In mid-September two months later—what seemed like a lifetime—Angelique set sail from Martinique in the company of the Countess duPres bound for New York. She left behind the warm tropical breezes and, for the first time in her life, felt the chill of ocean winds. The sea was more vast and empty than she had imagined. The spirits in these waters did not know her name. She clutched at the rail to gaze at the rippling darkness. Porpoises frolicked in the waves.
Men aboard the ship avoided the ladies, eying them suspiciously from afar and muttering under their breath, "Bad luck to have women aboard."
Countess duPres stayed in her cabin most of the time, complaining about the captain's appalling lack of hospitality. "Let's hope this is not representative of how Americans make their ladies feel welcome, or Josette can look forward to a very miserable marriage."
A miserable marriage indeed, Angelique thought.
They pulled into port at Florida, for a day, to refill their water barrels. A few of the sailors were selected by the captain to go ashore. The rest stayed on board gazing out from the railing at the sandy beach and palm trees.
Angelique and the countess ate lunch together in the cabin, almost like friends instead of mistress and servant. The tiny port window was open to the breeze. They could hear the seagulls cawing and waves lapping loudly at the wharf.
"I hope Andre doesn't delay the wedding by taking Josette to Europe first," the countess remarked. "But he's so insistent on getting her portrait painted in Florence! I wonder if it's more for his vanity than hers. A father wants to preserve the image of his daughter as an innocent maiden, as she is on the verge of changing into a wife and mother."
Angelique's stomach gurgled, and a sour taste rose up the back of her throat. She felt light-headed and dizzy. Without warning, she lurched aside and vomited into her apron.
"Are you feeling all right?" the countess asked.
"Yes." She coughed and wiped her face. "I suppose I'm feeling seasick."
"That's odd."
"What is?"
"We've been out to sea for several weeks, and you haven't been seasick until now. Do you have a fever? I hope not, or we'll all be quarantined." The countess reached out a hand and pressed her palm to Angelique's forehead.
"I... I just need some air."
Angelique rushed out of the cabin. She scrambled up the open plank steps. Ocean winds that stank of salt and fish stirred her hair. The rocking of deck twisted her stomach again. It was all she could do to reach the railing in time. She lurched over and dry heaved, coughing overboard.
What's wrong with me? she wondered. The countess had observed correctly that she was not seasick before, even on the days when the winds were strong and the ship's deck had tilted wildly from side to side for hours. The other sailors had remarked upon it when they thought she was out of earshot and could not hear them gossiping. Not natural, they had said, for a woman to feel so at ease with sea legs when she's never left the shore.
Angelique slowly stroked her fragile gut. The belly muscles ached from the effort of retching. Her thoughts considered the possibilities, and one dreaded conclusion came to mind. If she was not seasick, and she was not feverish, then perhaps she carried Barnabas's child.
No! It is not the right time. Out of wedlock, he might react the way that Andre duPres did and reject her for daring to hatch his bastard. He would surely turn her away as a soiled and damaged woman. He would still marry Josette—her half sister—and sire children who would be blood cousins to her bastard. Porpoises leaped in the waves. They chattered in shrill cackles, like trickster spirits laughing at her predicament. On the other hand, he might feel obligated to make restitution for his mistake. Perhaps he would break off the engagement with Josette to marry me instead, to give our child a proper last name, and a baptism, and an inheritance.
Angelique clutched the railing and slowly swayed back and forth with the gentle lolling of the ship's deck. What should I do? I must be sure, first, if there is a child or not. Then I can make a decision.
Two choices lay before her: either carry the child to birth and manage the consequences somehow, or sends its little spirit away to return another day in another mother's womb where it would surely have a better life. She knew well the mixture of herbs to use at a poisonous dose—the dried leaves that Countess duPres kept for headaches and hot flashes—augmented with a spell. But it had to be done very soon so that no one would suspect. It would have to appear to be a little bout of women's vapors, and she would lay in bed with nausea for a couple of days. She would take care to clean up the mess herself—of course, she had no maid to tend to her needs, so no one would ever know.
First, she had to be sure.
Angelique waited until the ship had departed the harbor and was once again well out to sea. In the cover of darkness, as the countess slept swinging in her rope hammock, Angelique tip-toed out of the cabin. She lifted the hatches on the deck. Like a ghost in a gray dress, she slipped quietly down, and down, and down to the very bottom belly of the ship where the cargo was stored.
Rats scurried about in the shadows between the barrels and crates. Angelique sat down on the deck, her legs crossed under her skirt. She reached out her hand and beckoned to the little animal. "Come here, friend. I need you."
