Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (138 page)

“And yet, how much more willingly might he not carry out his promise, and with how much better effect, if he is grateful for the satisfying of his senses? Besides, there are many days, many months and years ahead when we must come to terms with these Spanish masters. Will it not be much easier for everyone if they learn to take life slowly, to stay out of the heat of the sun, to enjoy instead of trying to force us to endure endless toil at midday for the sake of our souls, and approach heaven with our lips turned down in a frown?”

From inside, the book called to Ashanti, and the maid dropped a curtsy before turning to answer the summons. Félicité lingered for a moment, taking small swallows of her tisane. Sometimes Ashanti spoke as though the relationship between her mistress and Morgan McCormack would go on forever. That was impossible, even if she had desired it. Soon now the trial would be over and her father’s fate made known. Regardless of what that might be, there was little hope that he would be able to keep his property. It would be sold to the highest bidder. She would have to move, leave this house where she had been born, where she had spent all the years of her life. More than likely, Morgan would have tired of the arrangement by then and would be just as happy to see her go. What she would do then, how she would live, where she would find the money to buy food for herself and her father, were questions for which there were no answers. For the most part, she tried not to think about it, tried not to look beyond the end of the trial. In her more optimistic moments, it seemed possible that Morgan might be able to secure her father’s release, to have his name cleared of all charges. Olivier Lafargue would return home then, Morgan would depart, and things would be as they were. It was a comforting vision, though seldom long-lived.

She glanced down at the cup in her hand. At least with Ashanti’s brew taken at this time, when Morgan was not present, she had some small control over the functions of her body that spelled her destiny. There would be no child forced to serve as a hostage to the future. With an abrupt movement, she drained the cup and stepped to set it on the corner of the kitchen table just inside the door, before swinging back and continuing along the walkway.

It was dim inside the upstairs rooms with the onrush of the cloudy evening. At the movement of a dark shadow blending with the portieres at the end of the salle, Félicité came to a halt, her heart jerking against her ribs. Faint crimson light flowed across the front of a uniform coat as Morgan turned.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, lifting her hand to her throat.

“Who else were you expecting?” His tones were flat, without their usual raillery.

“No one. I just didn’t — know that you were home.”

“You were busy below, and I saw no reason to disturb you. But what is this of home? A slip of the tongue, surely? This may be yours, but I am certain you don’t consider it mine.”

“I—I thought your home was in Ireland?”

He moved his broad shoulders. “Not any more. My mother has been dead these many years; my father was forced to sell the land our family had held for generations, and the sight of an English overlord riding over our acres sent him to his grave a few months later. I have a brother and a sister someplace; God knows where. They may be dead too, for all I can tell.”

“I didn’t know.”

His voice bright-edged, he said, “There is a great deal you don’t know about me.”

“That may be, but I assume that as a professional soldier your stay in this house, or in Louisiana for that matter, will not be long.” She tried to see his face as he stood half turned from her, but his features were no more than a bronze outline against the gray gloom.

“What makes you think so?”

“Governor-General O’Reilly has done such a thorough job of subduing the people of New Orleans, of reorganizing our legal system, sending out census takers to count our numbers, and establishing the system of Spanish magistrates, that a civilian governor can now safely fill the position he holds. No doubt the King of Spain will have other work elsewhere for him to do, and for you.”

“What you say may be true, but I am not sure I will follow O’Reilly when he goes.”

“Not follow him? But why?”

“The governor-general has been authorized to grant parcels of virgin land from a thousand to five thousand arpents, the equivalent of the same in acres more or less, to anyone willing to build, to clear and cultivate it as a Louisianan. The provision was made before he left Spain. That prospect was what brought me here in the first place.”

“This land is to go to anyone?”

“To anyone he deems worthy.”

“Which is to say, any one of his followers, any Spaniard, any man with the money to — prove his worthiness?”

“The land is not for sale, if that’s what you mean,” he answered, his tone hardening.

She turned sharply away. “Of course not. Such corruption is only for the French regime.”

“I didn’t say that,” he objected, his voice soft.

“You didn’t have to. To the stern and pious Spanish, all criminals are French, oh yes, and especially all smugglers and pirates. What you fail to consider is that it is Spanish laws and arrogant Spanish misunderstanding of what living in Louisiana is like that makes it so.”

“You are right.”

Caught in mid-tirade, Félicité swung to stare at him. “What did you say?”

“I said you were right, at least as concerns smuggling and piracy. The laws of Spain that require the trade of its colonies to be restricted to Spanish goods brought in on Spanish ships are short-sighted. Because of the monopoly, the colonists pay high prices for inferior goods and receive unnaturally low prices for their exports of furs, raw wood, indigo, and dyestuffs. France had the same policies, but they were never strictly imposed, and so were livable. Spain has begun in the last three or four years to relax its grip on trade in its other colonies, but it will be some time before the situation in Louisiana will be stable enough to do the same here. In the meantime, the success that O’Reilly has had in shutting off the routes of illicit trade has caused the recent rise in piracy, and the smuggling that goes with it.”

“You are actually criticizing the great O’Reilly! I can’t believe it.” That he was repeating what she already knew was not so important as this fact.

“I’m not criticizing his actions; as I’ve pointed out before, he is only following orders. But I can’t agree with the result.”

“Surely all the man has to do is call in a few patrols, be less vigilant.”

“Unfortunately, that is not in his code. To him, an order is something to be carried out as quickly and completely as possible.”

