this “wife” was not long for the life of a plantation mistress. And give up a life of drunken warbling and kicking up her legs?
In the meanwhile, she canceled the reception. “Marcelle. Bring the food for the soiree to the quarter. Let the Negroes enjoy the feast.”
Madame went to church alone that Sunday. “Enjoy your bride at home,” she told her son. “You are still unsettled from a long trip. Rest on this holy day. I will petition the Holy Mother on your behalf.”
Later, when she returned, she had a moment of clarity. She had been so overwhelmed with joy to receive her son, and then overwhelmed with shock by the reality of the situation, that she had forgotten to ask the important questions. She began at supper.
“Son, tell me about the vineyard.”
In spite of everything, Madame’s face was filled with the coloring of her youth. The vineyard at least salvaged the ordeal. That, and that her son, alive, had returned to her. The woman was set aside in her mind.
“What vineyard is this, husband?” the wife asked. The manner of speech rough and hungry in Madame’s ears.
“The vineyard. Oh. Yes! The vineyard,” Lucien drawled.
The realization came faster to Madame than she wanted to receive it, and the truth of it almost knocked her down.
“Lucien. You didn’t go to the convent or the vineyard to make the claim? They have been waiting for you. This is your inheritance. My life. The family blood.”
“You see?” he said to his bride. “I told you about my mother.”
Her earlier tears of joy be damned. Madame could have murdered her own son. She was speechless for the rest of the meal. This was no matter to the couple. Msr. Guilbert recited poetry while his wife whistled through her near toothless mouth.
Sylvie watched the pair. First with a simmering disgust, and then with a resolve. He was a fool, and she possessed an unabashed need for an audience. Sylvie made the Guilberts an offer.
“Son. Bring your bride to New Orleans. Show her some culture.”
The ordeal brought forth her cunning nature. Her focus and ferocity. She bided her time, never betraying her intentions. Madame proposed that her son, with a bit of money, show his bride what the lower country had to offer before she settled into the life of a plantation mistress. After the filthy passage on the flat boat, they would take the riverboat down to New Orleans in grand style. Before they took their leave, Madame said, “That little ring won’t do, Madame Guilbert”—the first and only time Madame Sylvie called her so. “It is choking your finger.” She brought out a box of jewelry her husband had gifted her with, after his trips to cotton and cane exchanges followed by drunken jaunts. The other Madame Guilbert gasped at the baubles—all cheap in the first Madame Guilbert’s estimation. “Please,” Madame said, pushing the box to her. “Choose as you like.”
The woman popped her finger into her mouth, sucked hard, and then worked to pull the signet ring bearing the Bernardin de Maret crest off the reddened pinkie, and handed it to her mother-in-law. It took all of Madame’s calm to maintain her face. Her legacy had been returned to her. Without being told, Marcelle took the signet ring and boiled it to remove the stench of the woman.
The happy couple went off on their honeymoon. It had worked as Madame Sylvie had calculated. They enjoyed nights of gambling and the gay life. This was the life for the new wife, who loved the frivolity of the steamboat. However, as much as she was enamored of the luxurious steamboat, she was completely absorbed by the carnival of Mardi Gras. Gamblers fought over her. It was a flashy gambler who bought her a satin dress with new boots who won her. Lucien Guilbert spent the first night in New Orleans looking for his bride.
When Lucien returned to Le Petit Cottage quiet, surly, and most important, alone, Madame Guilbert didn’t raise a question of his bride’s whereabouts. In fact, she didn’t mention the woman. It wasn’t necessary to sweeten the triumph. The win was enough.
The image Madame nursed all the while waiting for her son to return to her from France was replaced with cold reality. A reality she dared not deny: her son couldn’t be trusted with her legacy or her life. She blamed the morals of the young country. This idea that only the new is of value and the bones on which society