The rat's beady black eyes regarded her warily.
Angelique smiled sweetly. "Come, don't be afraid. Come to me."
Cautiously, the rat crept onto her skirt. She held still and waited. The rat paused, then slowly stepped onto the palm of her hand. The animal had soft fur, and its tiny heartbeat fluttered like a moth.
Angelique grabbed it tightly around the belly. The rat struggled. Its worm like tail curled around her wrist. She snapped its neck and waited for the death throes to stop. The animal quickly turned cold and started to stiffen almost immediately.
She placed it on the deck and used her fruit paring knife to carefully slice open its tender white belly. "As you are me, and I am you," she chanted. "Show me... show me true."
The rat had a small blue robin's egg in its belly. Angelique gingerly pried it out. Her hopes rose with a surge of quickened blood, though she was not exactly sure of what she hoped for.
One quick slam. She smashed the robin's egg to the deck. It shattered beneath her palm.
Empty. The eggshell was empty and dry.
Angelique closed her eyes with a sigh. She leaned back against a barrel of molasses and let the warm tears leak out of her. So for all those nights of passionate lovemaking, he did not give me a child after all.
"It's for the best," she whispered to herself, to the shadows, and to the dead rat in a puddle of its own blood. "Now I'm not forced to make a choice. We'll continue the journey as planned, to New York, to Boston, and to that place called Collinwood."
I'll reach him first, before Josette does. I'll remind him of the love we shared and show him what a mistake he is making. I must be gentle with him. He is afraid of loving me, and that is why he has settled for the safety of Josette.
"Someday he will be mine." She opened her eyes and got to her feet. "He will marry me, not her, and we will conceive a child properly in the marriage bed."
#
New York City filled the shoreline for several miles in either direction. Angelique stood at the railing to watch the scenery roll by. The ship glided up the broad, calm waters of the Hudson River and settled into port. Two- and three-story buildings were brick boxes of gabled windows. Steep roofs had black shingles. Each chimney had a little puff of smoke. Rain drizzled constantly. She raised the hood of her full-length cloak that the countess had purchased for her in the port of Baltimore. "You're going to need it," the countess had told her a week ago, and now Angelique believed her. Cold rain pelted the river's satiny sheen. Gray mists dulled the color of the buildings' bricks from red to brown. She pulled the cloak's flowing panels together, under her chin, but still felt the chill of the land.
Natalie duPres made a grand figure of departure, saying her thanks to the captain for a voyage well done. The Navy man in blue-and-white puffed on his pipe to watch her go. The countess strutted down the gangplank knowing that every sailor's eye admired her grandeur. She had dressed for the occasion of her arrival in a tailored coat beneath her fur-trimmed cloak, a muff to conceal her gloved hands, and a broad-brimmed cavalier hat.
Several sailors dragged her trunks, satchels, and crates full of wardrobe and the so-called necessities of a lady. Angelique followed as a pale shadow. Her first steps onto the solid boards of the pier caused her to wobble on her feet, strangely off-balance after two months of sea travel.
"What a dreary place!" the countess announced loudly. She strolled underneath the awning of the Customs House with an air of command, as if she were the harbor master.
The inspecting officer stepped past her on his way to survey her collection of trunks. He held a leather-bound logbook in his arms. A black ribbon marked the page. "Well, it is mid-November after all. What have you in these trunks?"
"My personal possessions," she replied with a haughty tilt of her chin.
"Show me." The officer seemed to be a pleasant sort of fellow, half bald with a fuzz of ginger curls at the nape of his neck. Soft round jowls hung over his stiff collar. Yet his tone was firm and uncompromising.
"Do you not take the word of a lady?"
"No, Ma'am, I do not. My job—and the job of every man on my staff—is to catalog what goods are being brought into the harbor."
"I can tell you what's in them," the countess said. "My clothes, a few of my belongings, and various things that will be needed at my niece's wedding. We're on our way to Maine, where my niece Josette duPres is going to marry Mister Barnabas Collins, the son of Joshua Collins..."
"I know the Collins family." The inspector gestured to the sailors who had stacked it all up. "Open 'em up."
"This is unheard of!" the countess cried out.
The sailors bent over, unlatched the trunks and raised the lids. One by one, as Natalie duPres continued to fume and rant, the inspector poked through the wardrobe items with the tip of his walking cane. He disturbed the neatly folded, frilly underclothes. He rustled the paper that wrapped each item of porcelain—the tea cups and saucers, the sugar bowl, the exquisite pot with the stenciled yellow roses. He even had the audacity to open the varnished mahogany box containing a full set of sterling silver spoons, forks, and knives.
