Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball Read online

  “If it were short, I could take care of it myself.”

  “Enough!” Madame St. Rochelle went to badger the cook.

  ****

  Having stopped for some illicit Christmas cheer away from their wives, the committee members were tardy. By the time they arrived with their archaic scroll in hand, Rosamond sat by the fireplace with her hands folded in her lap and her feet crossed at the ankles. Her hair, secured with a childish red bow and shining deep gold in the firelight, hung down her back nearly to her waist. At least, Odette had arranged some spit curls across her forehead and beside her cheeks. Roz kept her eyes downcast as the merry and well-lit gentlemen of the committee read their proclamation.

  “Know ye all men: This document attests to the fact that Miss Rosamond St. Rochelle shall serve as Queen of the Carnival so her beauty, modesty, and virtue may be displayed before all on the glorious date of Mardi Gras in the year 1926. The King himself hath so commanded. This decree is presented and witnessed to by the Committee of Fifty.”

  Rosamond, keeping her bargain, nodded and replied, “I am so very honored.”

  Her mother hurried to offer the best of last night’s leftover pastries and cups of eggnog. Her father came around with a bottle and topped off all but Rosamond’s glass with a mighty fine rum from the locked cabinet in his smoking room. Toasts were made, congratulations offered, hands shaken, and the committee went on its way.

  Uncle Gilbert sat next to Rosamond who had barely moved through the whole ordeal and still clutched the scroll she had been given. “It won’t be so bad, Rosie. Even your dear Tante Harriet served as queen of one ball, and it didn’t cramp her style a bit.”

  “I miss her so much. We had such a marvelous time in Europe. She knew all the best cafés and most interesting places to go. When she began feeling ill on the cruise home, I didn’t stay by her bedside. She kept saying, ‘Go have fun, Roz. Dance. Meet young men,’ and I did. I think I am bound to be a disappointment to my family all my life.”

  “Not today, surely, and never to your Aunt Harriet. You couldn’t know she had a fast moving leukemia of the blood. No matter how hard I tried, she died by October. It’s good to know someone else misses her as much as I do.”

  “The holidays won’t be the same without her. Did Dr. Landry go home to celebrate?”

  “No, he’s covering any calls that might come in today. He said some of his family is involved with grinding the sugar cane, and they’ll have a party and exchange gifts on Twelfth Night when the harvest is over.”

  “Oh, I hoped—”

  The door chimes rang again. Odette announced that Mr. Delamare and Mr. Boylan had come to call. Rosamond heard her mother greet them in a rather pleased voice with, “Back so soon, gentlemen?”

  “Here’s some young company for you. Artemus informed us all last night that he wanted to go on the stage, but his father forbade him. I suspect that’s why he is always entertaining. Enjoy.” Rosamond’s uncle squeezed her hand and went off to cloud his lungs with cigars and his mind with bootleg liquor in the smoking room.

  The new arrivals took seats on either side of Roz. “So you got your scroll, Rosamond. Good for you, but where is the other princess of the family? There she is, sitting in the corner. Dear child, I’ve brought sheet music. Let’s go cut a rug.”

  “May I, Mama?” Roxie asked, her cheeks already red with expectation.

  “I suppose.” Her wish was granted.

  “Great curls, kiddo.” Artie ruffled her long brown hair.

  “Usually it’s straight as a board and not very pretty, but if I sleep in braids, it turns out this way.”

  “Another feminine mystery revealed. You know Boylan there sleeps in a hair net to keep his waves in place.”

  “No fooling?”

  “Why don’t you go play a rag or something, Artie, while I talk to Rosie?” Burke suggested none too subtly. After all, Artie was supposed to keep the kid sister occupied while he made his moves. His friend took the hint and removed himself from the sitting room to the parlor.

  “These are for you, Rosie, winter roses.” Burke offered a cluster of blood red camellias. “I got them off a little Negro boy sitting outside the French Market on our way over here. Their color reminded me of your lips.”

  “Why, Buster, how gallant.” Of course, two similar bushes full of the things bloomed by the dependency where the wash was done in the backyard, and these flowers would be dead by tomorrow, but how could a Yankee know, Roz thought.

  Madame St. Rochelle cleared her throat. “Eggnog, Mr. Boylan?”

