Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [55]
“Yes, of course,” Elise said. Isabelle blew her a final kiss and turned to descend the stairs. Elise kept looking at Zabeth as if she might say something more, but instead she withdrew, closing the parlor door behind her, taking care that it shut completely.
Zabeth sat down and resumed her sewing. The image of Madame Isabelle’s trim straight back receding into the stairwell persisted in her head. She had learned little from overhearing their conversation she had not already known. Bouquart had brought to her the rumor of what had passed between Captain Flaville and the white lady, and the result of it. That was before Bouquart had to go beneath the waters because he’d rebelled against Papa Toussaint. Afterward other voices had brought Zabeth the story of how Madame Isabelle had fainted dead away, here in the Place d’Armes of Le Cap, when she saw Flaville shot to death by cannonloads of grapeshot, for the same crime.
From the direction of the Place d’Armes, Christophe’s carriage crossed the Rue Neuve and passed along the outer wall of the waterfront casernes. Another turn brought them again in view of the port. To the right, the wall of the artillery emplacement which covered the harbor curved toward them. The air of urgency among the cannoneers manning the post made the doctor’s stomach tumble for a moment. The carriage turned northward, onto the Quai d’Argout.
“What do you suppose to be the meaning of this expedition?” Christophe said.
“Pardon?” said Doctor Hébert. “The expedition?”
“The forces of the French army—if that indeed is what they are— contained in the fleet which has just appeared in the harbor’s mouth,” Christophe said. “That expedition.”
“Eh . . . ,” the doctor breathed. “Possibly it is meant for a reinforcement of the corps of Governor-General Toussaint?” He looked out the window to avoid Christophe’s gaze. The harbor was calm and quiet and more vacant than usual, except, he now noticed, for a number of canoes that were taking up the buoys which marked the channels where a deep-draught ship might enter.
Christophe exhaled with a flutter of his lips. “Or perhaps they have come to reduce us to submission, Doctor?”
“I . . . they have not offered any hostilities, I suppose?”
“Why, Doctor.” Christophe smiled with his lips. “That is just what we are now on our way to discover.”
The doctor made himself meet Christophe’s eyes. The black general was an imposing figure, his strong chest swelling his uniform coat, the large head carried proudly above the stiff collar. On an ordinary day, the doctor would have felt as easy in his company as with any of Toussaint’s senior officers, and more so than with most of them. Since 1791 he’d risen rapidly in the black officer cadre, and generally appeared to be a model of military orthodoxy. Christophe was a person of high intelligence and some sophistication. He had been to sea as a cabin boy on an English vessel, and he spoke English as well as French, and some Spanish too. While still a boy he had gone with the soldiers of the Comte d’Estaing to assist the North American revolutionaries in the siege of Savannah; it was rumored that this action had won him his freedom. In the years that followed he’d emerged as manager of the Hôtel de la Couronne here at Le Cap, a position which put him in touch with all the international news and gossip. Undoubtedly he’d known how to make use of what he heard. Christophe was not such a one as Toussaint, who could ferret out one’s secret thought almost without one’s knowing it, and yet the doctor knew that Christophe meant to sound him for the feeling of the white community here.
What did he really know on that subject, and how much would he be willing to say? Before he had formulated any response, Christophe broke their gaze himself and fell to looking out the opposite window.
Soon enough the pavement ended, and the coach jounced onto a trail running up and down the hills of the shoreline. At last it descended onto a small