dimmed room, set with rich furniture.

  “Archimede,” he called down the passage, “conduct Monsieur Benjamin Parker’s luggage up to his room.”

  A stout, dignified Negro appeared. He had abundant white hair and a wise black face. He walked out to the carriage, and Monsieur Beaumont followed his guests into the parlor.

  “And how is it you like New Orleans? ” Monsieur Beaumont asked Ben. “Please to sit.”

  “The town seems right lively, sir,” Ben managed to say. “Thank you, I reckon I’d better stand.”

  “Ben had a special welcome, Achille,” laughed his uncle. Red-faced, Ben heard Frank Parker’s version of the fight and the fall into the river. To hide his confusion, he gazed around the room. The walls held ancient portraits of dainty women and proud men. In one place hung crossed silver- hilted swords. Monsieur Beaumont smiled at the tale and stroked his long, smooth chin.

  “You will learn to be our friend,” he said to Ben. Then he added, as a plump, purple-black slave woman brought in a tray with a silver coffee service: “Zeline, has my son returned from his college? Say to him that I desire his presence here.”

  She bobbed a curtsy and left the room.

  aMy servants speak both English and French,” Monsieur Beaumont informed Ben, pouring the coffee. “They will help you learn Creole speech and ways. And my son Casimir can teach you two things that, I venture, you could have wished to know this day.”

  “What things?” asked Ben, accepting a cup.

  “Fencing and swimming. He has done both excellently well from childhood. Each Friday he returns from the College of Orleans to stay until Sunday evening, and he will be happy to—but here he is now.”

  A slender figure entered the room, and Ben gave a gasp of recognition.

  II. A la Qreole

  Monsieur beaumont was pouring coffee into a fourth cup. “My son,” he said, “here is one who will be to you as a friend and brother. Ben Parker, my son Casimir.”

  Ben had whirled around, with a humid swish of his coattails. His blue eyes fixed Casimir Beaumont’s black ones. “We’ve already met, sir,” he said.

  “It is true, my father,” agreed Casimir Beaumont tonelessly.

  “What! ” Frank Parker stared from one youth to the other. “Hark ye, Ben, you mean that—”

  “We’ve met,” repeated Ben stiffly. “Out on the wharf.” He scowled. He’d fought the fellow; the fellow had saved his life. He felt supremely id
iotic as he shrugged his damp shoulders.

  “Achille, d’you take what happened?” Frank Parker was saying.

  “Casimir, is this true?” demanded Monsieur Beaumont. “You fought with Ben Parker?”

  Casimir shrugged too, with a Gallic grace. “What could I do?” he appealed, ever so slightly shamefaced. “He announced to all the town that he could beat any Creole—”

  “I didn’t say it to you, sir! ” broke in Ben. “Anyway . .

  He supposed he must say it, though the words seemed to weigh like lead. “Anyway, you pulled me out of the water. I owe you my thanks for that.”

  Monsieur Beaumont gazed at his son. “You lost your temper, eh?”

  “No, sir. I fought, but I did not lose my temper.” Another French shrug, a sudden smile. “Faith, it’s well I kept it! I needed all my wits to keep him from driving me into the wharf like a nail! And when he caught hold of me, I thought I wrestled with a bear from the circus!”

  Suddenly Frank Parker began to chuckle, and so did Monsieur Beaumont. Casimir Beaumont still looked blank, but he smiled. The tenseness lessened, but Ben still felt awkward.

  “Zooks, Achille,” said Frank Parker at last, “a little tussle sometimes makes good friends, eh ? Ben, eight years ago I had a trifle of your same trouble.”

  “You, sir?” said Ben, goggling at his uncle’s plump, respectable person.

  “It’s true. I was eight years younger then, and numerous pounds lighter, and new in Orleans Territory. I was at the play at the Conde Street Ballroom, and someone behind me said that my head bothered him.”

  “Your head?” Ben tried to reconstruct the scene.

