O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [84]
As a one-man dispenser of justice, Barjac was wise enough to let his people dip one toe in paradise. There were meaningful perquisites, trapping and fishing rights, the opportunity to open new acres, and protection from the whites.
There would be no corporal punishment. However, any breaking of rules meant instant eviction.
Tobacco wore out one’s body and tested one’s soul, what with the backbending labor in preparing the ground, the hand planting, hand nourishing, handpicking, hand curing by the Indian method, and hand packing into thousand-pound hogshead barrels, which then had to be rolled from warehouse onto pier and aboard his schooner Maria-Belle, named for his beloved, pleasantly plump wife.
The bane of the Eastern Shore was that it was one of the Lord’s chosen breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The mosquitoes were fed upon by the masses of fish and fowl and larger insects, but not even a planter’s wife could escape the infestation. Maria-Belle Barjac blessed George with three sons and four daughters, then died young from the summer fever.
George Barjac lamented her death for a proper period, then set out on a lifelong dream, to obtain French culture and plant it in Maryland.
He took his eldest son and daughter, Max and Lilly, to Paris for serious refinement as the start of a plan to “rotate” all seven children.
Paris had a permanent collection of aristocracy from all over the continent. When Barjac entered the scene, he was a bit of a legend himself, and was whisked right into the salons of the top echelon.
Max entered a university, studied economics and banking, and kept his Left Bank life and debts under reasonable control. He respected his father and was ambitious to secure a future in the dynasty.
For Lilly, not yet sixteen, it meant convent training and finishing school. One could liken the Paris aristocracy to a swarm of Eastern Shore mosquitoes trying to get at this pretty, rich American thing.
There was no shortage of needy aristocracy to keep the old dreams alive. Countess Josephine Bayard, known affectionately as Fifi, was a widowed, childless, clever guardian, a little past her prime. Her forte had become to house a few young ladies of proper foreign families, teach them how to negotiate the risky cultural currents, supervise their education, dress them to snuff, school them on flirtation and seduction and the right places to be seen. When Fifi had a freshly schooled American heiress to offer, aristocracy knocked on her doors.
Countess Josephine Bayard took Lilly as her ward. Although frayed, Fifi was yet desirable, not quite forty, and playful and wise.
In addition to having her to “finish” his daughter, George Barjac took fond notice of her and made the ocean crossing to France as often as possible . . .
Then things went awry and George was summoned to France, unexpectedly. Lilly had lost her head over Baron Felix Villiard, a vain bachelor twice her age from a family of vineyard wealth in Burgundy. Count Felix was “it” in Parisian society, a critic of taste and fashion.
Villiard’s fame had come from his work as an Egyptologist, that is, opening the tombs of pharaohs. In this pursuit, he had spent half his life. His heart was not in the wine business, and several seasons with moderate vintages had made his finances shaky.
Lilly was a tender thing with an ambitious father who owned an enormous plantation in the New World, and she was ripe for the plucking.
Countess Josephine liked neither the peacockery of Felix Villiard nor his “holier than thou” tomb sacking and was suspicious of his finances.
Despite her advice, George Barjac could smell his goal. With his daughter Lilly ensconced in Paris, she and Felix could establish him as a lion of society. For the moment George Barjac was blind to the rest.
He was euphoric when his daughter was married at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in a show of raw plenty, a throwback that made the old aristocracy nostalgic. Barjac was a full member, albeit a Yankee member, of the cream of the fantasy players.
After Lilly and Felix wed and drifted off