The days flowed into weeks in a pattern of comfortable routine. Lessons started informally every day at breakfast over tea and croissants. "Say rather, crescent rolls," Barnabas insisted. Then, they moved into the garden to observe the flowers and the songbirds. Later they strolled to the edge of the veranda overlooking the turquoise sea. He encouraged Josette to describe in English the activities of the ships in the harbor. She frequently tripped over saying "sucre" instead of "sugar," but he often let her get away with it. Lunch was served on the patio at a glass-topped wrought iron table. Monsieur duPres's speckled brown hunting dogs lay at Barnabas's feet and looked up at him, panting, waiting for a crumb to drop. He tried to shoo them off with a nudge of his boot, but the dogs did not want to leave him.
In the afternoons, they withdrew to the library and spent hours reciting aloud the plays of William Shakespeare. As hard as he tried to push Hamlet or Macbeth upon her, Josette insisted on reading the comedies. Angelique was drafted into service to read the narration parts or the minor characters in Much Ado About Nothing, a Comedy of Errors, and All's Well that Ends Well. The recitation was tedious and slow, stopping often for Barnabas to explain a phrase or a word. Josette stumbled over the dialogue with astonishing frequency; Angelique could not understand how she could do so badly even while staring right at the page. Barnabas patiently coached a fidgety Josette who stared off at the flickering candle. In the quiet privacy of her mind, Angelique took to heart a phrase from a play's dialogue, That I should love a bright particular star, and think to wed it; he is so above me.
At supper, every day, Monsieur Andre duPres would ask for a report. Barnabas would smile serenely as he lied, "She is doing wonderfully."
Angelique clearing the dishes caught his sideways glance. She liked to think that he was not lying after all, that he meant the compliment for her instead.
#
One evening in July, the two girls were in Josette's room. Angelique sat with a sheet of paper and a quill pen. She worked on the writing assignment that Barnabas had given to both of them. Out of the Holy Bible, she copied the ten commandments using her very best penmanship. With every stroke of ink, she imagined Barnabas reading it later and she wanted him to be proud. No, more than that, she wanted him to compare her cursive to Josette's and judge hers better.
Josette was occupied with sitting at her dressing table, combing her long chestnut hair and admiring her face in the mirror.
Softly murmuring aloud as she copied the typeset words, Angelique puzzled over the meaning. "'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.' Josette, do you think it means we should not make portraits?"
"Not make portraits?" Josette dabbed perfume on her throat. The scent of jasmine wafted through the room. "That's silly! Papa is going to commission an artist in Florence to do a portrait of me. Why would my papa do something that is against the ten commandments?"
Angelique continued, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God...' Josette, why do you think God would be jealous? It makes him sound like a spoiled little girl."
Josette turned around in her chair. "You must be reading it wrong. Are you sure those are the commandments? Where is 'do not murder,' and 'do not lie?'"
"They are here." She pointed with her fingertip. "And it also says, 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house...' What does covet mean?"
"I have no idea." Josette sprang out of her chair. "Let's ask Barnabas!"
"No, the hour is late. He must be in bed by now." In her haste to rise and chase after his mistress, Angelique dropped her quill pen. Ink splattered on the paper, ruining her sheet of perfect penmanship.
Together, they dashed down the corridor—Josette running ahead and Angelique failing to keep up with her. Their gauzy nightgowns billowed around and behind them like fairies. Their bare feet made no sound on the carpeting.
"Josette," she hissed in a whisper, trying one last time to catch her mistress's arm. "Don't disturb him!"
Stubborn and selfish as always, Josette pointed to the golden glow beneath the door. "He is awake. Look, a candle is still burning."
Two knocks, and Barnabas answered from within, "Qui est-ce?"
"It is Josette. I have a question about English."
"Of course," he said, switching to his native language. "Come in."
Josette pushed open the door and boldly swooped inside. Angelique followed her like a white shadow.
Barnabas sat on the window seat. He was fully dressed in his riding boots, gray breeches, green satin waistcoat and blousy shirt. On his lap, he held a wooden box packed with straw and crumpled paper. He was carefully arranging something in the package. Angelique looked closer. It was a wooden flute carved out of dark wood and varnished to a glossy shine.
He explained before either of them could ask, "It's a gift for my younger sister. Her birthday is coming in November and she'll be seven years old."