  “Please, call me Buster. I prefer it to Burke.”

  “Buster—like the shoes they sell at Holmes?”

  “No, I fought on the boxing team at Princeton and did quite well. Buster, like this.” Burke made a fist and slammed it into his open palm. “I took some medals in my time there.”

  Rosamond looked at Burke with new interest, and Boylan recognized it. He was much thicker through the chest and shoulders than that slim, sloe-eyed Pierre Landry. Women liked muscle on men who knew how to use it.

  Laurence St. Rochelle entered, still smoking his cigar. His wife waved a hand before her nose, but he ignored the hint. This was his house. He’d smoke where he wanted. “Good to hear some young men still take an interest in fisticuffs and haven’t all turned into degenerates.”

  “I can assure you that if Rosamond is with me, sir, she will be perfectly safe even in the French Quarter.”

  “They should tear the place down and put up some decent buildings. The Quarter is nothing but a den of vice,” Laurence St. Rochelle intoned.

  “It is part of our French heritage, Laurence.” Mrs. St. Rochelle turned to Boylan, ready to enlist another in her cause. “My husband is a banker. His only thought is how much revenue new skyscraper buildings will bring. I, on the other hand, am working on the committee to restore the Vieux Carre. When Rosamond takes her place in society, I am sure she will work right beside me.”

  “Oh, I love the French Quarter just as it is, Mrs. St. Rochelle, and go there often,” Burke agreed.

  The sound of the Charleston being banged out on the piano drowned the conversation and drew the family toward the parlor. Roxie twirled the long rope of knotted pearls she had begged her mother to let her wear on Christmas day and did the steps Artie had just taught her.

  “Oh, my!” said Madame St. Rochelle.

  “Degenerate,” mumbled her husband under his breath as he headed toward the piano. “Young man, I don’t suppose you’ve ever won any boxing medals.”

  “No, sir, but I won a dance marathon once. That takes stamina, you know.” Artie stopped playing when he saw the look on old man St. Rochelle’s face.

  “Thank you for visiting,” Madame St. Rochelle said.

  ****

  “And thank you, Artie, for getting us tossed out of the St. Rochelle mansion just when I was making time with Rosie and her parents,” Boylan griped as they returned to his rooms. He took a swig from his hip flask and ignored Artie’s outstretched hand.

  “I have to go home for Christmas dinner now, so I’m being punished enough, don’t you think?” Artie beckoned for the flask. “Besides, I kept the baby sister occupied. They can be real pests, you know.”

  “The St. Rochelles won’t be adding me to their guest list for the Mardi Gras ball now, all because of you.”

  “Not a problem, Brother Buster. I’ll get Pops to put you on our list. The theme this year is Masterpieces of Art, and if he expects me to dress in some ridiculous costume for the tableaux, he can do me a favor, too. Last year, the theme was Atlantis, and I spent the whole evening waddling around in a fish costume.” Artie fluffed his raccoon coat and checked the center part in his hair in Boylan’s mirror to make sure the two dark wings still swooped in place above his ears.

  “I thought the plans were all hush-hush.”

  “They are. The Krewe of Hercules is so exclusive they don’t parade, and the balls are a bore—some elaborate tableaux, a
parade by the court, and then call out dances for the debs. Everyone else watches. You won’t get a dance with Rosamond. The middle-aged king will whisk her off to a late dinner. We’d have more fun dancing at the Holland House.”

  “But you can get me in?” Buster passed the flask at last.

  “Sure. I can get you Christmas dinner, too. At least, the food will be better than anything they’re serving in Philly. You don’t miss your family?”

  “They don’t miss me, but that is about to change. When I marry Rosamond St. Rochelle, a woman with a background like my dear mother, all will be forgiven. She will be my ticket back into the loving arms of the Boylan clan. Rosamond and my law degree will pay any debts I owe the family.”

  “I say, shouldn’t you feel something for the girl before you marry her?”

  “I do feel something—right down here between my legs—for my own pure, virgin debutante. Except for the southern manners, Rosamond is exactly like the debs back in the City of Brotherly Love. They all want to marry wealth and live in style. Who doesn’t matter very much. We’ll have the required child or two, then live out our lives separately in perfect civility. What’s for Christmas dinner?”