  “I moved to one side. Then he told me that my head bothered him no matter where I held it. He didn’t like Americans—”

  “And your uncle turned around, fierce as a tiger,” Monsieur Beaumont took up the tale. “He mistook who had spoken and fastened the quarrel on myself, sitting there silent and at peace.”

  “At peace!” Casimir echoed his father. “I have heard this tale before. You were not slow in replying hotly, and when Monsieur Parker challenged you—”

  “It was the man who first disliked my head who saw the humor of the mistake,” Frank Parker interrupted in his turn. “He laughed us out of it, and we left the ballroom good friends, the three of us. Monsieur Beaumont and I have been on excellent terms ever since.”

  Casimir’s black eyes sought Ben’s again. “I felt you had come to offer a challenge,” he said.

  “You pulled me out of the river,” reminded Ben stubbornly. “I couldn’t raise a hand to you after that, could I?” “No, Ben, you couldn’t,” agreed Frank Parker. “Now, follow the example of your elders and make peace.”

  “I insist, Casimir,” put in Monsieur Beaumont.

  Dutifully, the young Creole put out his slim hand. Ben, equally obedient, took it in his broad palm.

  “Meanwhile,” went on Frank Parker, “when Casimir pulled you out of the water, he pulled out a vast deal of the water with you.”

  Ben studied the dampness around his boots. “Yes, sir, I’m right waterlogged. I’d be glad of a chance to change.”

  “Your room is at the front, upstairs,” Monsieur Beaumont told him. “Archimede is unpacking for you.”

  Ben bowed to his host, to his uncle, and very quickly to Casimir. Then he walked into the passage and up the steps. The upper hallway led to a glass-paned door that seemed to open into a gallery above the entry. Next to this another door stood ajar, and Ben saw a square room with pale plastered walls. Archimede had opened the carpet bags and trunk and was arranging garments on a four-poster bed. Other furniture included a table, two chairs, a gray rug, and, in the floor’s center, an oval tub full of steaming water.

  “What would you wear, M’sieu’?” asked Archimede as Ben came in.

  “But a moment,” said a voice behind Ben, and Casimir Beaumont also strolled into the room. “Permit me to advise.”

  He regarded the shirts and breeches laid out on the bed, his dark brows crinkling importantly. Then he pointed to a pair of white linen pantaloons.

  “These might serve,” he announced, in a tone of crisp authority. “And the shirt with the soft collar. Where are the shoes?”

  Archimede indicated three pairs ranged at the bed’s foot. Casimir clicked his tongue as he surveyed them.

  “Wear the pumps,” he directed. “Next, your cravats?”

  “There on the pillow,” said Ben, trying not to growl.

  Casimir grimaced unhappily and shook his head. “My friend, none of the cravats will do. It is the cravat as much as any one thing that causes the howl of ’Mericain coquin. Tomorrow morning, as our first activity, we will visit Jacques Mesner.”

  “Who’s Jacques Mesner?” demanded Ben. Plague take this little dandy! Did he think saving a stranger’s life made that stranger his personal dog to lead around?

  “His tailor shop is but two squares away. Now, I leave you to change. Knock at my door when you come out; it is next to yours.”

  He was gone, while Ben glowered. Archimede coughed to gain attention, then gestured.

  “Bath, M’sieu’,” he said, and took Ben’s coat to carry out.

  Alone, Ben peeled the clammy garments from his sturdy limbs. He soaped his body, rinsed himself, and rubbed hard with a towel. Finally he donned, with a glum air of defeat, the garments Casimir had indicated. He surveyed himself in a long mirror.

  “I wonder if even these clothes will keep me from being mobbed in this precious town,” he grumbled to himself.

  With brush and comb from his dressing case he arranged his wet hair. Then he stepped into the hall, but did not knock at once on Casimir’s door. He would just as soon put off the ordeal of critical inspection. On impulse he opened the glass- paned outer door and stepped upon an iron-grilled gallery above the street.

  He stared down at passing strollers. “Bon calasl Bon calas/” called someone, selling articles Ben could not identify. Ben wondered if anyone looked up, spying him out for a hated stranger. Certainly he felt as though eyes studied him. He glanced to the left.

