Page 131 of Frankly, My Dear

She fled, starting for the center stairway leading to her third-floor bedchamber. At the bottom of the steps, James stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

She turned.

“Trust me, chérie. Please, just trust me,” he said bleakly.

Selene nodded, unable to speak over the lump in her throat, and walked stiffly up the stairs. She soon discovered the first of the changes to come. Iris informed her that Giselle had ordered all of her clothing and personal belongings moved to one of the cramped fourth-floor bedchambers normally reserved for servants.

“Now all the evil deeds gonna start again,” Iris predicted. “The beatings, the voodoo…” She looked at Selene expectantly. “What you gonna do about it?”

“Me?” Selene squeaked out.

“You’re the only one what can stop her.”

Oh, yeah. Me and a platoon of Marines.

Throughout the evening, sitting alone in her tiny room, Selene repeated James’s words over and over as she wept silent tears of pain. Yes, she would try to trust in James, but she didn’t see any way he could find a solution to this horrible predicament.

The man she loved was married.

And he did not come to her that night.

Selene awakened early the next morning, before seven, but already a heavy miasma of gloom hung over the house. The kitchen, which normally bustled with chattering voices at this hour, resounded with quick, efficient movements carried out in quiet fear.

“What you gonna do ’bout that one?” Blossom asked, pointing upward to what Selene presumed was Giselle’s bedchamber. James’s bedchamber, she realized with hopelessness. Blossom, Iris, Hyacinth, and Verbena all stared at her, as if she had magic answers. Poor Etienne sat at the table, staring into his bowl of porridge with unaccustomed dolefulness.

“Me? What can I do?” Selene felt the weight of their dependency, when all she wanted was just to run away and hide. James must feel this same way at times, overburdened with responsibility. But these were not her people. Not now. “Where is James?”

“He went off somewheres,” Blossom informed her, “prob’ly to hunt down that Cajun family the mistress claims she stayed with. Hah! More likely she bin sleepin’ in Victor’s bed all this time.”

Selene was amazed at Blossom’s perceptiveness. She’d already come to the same conclusion herself. She even wondered if Giselle was the “ghost.” She was about to voice that possibility to Blossom when she saw Etienne listening to their every word. She darted a look of warning at Blossom and the others.

“Come on, E.T., let’s start our lessons early today. Perhaps we can experiment with some of those paints we bought yesterday in St. Martinsville.”

He stood and shuffled to his feet. “Bet she won’t let me have the name E.T. anymore. Bet she won’t let me study bye-olive-gee outdoors. Bet she won’t let me do anything fun.”

Selene watched despondently as the boy made for the corridor leading to the back stairs. She would have to be careful. After all, Giselle was Etienne’s mother.

And Selene’s heart wept at the thought.

The jingling of a bell jolted them all to attention.

“What is that?” Selene exclaimed.

“Now it begins,” Iris stated grimly. “It’s the mistress ringin’ the bell for a servant.”

“I didn’t even know there was a bell.”

“You’re gonna be hearin’ it a lot,” Blossom predicted.

“I ain’t goin’,” Verbena said, rolling her eyes. “Not me. Las’ time she hit me with a flat iron for not pressin’ her crinoline jist right.”

“An’ before she went away, she threatened to put a voodoo curse on me when I wouldn’t get her one of them powders for makin’ the monthly flow come,” Hyacinth added. “As if I know where to find one anyways!”

“An abortifacient?” Selene asked, and realized when everyone stared at her dumbly that they wouldn’t understand the word. “Never mind.”

“I’ll go,” Iris said with a sigh of resignation, “but if she tries to hit me with that little whip of hers, I swear I’m gonna whack her back this time.” The fearful look in her eyes belied her brave words.

Blossom was right when she’d said they would be hearing the bell a lot. It seemed as if every fifteen minutes that morning the bell resounded throughout the house reminding one and all that the real mistress had come home.