  “Goose, I think, with oyster dressing.”

  “How appropriate. You have any sisters, Artie?” Boylan settled a dark fedora carefully over the waves in his blond hair and buttoned his topcoat.

  “No, and I wouldn’t introduce you if I did.”

  Chapter Three

  New Year’s Eve at the Southern Yacht Club should have been the berries, but by eleven-thirty, Rosamond St. Rochelle prayed for some excitement. She pushed herself up from the cream-colored wicker chair in the ladies’ lounge where she had been resting her feet and checked her makeup in a mirror. Mama had made her wear virginal white again, but the addition of a crystal brow band and white plume in her hair did add some style.

  The band struck up another waltz, and Roz supposed she should return to her parents’ table and make herself available. She didn’t lack for partners, but she suspected the musicians had been instructed to play only waltzes, foxtrots and two-steps, just as she had been instructed not to let any of the young men standing in line for a dance hold her too close. There would be no Charleston, Shimmy, or Black Bottom done tonight when all the dues-paying old fogeys attended.

  Roz had managed to get the waiter to bring her a Pink Lady so sweet it covered the taste of the gin, but her mother immediately confiscated that and ordered another soft drink for her daughter. She might be able to cadge a cigarette from one of her partners, but then she would have to find a dark corner somewhere to smoke it. Well worth a try. Willard Morrison always had good smokes. Roz chose him for the next foxtrot.

  Cigarette palmed, Rosamond headed for the lobby and the shrubbery beyond. By the light of her borrowed match, she noticed two late arrivals, her uncle and the dreamy Dr. Landry wearing obviously borrowed evening clothes. Holding her cigarette in a sophisticated pose between two fingers, she crept from the bushes and managed to intercept them on the path.

  “Where have you been? You’re so late! I just stepped out for a smoke.” Roz took a drag and blew the smoke out into the night air.

  “We had a complicated delivery. It was necessary to do a Cesarean section. Pierre assisted. Since when do you smoke, Rosamond?”

  “Oh, I’ve been smoking forever,” she answered her uncle airily. He frowned. “All right, since my trip to Europe, but I haven’t had much practice with Mama watching everything I do.”

  “You know, those things will kill you,” Pierre Landry told her. “Have you ever seen a smoker’s lung? Black as sin, they are.”

  “Really? You don’t smoke then?” Hastily, she dropped the cigarette and ground out the spark of red under her Cuban heel. Roz cocked her head and looked closely at Pierre in the flood of light pouring from the club windows. “Are you growing a mustache, Dr. Landry? That’s very good progress for only one week.”

  The dark hair on his upper lip looked silky, unlike most men’s rough bristles. It defined his upper lip, drew attention to an already sensual mouth, and took it away from his somewhat hawkish nose. He smiled, and the darkness of the mustache made his teeth seem even whiter and slightly feral.

  “I thought I would get more respect from my patients if I looked older.”

  “Nonsense,” said Dr. St. Rochelle. “You get far too much attention from your patients already, though tonight you put it to good use convincing Mrs.O’Leary that neither she nor the baby had to die. Throwing in that bit about the scar not being repulsive to her husband added a nice touch. Who would have thought a woman in such travail would still be vain?”

  “Not vain, just worried that she would lose her husband’s love,” answered Pierre.

  “I can see why female patients adore you, but we’re missing the party. It’s nearly midnight, and I need a dance partner.” Rosamond drew the new arrivals inside, but veered off to the dance floor with Pierre before her mother could see them.

  He led her smoothly into a waltz. Peeking over his shoulder, Roz watched her parents greet Uncle Gilbert and saw her mother searching the crowd. She ducked down against Pierre’s chest, dancing close, really close. A heavy hand jerked them to a stop on their circuit around the room.

  “I’m cutting in, Landry,” Burke Boylan declared, swaying a little on his boxer’s feet.

  “I’m sure Roz will save the next dance for you, Boylan.”

  “When did you get here, Buster?”

  “Just now. I’ve been a few other places more fun than here, but I wanted to give my Rosie a kiss at midnight.”

  “I’m not your Rosie, Buster. Let go of Dr. Landry’s arm.”