He spoke exclusively in English, these days, forcing Josette to keep up her lessons at all times of day.
Josette sat down beside him on the window seat. The swathes of her nightgown draped softly over his leather boots. She touched the flute with her fingertips. "It is lovely. I'm sure your sister is lovely."
"She is our family's most precious treasure. A jewel of great price."
"We will be great friends," Josette said cheerily. "We are the same age."
Barnabas looked up sharply from the gift box. "No, Josette, you misunderstood. I said, she is seven... not seventeen."
Josette's large brown eyes wavered back and forth, sparkling in the candlelight as she stared at him. "I don't understand. You are so very much older?"
He looked down. His hands wavered slightly as he placed the fitted lid on top of the wooden box. "There were... many... tragedies in the intermediate years. I would prefer not to speak of it."
Angelique's heart swelled with sympathy to see the pain written in the creases of his brow. If Josette were not in the way, she would have rushed to him and soothed his mood with her tender embrace.
Josette's gaze wandered away to the fireplace. "My mother died in a birth. The baby died too. Is your mother dead?"
"No, my mother is very much alive, thank you." Barnabas rose and crossed the room to the bureau. He put the wooden gift box on top of the drawers next to his wash basin. "You said you had a question?"
"Yes," Josette said. "Angelique and I were copying the ten commandments..."
Her eyes flared wide, glaring across the room at Josette's bold-faced lie. Why can't anyone see her as I see her, a coquette who will say or do anything to make herself look pleasing to the eyes of foolish men?
"...and, what does 'covet' mean?"
Barnabas just laughed. "Josette you are so innocent, you'll never know the meaning of that word even if I explain it to you."
The gilded clock on the mantle chimed once. Barnabas startled and looked to the Roman numerals on the clock's face. "That can't be right! It's one o'clock in the morning? Oh, you girls should be in bed... That is, I meant to say... your beds. Go on, off with you! Before someone sees you coming out of my room at this hour!"
"I don't understand," said Josette, resisting as he pushed her towards the door. "Why should we not be in your room? We are friends."
Angelique curtsied as she cast a sly, sideways glance to him. "I told her not to come."
To her surprise, he frowned at her with stern disapproval. She had never seen him in a dark mood before; he had never raised his voice to any of the servants or slaves. Angelique shrank away from the fierce fury in his eyes, even as her knees weakened and wished to buckle in surrender to his powerful rage.
"You should have tried harder, Angelique. Your mistress depends on you to take care of her, and that also means protecting her from a scandal."
Tears welled up in Angelique's eyes. Her image of him blurred through the watery waves. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just go!" Barnabas pushed them both to the door. "I'll see you both in the morning."
#
Summer ended, as all summers do. The month of August found the pair of girls at the harbor of Fort Royal waving their handkerchiefs in the sunny breeze. Seagulls and pelicans squabbled in mid-air. Together the girls wept openly, watching the sails fill with air on the three-masted ship taking their Barnabas away.
"Why can't he stay, Papa?" Josette wailed to her father, who also had come to the docks to oversee the loading of his cargo.
"This was only a temporary assignment, Josette. Don't be such a baby! He was here to teach you English, which he did. Now he is returning to his life in Maine."
"Maine," Josette repeated, staring off at the ship cruising on the aqua waters. It shrank to a smaller and smaller size on its way to the crisp horizon. "How far away is Maine?"
"Not very far, if they catch the trade winds and avoid the storms," her father answered. "About six weeks."
Josette wrote him letters, in English, and each Friday gave them as a packet wrapped in blue ribbons to Angelique to hand off to the carriage driver to put in the post. Josette dribbled rose water or jasmine perfume on the sealed envelopes. After she had taken possession of them, Angelique also dribbled a bit of her own tears and kisses over the wax seal. Not a word of her own was inscribed in ink but her thoughts and passions seeped from her fingers into the paper. She imagined him receiving the letters, breaking the wax, and opening the folds. He would scan over the words written by Josette but he would feel the touch of Angelique in the paper.
She stood on the docks, each Friday, to watch the ships sail away bound for New England. Her eyes gazed off at the sunlight glittering on the ocean and the sharp line of the horizon where water met the sky. She imagined him in a bright room far away. You will come back to me, Barnabas Collins. You will not be able to resist. The sea was blue blood in the veins of the world that connected her to him.
#