“So I perceive,” she said with bitterness etching her tone. “And it makes no difference if human lives are at stake.”

Silence encroached, thickening, clogging the air. Morgan drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Attorney General Don Felix del Rey made his summation for the prosecution today.”

“Does that mean,” Félicité asked, her voice sounding strange to her own
ears
, “that the trial is over?”

“As nearly as makes no difference. The judges will hear the final arguments by the attorneys for the defense. Since it will be a repeat of what has been said over and over again that should not take long. The court will then deliberate and hand down judgment.”

“When — when should we hear?”

“A couple of days, three, four at the most.”

“There can be little doubt that the verdict will be guilty?”

“I—” he began, then stopped, saying abruptly, “No.”

“What will happen? To the others, I mean.”

He sent her a swift look, as if surprised that she seemed not to   doubt the fate of her father. “That is up to O’Reilly. The responsibility for the final sentencing is his.”

“They say his orders are to hang them all, to make an example of the twelve he holds.”

“It’s possible. I can’t say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” When he did not answer, she moved to stand beside him on the opposite side of the doorway. Clenching her fingers in the damask of the portieres, she whispered, “Why? Why?”

“Félicité,” he began, an uncharacteristic hesitation in his voice.

“Oh, don’t, tell me! I know the reasons, but they don’t matter. It’s so senseless, so stupid to destroy people’s lives in this way, to treat respectable men like common thieves and murderers. Having reasons doesn’t make it right.”

“No, and yet you don’t condemn the smugglers and the corsairs in the gulf, simply because they have hard economic reasons for their misdeeds.”

“I certainly don’t condone what they do. And yet, if I were a man just now, the thought of striking a blow against some Spanish ship laden with booty stolen in the New World would be nigh irresistible.”

“At least you are honest.”

The ironic amusement in his tone encouraged her. “About the men on trial, don’t you think King Carlos would listen if O’Reilly sent a report recommending leniency, saying how quiet the countryside is, how cooperative the attitude of the townspeople? Perhaps the orders could be changed?”

“Are you suggesting that I approach the governor-general with this recommendation?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“It will do no good,” he said, his words blunt.

“How can you tell until you have tried?”

“I have tried, as have any number of weeping mothers and wives, staid merchants, and concerned priests. In every case, O’Reilly has refused to consider that course. It is not the place of a mere general, even one who once saved the life of the king in a Madrid street riot, to question the orders handed down to him by the crown. Royalty seldom changes its mind, even when an error is pointed out.”

Félicité slanted him a glance tinged with wonder. What had caused this softening of his attitude? Could it be that his sympathy for the cause of the people of Louisiana had been brought about by the efforts of Ashanti and herself? It was ridiculous, considering the trouble she had been put to, that for some strange reason she hoped it was not so.

“Why do you say that?” she asked. “Why are you no longer defending your commander and his Spanish master?”

“A number of reasons,” he answered, staring out over the balcony into the gathering dusk. “The men caught in this trap of international laws should have known better. Regardless, when you look around at how they lived, clinging to their pride and the customs of the land from which they came while barely scratching out a living, it’s easy to see how the question of their nationality would be the cause of strong feeling. When you are here in this place, Europe with its pride and civilized posturing, its class structure, its haves and have-nots, pomp and squalor, seems so far away. Its laws seem more likely to strangle a colony, cutting off its life’s blood, than to help it grow strong. Here, a title and the centuries of privilege that go with it are useless. What counts is a man’s muscles and his brains, aided by the will to drive them and to rely upon himself. It isn’t difficult to see how men with those qualities would band together, when the cause arises, for their own benefit. In a strange new country, almost another world like this, the craving for freedom and the urge to govern themselves for their own profit seems natural — just as it is natural for the Old World to prevent it. This small rebellion here may be over for now, but I can’t help wondering how long it will be before the same impulse overtakes men again, here or in some other colony.”

“I see. As a future landowner you begin to recognize the problems we have dealt with here for years.”

“There may be some truth in that,” he agreed. “But I have also seen the trouble and pain the arrest of these men has brought to those who — who care for them. It sometimes seems, as the petitioners come and go at the governor’s house, the wives, mothers, daughters, sons, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews, grandparents, even godparents and godchildren, that the entire community is united in a terrible, spreading grief.”

“Morgan,” she began, but he went on, the words falling relentlessly from his lips. “We all feel it, every man from the arid and hungry provinces of Spain, every misbegotten mercenary from whatever corner of the earth spawned him, and the worst of it is, there is nothing we can do.”

She moved toward him then, reaching out to place her hand on his arm. He turned to pull her against him, holding her in a passionless embrace that offered only comfort, a refuge from her ceaseless fears. With her head resting against the firmness of his chest, Félicité closed her eyes, unresisting, oddly, disturbingly content in the strong circle of his arms.

Four days later, on the morning of October 24, 1769, the news raced through the town that the Spanish court on this day would hand down judgment. It would be pronounced and signed by O’Reilly, who would immediately thereafter read the sentences to be meted out, should any be necessary. The last was always added in a pathetic pretense that the Spanish tribunal was a just one.

Félicité spent the morning at the Church of St. Louis upon her knees. She was not alone. By the flickering light of votive candles there were many bowed heads to be seen, and the gentle clack and clatter of rosaries passing through trembling fingers was loud in the stillness. Above them, the carved figure of the Christ on the cross behind the altar gazed down with serene eyes from a face spent with torment.