"By the way, has either of you been sick recently?"
"No," both Natalie and Angelique replied in unison.
Finally, when the countess's cheeks were scarlet with outrage, he marked off his ledger and matter of factly said, "You're clear."
"I never!"
"Many apologies for the inconvenience, Madame," he said in a monotone. "I'm just doing my job."
He turned in the direction of the ship, on his way to continue inspection of the large cargo crates that were being lugged up from the hold. He caught a glimpse of Angelique, and he paused to meet her stare. Something of a sympathy flickered from his eyes as if to say, I've only had to endure this woman for ten minutes, but you poor thing. You work for her.
#
A pair of middle-aged slaves met them at the curbside of the harbor building. Two men with very dark complexions, their skin as black as their tailcoats, carried themselves with the poise of refined gentlemen. They reminded her of Jean-Baptiste after the master sold away his wife Claire, their eyes were dull with the suppressed fury and despair of their situation. Angelique watched them loading the countess's luggage into the back of an elegant landau coach, and admired their grace and strength. They should be lords in their own domain, she thought. What an upside-down world it is, that the ones with true power are not the ones in charge.
The coach carried them through the broad streets of New York City, avenues of well-packed sand pitched with pebbles that made for a smooth ride. Not that the countess was pleased with the comfort of the copper springs under the leather cushions. She fidgeted and fussed with the arrangement of her thick skirts. "Did he have to send such a small coach? I'm so cramped, in here, with you... We're packed into crates and rolled along with the rest of the luggage."
Angelique gazed out of the open, curtained window. Rain spritzed her cheeks. She watched the buildings pass by, the broad panes of glass and the shutters painted dark blue. The people strolling the roadside wore as many layers as she did herself, cloaks over full length skirts, capes over tailcoats, and everyone sported a hat. So many white-skinned people all in one place! Like termites in a fallen log. She thought of how easy it would be to abandon the countess, to slip anonymously into that crowd, and be lost forever. But then she thought of her beloved Barnabas and for his sake alone, she stayed.
The coach carried them to the exclusive neighborhoods on the Isle of Manhattan, to Pearl Street that paralleled the East River, to the home of Mister Curtis Braithwaite. He was a wealthy banker with considerable investments at various ports around the world, but a man who—according to Natalie duPres—had never set foot on a ship. "We shall have to remember to always speak English," the countess said. "Even when we are alone together. Mister Braithwaite does not know a word of French and he insists upon it."
"But madame, is not his wife your dearest childhood friend? Hasn't he learned any French from her?"
Natalie duPres laughed off Angelique's comment with a wave of her satin-gloved hand. "Oh, you naïve girl, don't you know? A wife's duty is to obey her husband in all things. If Mister Braithwaite does not wish anything but English spoken in his house, then for as long as we are under his roof, there is no such thing as the French language. My friend Suzanne is now Susan."
Upon their arrival at the three-story brick mansion, the countess waited for a butler—a light-skinned mulatto in a gentleman's suit. Flanked by an entourage of teenaged slaves in beige waistcoats, the butler gracefully descended the steep stairs. "Welcome to New York, countess." He opened the door of her carriage and bowed.
Natalie duPres emerged in all her splendor: a tailored suit coat that flared out over her broad layers of gathered taffeta over satin petticoats. A peek of lace ruffles showed beneath the hemline—just for a momentary glimpse—as she handled her skirts to ascend the home's front steps.
"Is Mister Braithwaite aware of my arrival?"
"Yes, countess, he'll be along presently." The butler hurried ahead of her to open the paneled mahogany door.
The countess removed her large feathered hat and tossed it aside without a care of who would catch it. Servants bowed in the hallway to her greet her. Angelique followed, unnoticed, in her shadow.
Natalie duPres led a grand procession along a broad hallway of black hardwood floors and walls plastered white. They passed life-sized oil portraits in gilded frames. Tapestry panels of faded threads hung on brass rods. Standing guard by the inner connecting door was an empty suit of armor like something worn by Sir Lancelot in Le Morte d'Arthur. The highly polished steel had a sheen as bright as sterling silver. One metallic glove supported a six-foot long sword, the hilt molded in an elaborate cluster of vines and lilies. Angelique looked into the helmet's grill in search of traces of a Knight of the Round Table. She saw nothing of a spirit haunting the metallic shell; the suit had never been worn into a real battle.
The only hint of a shadowy presence lingered deeper in the house, upstairs, and quietly far away. Angelique sensed a mood of death—a recent death—that pervaded the house like the stench of burned fish.
