Crescent City

  “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. “AIMÉE DE—” The surname was concealed by a branch of hibiscus. “AIMÉE DE—, DÉCÉDÉE LE—FÉVRIER, ÉPOUSE 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 goddess.”

  “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 gods 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 embarrassed 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 déjeuner de fiançailles, with the giving of the traditional ring, a ruby in a setting of fiat gold. The wedding date was set for a Saturday night in spite of Emma’s protest that Saturday was common and the better people always married on Monday or Tuesday night. Eugene Mendes wanted Saturday.

  “We can fit three hundred in here at home with no trouble at all,” Ferdinand said. “We’ll need that many. I’m on so many boards and they’ll all expect an invitation. Let’s see, there’s the City Bank, the New Orleans Gaslight and Banking Company, the board of the Western Marine and Fire Insurance Company, and the Chamber of Commerce.” His cheeks were pink with anticipation.

  Suddenly Miriam had become of chief importance. Before, she had been merely the daughter of the house, cherished and admonished; now she was an object of respect and envy. First among her friends at school to be married, chosen by none other than Eugene Mendes to be his wife.

  Even Fanny was tremendously affected. She was to go along into the new life as a wedding gift to Miriam with the dowry, the pearls, and the silver service. Excited and proud, she fluttered through the house, running up and down stairs as gifts arrived. With as much delight as though they were her own, she sorted through the Dresden shepherdesses, embroidered linens, lace mantillas, and silver trays.

  Eulalie alone remained apart. She sniffed. “You could put enough punch in that bowl for an army. And so ornate. Those people always manage to overdo things.”

  “What people?” Miriam asked, although she knew quite well.

  “Rosa and Henry de Rivera—isn’t that theirs?”

  “No.” Miriam took satisfaction. “No. It’s from Mr. McClintock at Papa’s bank.”

  Eulalie flushed. “Well, I’m surprised at him, then. He ought to know better, I’m sure.”

  Caterers came to arrange for little round tables and gilt chairs. Florists came with estimates for orange blossoms. In the kitchen fruitcakes high as hats stood soaking in brandy. Dressmakers rushed their samples, strewing the beds and chairs with lengths of Irish dowlas and Swiss lawn, of muslin and calicoes for morning wear, gauze for dancing, of bombazine and velvet.

  There had been no time to get the wedding dress from Paris as Ferdinand had wished, for the bridegroom was in a hurry, unwilling to delay the wedding for half a year in order that a dress might be brought from abroad. This seemed sensible enough, Emma and Ferdinand agreed, especially since there was a dress Miriam could wear, a family heirloom which had been worn by Pelagie and by Emma before her.

  She was to wear her diamond earrings and a pair of narrow gold bracelets which had arrived in the mail along with a letter from David.

  “These belonged to our mother,” he wrote. “They were all the jewels she owned, Aunt Dinah said when she gave them to me. I was to keep them for you and give them to you when you married. Dear Miriam, wear them on your wedding day. They come to you with so much love that they should warm your arm. I wish I could be there with you, but it is so far .… Yet in a way, I shall be there. I am always with you.”

  She could have repeated from memory every word of that letter. He had written also: “You have not told me much about the man you are to marry. I understand it must be hard to put your deepest feelings into words on paper. But I know you must love him very much, and I am so glad for you .…”

  Aunt Emma reminisced, “Oh, you should have seen me as a bride. I was married—I speak of my first marriage, naturally—on the plantation. There were five hundred guests; my father chartered steamboats to bring them, along with the hairdressers and all the confections which came from the city.”

  Pelagie clasped her hands in her typical gesture. “My wedding was so splendid, Miriam. Of course you’ll be invited to a cathedral wedding sometime and then you will see. The Suisse seating the guests, he in his scarlet coat and gold lace and his plumed hat, and the bells all ringing like mad! Oh, it was splendid! Then home for the supper and dancing. But except for the cathedral,” she said hastily, “yours will be the same. Little Miriam! I remember going down to the ship to meet you. You were holding a doll. And here you are,” Pelagie cried, “And here you are!”

  So, on a tide of generous enthusiasm, Miriam was swept along. Never once did it occur to her that she had not spent a single hour alone with the man she was to marry—although if it had occurred to her, there would have been nothing that she or any other girl in her position could do about it.

  Roads were crossed and points were turned in this upstairs room, in the corner where the pier glass stood in its tall oval frame. When Miriam awoke, the afternoon sun had already gone round the corner of the house, but the tilted glass still shone, reflecting the couch on which she lay and the dog on the floor with her nose between her paws in an attitude of watchfulness, as though she, too, knew that the day was to mark a change in their joint lives. Lifeless objects on the table and chests now took on life, announcing the hour; the veil, the white gloves, the fan, the diamond locket and lace handkerchief, waited in the basket, the corbeille de noce, the bridegroom’s gift, to be worn for the first time on this day. She sat up as Pelagie, followed by Fanny, came into the room.

