good of her soul.”
Lying naked on his bed in the heat, hearing the roaring of afternoon rain on the slates, he tried to sleep, and his mind returned to the small, taut face, the wary eyes, of Cora Chouteau.
If you don’t fight it’s not really rape
.
According to Shaw, the Redfern cook had seen Cora slip back into the house, some time after she was supposed to have run away. How long after? In the twilight, Shaw had said.
I slept out in the swamp
.
Then after supper Wednesday night Otis Redfern had stumbled against the wall, trying to get outside to the outhouse, gasping and crying with a mouth half-paralyzed, pleading in the heat that there was ice water in his veins. Madame Redfern was found sick in her room only half an hour later, having collapsed from dizziness, too weak to call for help.
Had Cora returned only to steal five thousand dollars and her mistress’s pearls? What the hell was five thousand dollars doing lying around the house? Money and credit were impossibly tight this year (his mother had investments, and he’d been hearing about the tightness of money at great length for months). Most plantations dealt in letters of credit. In the best of times it was rare that even the richest of the planters, the Destrehans or the McCartys, had a thousand dollars cash money readily available.
Or had she gone back to slip powdered monkshood into whatever was being prepared for that evening’s meal?
Shaw had made no mention of the candy tin. January wondered if he knew about it. He could not imagine a Boston-raised merchant’s daughter knowing how to identify monkshood in the woods, much less how to cull and dry it. If Cora didn’t prepare the stuff herself, Emily Redfern would have to have acquired it somewhere.
And after all that, were Cora to testify that Emily Redfern kept powdered monkshood in the locked cupboard on her own property, and her case failed, she would be in serious trouble indeed.
He closed his eyes. The rain eased off, and a breeze walked across his bare belly and thighs. Why Cora Chouteau concerned him he didn’t know. It was madness, insanely risky. He’d learn what he could, but there were things he simply could not do.
At least it was better than lying here obsessively inventorying his own body: did his head ache?
(That’s just lack of sleep.)
Was he thirsty?
(That’s nothing. It’s hot. No worse than yesterday.)
Were his joints sore? Nausea? Belly cramps?
Was he hot with fever or was it just hotter today?
There had been a time when he’d wanted to die, wanted some shining angel from his childhood catechism to appear and tell him he didn’t have to be in pain anymore, didn’t have to deal with loss and grief and wondering why. But the only psychopomp in town these days was old Bronze John. At the memory of those bloated orange faces, the protruding tongues, the horrible feeble picking of the hands on the coverlets, he’d grope his cheap blue glass rosary from beneath the pillow and whisper, “Be mindful, Oh Lord, of Thy covenant, and say to the destroying Angel, Now hold thy hand …”
Like the choir at Mass the dreary voice of the dead-cart man replied from the street, “Bring out yo’ dead!”
January rose, and washed, and made his way through streets stinking of summer heat to the Charity Hospital as it was growing dark. The ward was like the waiting room in hell. By lamp glare the color of the fever itself, Dr. Sanchez, another of the physicians volunteering his services, mopped down a withered shop-woman with cold vinegar and niter, the smell of it acrid in the murky dark. There were slices of onion placed under every bed.
Dark forms fidgeted like ghosts, conferring in a corner; and coming close January saw it was Dr. Soublet and Dr. Ker, the former British Army surgeon who over theprotests of the Creole community had been given the post of Director of the Hospital. “I don’t see that,” Soublet was saying, voice rising with anger. “I don’t see that at
Lying naked on his bed in the heat, hearing the roaring of afternoon rain on the slates, he tried to sleep, and his mind returned to the small, taut face, the wary eyes, of Cora Chouteau.
If you don’t fight it’s not really rape
.
According to Shaw, the Redfern cook had seen Cora slip back into the house, some time after she was supposed to have run away. How long after? In the twilight, Shaw had said.
I slept out in the swamp
.
Then after supper Wednesday night Otis Redfern had stumbled against the wall, trying to get outside to the outhouse, gasping and crying with a mouth half-paralyzed, pleading in the heat that there was ice water in his veins. Madame Redfern was found sick in her room only half an hour later, having collapsed from dizziness, too weak to call for help.
Had Cora returned only to steal five thousand dollars and her mistress’s pearls? What the hell was five thousand dollars doing lying around the house? Money and credit were impossibly tight this year (his mother had investments, and he’d been hearing about the tightness of money at great length for months). Most plantations dealt in letters of credit. In the best of times it was rare that even the richest of the planters, the Destrehans or the McCartys, had a thousand dollars cash money readily available.
Or had she gone back to slip powdered monkshood into whatever was being prepared for that evening’s meal?
Shaw had made no mention of the candy tin. January wondered if he knew about it. He could not imagine a Boston-raised merchant’s daughter knowing how to identify monkshood in the woods, much less how to cull and dry it. If Cora didn’t prepare the stuff herself, Emily Redfern would have to have acquired it somewhere.
And after all that, were Cora to testify that Emily Redfern kept powdered monkshood in the locked cupboard on her own property, and her case failed, she would be in serious trouble indeed.
He closed his eyes. The rain eased off, and a breeze walked across his bare belly and thighs. Why Cora Chouteau concerned him he didn’t know. It was madness, insanely risky. He’d learn what he could, but there were things he simply could not do.
At least it was better than lying here obsessively inventorying his own body: did his head ache?
(That’s just lack of sleep.)
Was he thirsty?
(That’s nothing. It’s hot. No worse than yesterday.)
Were his joints sore? Nausea? Belly cramps?
Was he hot with fever or was it just hotter today?
There had been a time when he’d wanted to die, wanted some shining angel from his childhood catechism to appear and tell him he didn’t have to be in pain anymore, didn’t have to deal with loss and grief and wondering why. But the only psychopomp in town these days was old Bronze John. At the memory of those bloated orange faces, the protruding tongues, the horrible feeble picking of the hands on the coverlets, he’d grope his cheap blue glass rosary from beneath the pillow and whisper, “Be mindful, Oh Lord, of Thy covenant, and say to the destroying Angel, Now hold thy hand …”
Like the choir at Mass the dreary voice of the dead-cart man replied from the street, “Bring out yo’ dead!”
January rose, and washed, and made his way through streets stinking of summer heat to the Charity Hospital as it was growing dark. The ward was like the waiting room in hell. By lamp glare the color of the fever itself, Dr. Sanchez, another of the physicians volunteering his services, mopped down a withered shop-woman with cold vinegar and niter, the smell of it acrid in the murky dark. There were slices of onion placed under every bed.
Dark forms fidgeted like ghosts, conferring in a corner; and coming close January saw it was Dr. Soublet and Dr. Ker, the former British Army surgeon who over theprotests of the Creole community had been given the post of Director of the Hospital. “I don’t see that,” Soublet was saying, voice rising with anger. “I don’t see that at
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