  “It’s no matter, Roz. Have a dance with Boylan. I need fresh air.” Pierre relinquished his partner to Burke and walked toward the balcony overlooking the lake.

  Rosamond stumbled around the floor with Burke until he confessed the need to take a quick piss, pardon his language, and staggered off. Midnight approached. Any minute now, the band would play Auld Lang Syne, and cool glasses of champagne served because no policeman might dare raid the Southern Yacht Club on New Year’s Eve. Roz slipped two drinks from a tray and went after Pierre where he stood alone among nuzzling couples on the balcony.

  In the semi-darkness, he accepted the wine. “Thank you for thinking of me, Roz.”

  “I think of you all the time. I like the new mustache.” She drew a finger across his upper lip, first one side, then the other. “It’s as soft as it looks.”

  The crowd inside counted down to midnight. The band struck up the traditional tune, and noisemakers, confetti, and silly hats filled the air as if it were Carnival already. Out in the night, Roz rose on her toes and kissed the lips of Pierre Landry. She thought he shivered.

  “Cold?” she asked.

  “Hot.” He bent over her, returning the kiss with warmth and gentleness and a subtlety that made her want more. Roz leaned in, and he nibbled the edge of her lips, persuading them to open for his tongue.

  This time, the heavy hand descended on Rosamond’s shoulder. “You’re kissing my girl, Landry,” Boylan said.

  “I believe it’s an old custom on New Year’s Eve, Boylan, even in Philadelphia.”

  “Get your stinkin’ Cajun hands off of her.”

  Burke tore Rosamond away and, bending her over his arm, smashed a bourbon-flavored kiss on her lips. Roz struggled. Pierre jerked the bigger man off her. Boylan looked for his target and drew back for a roundhouse punch that would have broken the jaw of the slighter man if he had still been standing there to receive it. Pierre Landry stepped aside. The drunken momentum carried Buster over the railing. Other couples on the balcony gasped. Someone shouted, “Call a doctor!”

  Pierre Landry threw back his head and laughed. “He fell into the bushes. Drunks always find a soft landing.”

  One of the fine young sheiks with his arm around his sheba leaned over the railing. “Look, he’s up and ready to fight. Yowzah! He punched Arti
e Delamare and knocked down the flapper he was necking with in the shrubbery, too. Nice work, Boylan!”

  Roz tugged his sleeve. “Please leave, Pierre. Somehow, they’ll blame you because you’re not one of us. Go before Mama sees.”

  “If that’s what you want, Roz.” He seemed disappointed in her, but he straightened his borrowed jacket and moved out into the crowded ballroom.

  Roz counted to ten, then slipped back inside. Immediately, her mother beckoned from across the dance floor. “Come Rosamond, we must leave immediately. There’s been a brawl. Some rowdy tossed Burke Boylan off the balcony. Your uncle has gone to attend to him, but we mustn’t be associated with this incident. Quickly now, claim your wrap. Papa has called for the car.”

  Fortunately, Clement drove this evening. Mama had insisted. New Year’s Eve was the one night her conservative husband was likely to overindulge. Laurence St. Rochelle settled into the backseat without an argument. Roz climbed in after him.

  Her mother’s broad bottom barely touched the leather when the lecture began. “Rosamond, do not try to deny that you were involved in that fracas on the balcony. I saw you sneak out after Dr. Landry, liquor in-hand. It’s no wonder Burke tried to defend your honor.”

  “Buster was drunk, Mama, and he did not get thrown off the balcony. He fell. He got upset when I told him I wasn’t his girl. It’s absurd. We met only a week ago.”

  “Many a girl has fallen in love in less time. I suppose a young man could become smitten in a week. You might give Burke some encouragement. I did know his mother rather well, and his father’s law firm is nationally known, but you must not incite any more brawls.”

  “This was just a scrape between young bucks, Emmaline. Most natural thing in the world. If our boys had lived, they would have had some scrapes. Yes, they would, but we lost them.” A tear from his bleary blue eyes trickled down Laurence St. Rochelle’s face.

  “Laurence, you promised. No more of this. You still have two lovely daughters who will marry well and bring fine sons-in-law into the business. Someday, you will have grandsons. We must look ahead, not behind. By this time next year, our Rosie could be married and expecting.”