  “It’s almost five o’clock. You’ve had a good nap,” Pelagie said. “I wonder that you could sleep at all. I was much too excited on my wedding day.”

  Fanny laid a wreath of orange blossoms on the dresser. “Maxim is bringing hot water for your wash in a minute. I’ll just move these things and make room on the bed for your dress.”

  The two women bustled lightly as they prepared the bride. Pelagie chattered happily.

  “I’ve just been in the kitchen and everything looks beautiful. They’ve brought mountains of ice from the ice house on Chartres Street. Papa must have ordered a hundred bottles of champagne, I’m sure. We mustn’t let people drink so much that they stay all night, though I don’t suppose it matters if they do. At midnight Mama will take you upstairs anyway and help you into your negligée. I’m sure she’s told you—”

  Emma had, several times. She had explained how she would go down to inform Eugene that the bride was ready, and how they would then stay five days in the bridal chamber. Miriam had been astonished. And Emma had laughed.

  “Oh, honey, the servants will bring food. Is that what you’re thinking about?”

  “Imagine,” Pelagie said now, “you’ll have the same room where Sylvain and I began.”

  Through the partly open door Miriam could see the bride’s traditional tester bed, refurbished with fresh sky-blue silk and glossy gilded cupids, from whose twining hands pink ribbons fell. Important, ceremonial as an altar, the bed waited.

  Fingers fumbled at her back, fastening the buttons which ran from neck to waist. Her own fingers smoothed and smoothed the two fine gold hoops on her wrist. Her mother’s fingers might have smoothed them so. David had held them for her all these years! And she felt a sudden wash of loneliness, chilling and sorrowful: If only he were here! This minute, now, to say, in that positive way of his, that she still remembered: Yes, yes, this is right, this is good! And then to smile encouragement, with that smile that she remembered so well, too.

  She straightened her shoulders. She mustn’t look for her brother or for anyone at all to lean on; she must stand with her own strength. Of course this was right! Her fleeting doubts had been only natural! Hadn’t Emma assured her that all brides were fearful? Why, even David had written how pleased he was with her marriage to a serious man of their own faith!

  From the hall below now came the sounds of arrival and greeting.


  “They’re here!” Fanny cried. “Come, look!”

  Pelagie warned, “She mustn’t be seen until Papa brings her down.”

  “You can peek,” Fanny urged. “Nobody’ll see you. Stand here on the gallery.”

  The courtyard was illuminated. Under a canvas ceiling a floor had been laid. White roses on the bridal canopy were opalescent in the descending dusk.

  Pelagie pointed out the first arrivals. “There’s Pierre Soulé. They say he’ll be in the Senate soon. And there’s Rosa, there in the striped silk; what a handsome dress! And Henry—it does seem so odd, the men keeping their top hats on! Mama has got a separate table with kosher food for your Mr. Kursheedt and the others. The rest of us will have lobster salad and fried oysters and venison and chicken salad.”

  She spoke hungrily. Pregnant again, Pelagie was always hungry. And Miriam laid her hand tenderly on Pelagie’s.

  “My, your hand is freezing, Miriam! Come on, let’s look over the banister and see what’s happening. Oh, look what Maxim and Chanute are bringing inside!”

  A bride and groom of nougat, a piece montée almost two feet high, was set upon the table and wreathed with more roses.

  “Isn’t that too beautiful, Miriam. Quick! Quick! Get in here, that’s Eugene coming in. He mustn’t see you, not even the hem of your dress. It’s terrible bad luck. Oh, but he looks so solemn—”

  “Good heavens!” Emma cried, rushing upstairs. “You haven’t got the veil on yet! Come, it’s almost time.”

  Reverently, as though crowning a queen, the women set the veil and the coronet of orange blossoms on the bride’s head. Clouded in white, the bride stared with blank eyes at the girl in the mirror.

  Someone knocked at the door. “Now, now,” said Emma, opening it for Ferdinand.

  Along with his dark suit and satin tie, Ferdinand wore his triumph. “Mark my words, the Picayune tomorrow will say this was one of the most magnificent weddings the city has ever seen!”

  Miriam took his arm. “I’m ready, Papa.”

  They moved toward the stairs. Stately music flowed toward them as they descended. The feet in the satin slippers moved with courtly rhythm. Not my feet, she thought. Not Miriam’s feet. All this is happening to somebody else.