  A house fronted the street next door. It, too, had a gallery, and someone stood there on a level with him.

  It was a young girl, slim and almost as tall as Ben himself. Her dress, shimmery gray as a dove’s wing, fell like a sheath to her very toes, with a square neck and brief puffy sleeves. About her waist was a girdle of purple silk, and a bow of the same color rode at the very top of her heavy mass of dark red hair. Her eyes, just now gazing at Ben with a sort of calm curiosity, were dark brown and slightly slanting—almost three-cornered. In a man’s face those would be fighting eyes.

  But this was very much a girl’s face, softly pale and fulllipped, with a delicate straight nose and a firm round chin.

  When she realized that Ben was looking at her, she walked slowly toward the upper door of her own house. As she reached that door, her eyes flicked toward him again. Ben became suddenly aware that his hair lay shiny-wet against his head, that he stood coatless and with open shirt collar. He recognized, with the clear sartorial judgment of a Casimir Beaumont, how awkward a figure he cut. He stepped back inside, cheeks flushing hotly.

  Casimir came from his own room. He carried a strip of ribbon, richly black with narrow diagonal stripes of red, and fringes at its two ends.

  “I will lend you this cravat,” he offered; then, as Ben took it and twisted it around his corded neck, “But no! You don’t know how to tie it. Allow me.”

  Ben submitted to Casimir’s swift, skillful hands. “Tell me,” he said, “who lives next door?”

  “Next door?” repeated Casimir, arranging the folds of the cravat. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, she’s tall and slender, and I reckon she’s about our age, but not quite. Her hair’s too dark for sorrel, and too much red in it for chestnut—”

  “My friend, I beg!” cried Casimir, aghast. “Do not speak of my cousin Felise as though she were a horse, or you’ll
have many duels to fight.”

  More talk of duels! With an effort, Ben ignored it. “She’s your cousin?”

  “Yes. Ma’m’selle Felise O’Rourke.”

  “How can she be a cousin of yours, with that name? O’Rourke—it sounds Irish.”

  “Her great-grandfather was Irish, and entered the Spanish king’s service a century ago. Her father was colonel of the garrison here during Spanish rule in New Orleans. But her mother is my father’s sister. Don’t stare. Is it so wonderful that I have cousins? I could name fifty cousins in New Orleans, with more in the country.”

  “Well, I saw her, on the gallery next to yours,” said Ben.

  “Ah! And seeing her, you admired. So do many gentlemen. Come downstairs.”

  Ben followed him, wondering if he would meet the girl called Felise O’Rourke, who was of French and Spanish and Irish descent wondering, too, if her instant hostile scorn would be roused because he, Ben Parker, was a stranger from North Carolina. He and Casimir re-entered the parlor, where Monsieur Beaumont and Frank Parker waited.

  “I suggest that Ben call tomorrow at Jacques Mesner’s,” said Casimir. “He needs an outfit in our mode, and that badly.”

  “Good,” agreed Frank Parker. “The bills can come to me. I’ll let Ben pay me out of his salary at the office.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Ben.

  “Meanwhile,” went on Casimir, “if Zeline puts her needle to his coat, makes it narrower in the waist,” and he gestured at his own snug garment, “it will not cry so loudly that he is a newcomer. It will serve until Jacques Mesner finishes his new garments.”

  “Good,” said Frank Parker again. “You understand, Ben?”

  “And tomorrow he and I will take a bout with the foils,” pursued Casimir. “Ben must learn to fight, and soon—he has seen Felise.”

  “Indeed?” said Monsieur Beaumont, interested.

  “Sooner or later he will find himself challenged,” said Casimir.

  Ben snorted in exasperation. “How many duels have you fought about her?” he demanded.

  “Ah, bah!” disclaimed Casimir, laughing. “She and I are near relations. We were babies side by side, she and I. One has no occasion to fight duels over such close kinship, unless someone were so foolish as to insult her or to make free with her name in my presence.”