In the parlor, they were served by a white English maid wearing a long black dress and a bleached apron. She offered the countess a pot of tea and a plate of shortbread biscuits. "Do you take sugar and cream, my lady?"
"Of course." The countess took up her throne on an upholstered loveseat by the blazing fire. She arranged her legs in such a way that spread the lace ruffle of her petticoat's hem into a perfect crescent.
Angelique remained on her feet, near the arch of the doorway. In the hallway, the servants one after the other carried the various trunks and valises and satchels. Perhaps she should have excused herself to go supervise the unloading of her mistress's luggage, but she was not so eager to go explore an unfamiliar house where she did not know the mood of the spirits of those who had died here before. Something unnamed whispered in the shadows, and she was not sure of being welcome.
Their host entered with an arm extended and held it forth all the way. He strolled to the countess, received her hand, bent over and lightly kissed her fingertips. "Natalie, how delightful to see you."
"Curtis, always a pleasure."
He was the oldest man that Angelique had ever seen. His white cotton hair was not powdered but his natural color. His pale cheeks sagged over his stiff collar. A paunch bulged his cream silk waistcoat forward. The long tailcoat of indigo velvet was the only color on his whole person. Everything else was pale: a bleached cravat, lace cuffs, ivory breeches, white stockings, and gray flat shoes.
"I trust your journey was pleasant?" He carried himself slowly with a kind of fragile caution.
"As much as one can expect of a sea voyage." Natalie looked expectantly to the connecting doorway in time to see the last of the servants trot by with armloads of hat boxes. "Where is Susan?"
"Oh." Mister Braithwaite turned aside sharply. He avoided the countess, but in coming around, he came full face to Angelique. Only she saw the melancholy grief that twisted his papery face. "Of course, you couldn't know... There was no way to let you know..."
"What is it?" Natalie asked.
"She..." Mister Braithwaite rested a hand across his belly as he drew in a breath. He wore a sapphire signet ring that glimmered darkly against his pale hand. "She passed away recently."
The countess gasped. The tea cup she held rattled on its saucer. "What a tragedy! I'm so sorry to hear this."
"Thank you."
"May I ask what happened?"
He sank down to an upholstered chair and, without looking to the countess, stared gloomily into the blazing fire. "There was recently an epidemic of yellow fever in the city."
"Yellow fever!" the countess exclaimed.
"It's the price we pay for allowing ships to come into our port from all over the world. The harbor master missed the signs and failed to quarantine the vessel. Over the last few months, several hundreds of people sickened and I had hoped to be spared. The city council made no public announcement. They tried to avoid widespread panic. The doctors at first said it was limited to degenerates and the poor living in squalor, but they were wrong. By the middle of October, the coffins had stacked up in the graveyards because the diggers couldn't keep up."
"My God," said the countess with her gloved hand resting at her throat.
"It was the last week of the month," he said quietly, still staring into the fire. "On Tuesday, she was her usual cheery self. By Friday, she was gone."
Angelique looked to the empty hallway. Now she sensed the drift of eyes, of spirits lost and bewildered, not quite formed in the shadows. She knew the echoes and footprints of those who had gone before. She recalled, now, seeing black mourning bands tied onto the sleeves of a few servants. The mistress of the house was not the only one who had died.
"It's all over now," Braithwaite assured her, at last looking away from the fire to his guest's panic stare. "The mosquitoes all perished with the first bite of frost. There haven't been any new reports of fever for several weeks."
The countess put down her cup and saucer. She plucked out a lace handkerchief and fanned her chin with it. "Forgive me, Curtis, but I'm feeling quite exhausted from the journey. Would someone show me the way to my room?"
"Of course."
Angelique followed the countess up the stairs. The carpeting had a well-worn tread down the center. They were shown by the English maid into a clean room, furnished all in blue and lavender, well lit by a west-facing window. "If you need anything at all, Ma'am, just let me know," said the maid.
Natalie duPres held her silence until the bedroom door was securely closed. Then she whirled about to descend close to Angelique's ear. "We're supposed to wait for Josette's ship to arrive from Europe, but we can't possible stay here in a plague house! We'll stay the night. By morning I'll think of some excuse to proceed with all haste to Maine."
Angelique bit down to restrain her thrill. She would not have to wait so long to see her Barnabas again. She would rush to his arms ahead of Josette.
"Don't say a word about any of this, Angelique, when we arrive at Collinwood! We'll pretend it's some misunderstanding, a mix-up, a mistake that we'll be arriving before the bride. Let's hope that the Collins family is not so unfortunate as this one."