She would address his manners later. “Where is your father?”
Gabriel glanced toward the citrus hedge. “I think he took Étienne to the apiary.”
How many times had Marguerite told Matthieu she did notwant their sons anywhere near his bees! Especially an eleven-year-old! She picked up her skirts, consigned her slippers to ruin, and plowed toward the hives. What need did they have for honey, amidst a hundred acres of sugarcane? Why couldn’t Matthieu keep birds like their neighbor? Marguerite would not lie awake at night fearing parakeets might turn on their master.
Ahead, she heard Matthieu whistling. He thought it calmed his little monsters. He’d read that continence calmed them too, as if the bees could smell her on him. He’d slept on the gallery for months now. He preferredinsectsto her. Wassheone of his experiments? Was he testing how long it would take before he drove her mad?
Behind her, Narcisse yelled: “Farther!”
She knew perfectly well where the apiary was! Marguerite did not stop but glowered over her shoulder.
She realized her son was shouting at the one-armed negress. With her basket of lemons, the slave trudged closer to the cane nearly three times her height. “She must think we are terrible shots,” Narcisse complained to Gabriel, who peered into a wooden case another slave had brought them.
Marguerite gritted her teeth and kept striding toward Matthieu’s whistle. Fifteen was too young to be playing with pistols. Seventeen, too—but she had lost that debate months ago. At least her sons had found a use for the cripple.
That negress must be the latest mill worker to fall asleep feeding cane into the machine. The cast iron grinders had crushed most of her arm along with the stalks, ruining the entire batch of juice. Dr. Arthaud had been their guest that night. Matthieu had urged his friend to return to his bed and not to bother with the woman—they’d just buy another—but Arthaud had revelled in the opportunity.
Marguerite halted well away from the citrus hedge, where dark bees assaulted white blossoms to Matthieu’s whistled tune. No matter how he went on about queens and workers or the pastry scent of the hives, she would not venture any closer to that dangerous mass of life. Did he think fire wouldn’t burn? “Matthieu Lazare!”
The whistling stopped at once. For a moment, only that unearthly buzzing filled her ears. Then Étienne giggled. Matthieu called from the other side of the foliage: “Coming, my queen!”
Apian humor. It made a mockery of her. If Marguerite were truly in charge of this household…
The report of a pistol made her start, twice when it echoed against the mountains. A whoop of pride drew her attention back to her eldest sons. White smoke hung over Gabriel, who held his gun aloft and beamed in victory. At a distance, the crippled negress stood with her eyes squeezed shut and her face turned away from her single extended palm. It was empty, the remains of a lemon presumably propelled somewhere behind her into the tall green sea of cane, where anything might hide.
They should all be in Le Cap right now. No fountain, convent, or theatre could make it Paris, but the city was more tolerable than this plantation, surrounded by wild animals and negroes. In Le Cap, Marguerite could take the children to the wax museum (how the proprietors kept the figures from melting, she’d never know) and pretend that she was back at court in the most civilized country in the world.
Finally, the beekeepers emerged from the citrus hedge, the first looking like an executioner and the second like a mourner: Matthieu in his masked hood and Étienne with his straw hat draped in black crape. Neither of them wore gloves. Marguerite rushed toward her son, who tucked his swollen thumb behind his back.
“I am all right,Maman!” Étienne kept on his path toward the house. “Papa got out the stinger. It was a warning; that’s all. They don’t attack unless you’ve done something wrong.”
Marguerite cradled the boy’s hand as they walked; and she remembered what waited for them back in that house. She narrowed her eyes at Matthieu. “I told you that girl would be trouble!”
“Pardon?” He doffed his hood to reveal a shaved head gleaming with sweat.
“That little”—Marguerite thought of Étienne and restrainedherself—“mulâtressehas gotten herself with child, and she had the audacity to accuse our sons!”
Ahead of them, another gunshot cracked. Marguerite’s attention jumped from the negress, who stood quivering with an undamaged lemon on her head, to Narcisse in his cloud of smoke. Pistol arm limp, her son scowled at the ground and muttered, “Merde.”
Marguerite stamped her foot. “You know how I feel about cursing, Narcisse!”
Looking remarkably contrite for once, he mumbled, “I couldn’t help it,Maman.”
Before Marguerite could argue, Matthieu cleared his throat as though he were about to speak; but in the end, he only stood there with the bee hood under his arm.
Instead, Gabriel spoke. “It was as if she bewitched us.”
Suddenly, Marguerite couldn’t breathe.
After a moment, Étienne leaned closer to her. “Does…this mean I am going to be an uncle?”
She gaped at Matthieu. “Youknewof this?”
He only shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually.”
“How can you—” Marguerite sputtered. “After what she has done!”
Matthieu took her elbow to direct her away from the boys and lowered his voice. “I don’t think Ève is the one to blame here.”
