The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,208

calm, gave a soft laugh, and said, “Oh, he is very far from dead.”

Then a horrid sound startled the entire company, for at the top of the stairs, or somewhere very close to the head of it, the old man gave forth another loud terrible laugh.

Charlotte’s face grew hard. Patting her husband’s hand gently, she took her leave with great speed, but not so much speed that she did not look at me as she left the room.

Finally the old doctor, who was at this point almost too besotted to rise from the table, which he started to do once and then thought the better of, declared with a sigh that he must go home. At which moment two other visitors arrived, well-dressed Frenchmen, to whom the handsome older female cousin went immediately, as the three other women rose and made their way out, the crone glaring back in condemnation at the drunken brother, who had fallen into the plate, and muttering at him. The other son meantime had risen to assist the drunken doctor, and these two staggered out on the gallery.

Alone with Antoine and a host of slaves cleaning the table, I asked the man if he would enjoy with me a cigar, as I had bought two very good ones in Port-au-Prince.

“Ah, but you must have my own, from the tobacco I grow here,” he declared. A young slave boy brought the cigars to us and lighted them, and this young man stood there to take the thing from the master’s mouth and replace it as he should.

“You must excuse my father,” said Antoine to me softly, as if he did not like the slave to hear it. “He is most keen of mind. This illness is a very horror.”

“I can well imagine,” I said. Much laughter and conversation came from the parlor across the hall where the females had settled, it seemed, with the visitors, and possibly with the drunken brother and the doctor.

Two black slave boys meantime attempted to pick up the other brother, who suddenly shot to his feet, indignant and belligerent, and struck one of the boys so that he began to cry.

“Don’t be a fool, André,” said Antoine wearily. “Come here, my poor little one.”

The slave obeyed, as the drunken brother rampaged out.

“Take the coin from my pocket,” said the master. The slave, familiar with the ritual, obeyed, his eyes shining as he held up his reward.

At last, Reginald and the lady of the house appeared and this time with the rosy-cheeked infant son, a blessed lambkin, two mulatto maids hovering behind them as though the child were made of porcelain and might any moment be hurled to the floor.

The lambkin laughed and kicked its little limbs with joy at the sight of his father. And what a sad spectacle it was that its father could not even lift his miserable hands.

But he did smile at the lambkin, and the lambkin was placed upon his lap for an instant, and he did bend and kiss its blond head.

The child gave no sign of infirmity, but neither had Antoine at such a tender age, I wager. And surely the child had beauty both from its mother and father, for it had more than any such child I have ever beheld.

At last, the mulatto maids, both very pretty, were allowed to descend upon it, and rescue it from the world at large, and carry it away.

The husband then took his leave of me, bidding me remain at Maye Faire for as long as I should please. I took another drink of the wine, though I was resolved it should be my last, for I was dizzy.

Immediately, I found myself led out onto the darkened gallery by the fair Charlotte, so as to look out over the front garden with its melancholy lanterns, the two of us quite alone as we took our places on a wooden bench.

My head was most surely swimming from the wine, though I could not quite determine how I had managed to drink so much of it, and when I pleaded to have no more, Charlotte would not hear of it, and insisted that I take another glass. “It is my finest, brought from home.”

To be polite I drank it, feeling then a wave of intoxication; and remembering in a blur the image of the drunken brothers and wishing to get clearheaded, I rose and gripped the wooden railing and looked down into the yard. It seemed the night was