Rhett Butler's people (53 page)

"I do not play cards, monsieur."

"My business is not big enough to pay the excessive salary young men demand."

"My requirements are modest."

"Cotton factoring is a complex business that takes years to understand."

"I make no promises I may not be able to keep, monsieur. I promise that I will

try.

"

Nicolet unfolded his newspaper and glanced at the dark lines of type without reading. He set his beignet on the newspaper. Every morning, he ate his beignet while reading the shipping news. "Diderot's Bakery makes the best beignets in the city."

"Oui, monsieur."

As they continued this disjointed interview, Nicolet was mollified by Taz's idiomatic Creole and Jesuit education. Like most Catholics, Nicolet overestimated the rigors and effect of Jesuit training. "Your family, young Watling? They live in New Orleans?"

"My parentage is ... irregular," Taz said.

"I see." Nicolet removed his glasses, breathed on them, and wiped them, with his handkerchief. New Orleans' commerce was intensely personal and he wanted a young man with connections. His Francois had had connections. The same week he fell ill, Francois had been invited to join Comus, the prestigious Mardi Gras society. Everyone had loved Francois. Everyone!

"Monsieur, if I am distressing you ..."

Nicolet waved that away. The cotton factor was wise enough -- and in enough pain -- to know that he could not bear to interview a second young man, who would no more be Francois than this one. "Watling, you are not

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the first bastard I have known. Because of the good Jesuit fathers" -- Nicolet managed a smile -- "I will employ you. I can afford seven dollars a week."

In the next hectic weeks, J. Nicolet taught Taz how to combine cotton shipments from the Creole planters into cargoes for the Liverpool commission men. Taz learned to distinguish between long and short staple, middling and lesser grades of cotton, and J. Nicolet showed him the tricks scoundrels used to pass off inferior, dirty, or ill-ginned cotton as better than it was.

Every morning, Taz was at J. Nicolet's office before his employer and he left after J. Nicolet quit for the day. In the warehouses and on the levees, he dogged J. Nicolet's heels with so many questions his amiable employer complained,

"Ca qui prend zasocie

prend maite" (the man who hires an employee, takes a master). J. Nicolet wondered if, despite Taz's Jesuit education, the young man wasn't too

American.

Taz had a room in a boardinghouse whose hallways reeked of lye soap and boiled cabbage.

When Taz finally wrote Belle, he exaggerated his prospects. About his escape from England, Taz wrote only, "Maman, it was time I made my own way in the world."

Belle replied promptly:

Darling Boy,

I was so glad to get your letter! I was worried about you! I am happy you are in

New Orleans with such a grand position.

The Chapeau Rouge is booming. Carpetbaggers and Yankee officers are rolling in money. Minette begs to be remembered to you. Taz, will you please send her three pounds of

New Orleans coffee?

My Darling Boy, how could you have thought Rhett Butler would marry a woman like your old Ma?

Rhett has always loved Scarlett O'Hara. Rhett loved her when she was married to Frank Kennedy! I pray for Rhett's sake their marriage will be lucky.

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Taz crumpled Belle's letter. How dare Rhett Butler not love his mother. How dare he!

Jules Nore, who'd explained Taz's bastardy at the Jesuit School and had his nose bloodied for his trouble, was now employed by the Olympic Steamship Company. Jules and Taz resumed their acquaintance.

The two young men happened to be in the Boston Club when the honeymooning Butlers made their appearance.

A hush fell. All eyes turned to the couple.

Nobody else existed for these lovers. Complex intimacies and private jokes flashed in his knowing glance, her lowered eyelids, the quiver of her lip. These two were so beautiful, unfaithful husbands remembered how lovely their wives had once been and roués recalled their innocent first loves.

His father's bride was the loveliest woman Taz had ever seen, and he hated her. He hated her for being graceful; he hated Scarlett for not being Belle.

Did his father's bride know he had a son? Had Rhett Butler bothered to mention his bastard?

Taz haunted them. He found reasons to while away hours in the St. Louis Hotel and the Boston Club. Taz neglected his work, abbreviating the lengthy courtesies Creole planters were accustomed to.

Tazewell Watling didn't know what he was doing, or what he wanted. Did he want Rhett to acknowledge him? Explain why he hadn't married Belle? Taz's mind swam with resentment.

And Rhett Butler strolled past with a nod and smile, as if he and Taz were distant acquaintances.

Although J. Nicolet had never done business with Captain Butler, he knew who he was. Everyone knew Captain Butler. "Butler is a serious man, young Watling. What is your interest in him?"

To Nicolet, Taz's vague reply was a confession of paternity. So J. Nicolet told him the stories about Captain Butler in Cuba and Central America. "I don't doubt he wished to see Cubans freed from the Spanish tyrants but" -- Nicolet snorted -- "Butler wasn't indifferent to Spanish gold. Of course he was a young man then. No older than you are today."

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"Did he ... Was he married?"

Nicolet shrugged. "Butler kept a Creole girl. From the Gayerre family. She was very beautiful."

"Called ... Belle?"

"She was called Didi. While he was away, Didi died trying to lose Butler's baby. He hadn't known she was carrying his child. Butler was devastated. During their mourning, Butler and the Gayerres grew close."

"Even now," J. Nicolet said, "the Gayerres ask Butler to decide a delicate matter at the Quadroon Ball."

Resentment is a dish of mixed flavors. Angry, ashamed, woozy with excitement and the anticipation of how Butler might react, Tazewell Watling escorted Mrs. Butler to the Quadroon Ball.

The next morning, J. Nicolet was in the office when Taz arrived.

When Taz said, "Good morning, sir," Nicolet didn't stop scribbling in his ledger. Sir ...

J. Nicolet slammed the ledger shut. "You work hard and have learned my business. I planned to leave you in charge this summer. When I am in Baton Rouge, will you be arranging J. Nicolet's cotton shipments, or producing scandals?"

Tazewell Watling laid his order book on his employer's desk. "I was a fool, sir. I regret very much what I did last night and I have forfeited your confidence. My orders are complete as of yesterday." The young man put on his hat. "Sir, I am grateful for your many kindnesses."

Doubt clouded J. Nicolet's face.

"Merci pas coute arien."

(Thanks cost nothing.) Sir?

"My family is content in Baton Rouge and I miss them very much." J. Nicolet waggled an admonitory finger. "Young Watling, without warning I will return from time to time to see if you are shipping cotton or making scandals. Because of my family I will give you this opportunity. One only!"

But J. Nicolet left New Orleans in June and didn't return until October.

New Orleans businessmen dreaded the word

epidemic

and deplored its appearance in the newspapers. On June 22, the

Crescent

reported that

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"yellow fever has become an obsolete idea in New Orleans." Although forty people died of yellow fever on July 4, the

Picayune

denied it was an epidemic. Only after wealthy Toinette Sevier vomited blood and collapsed in the Boston Club was an epidemic admitted, and those who could flee the city began doing so.

By the end of July, the Charity Hospital, Maison de Sante, and the Turo Infirmary overflowed. Victims were tended in the orphanage, insane asylum, and public ballrooms. Funeral processions jammed the streets and coffins were stacked head-high in the cemeteries because there weren't enough workers to inter them.

New Orleans stank of death.

Born and raised in the city, Tazewell Watling had more resistance to the disease than the poor Irish immigrants, who died by the hundreds.

Although the larger cotton factors had closed and British cargo ships anchored well out in the channel lest they be forced into "yellow jack" quarantine when they arrived home, men had cotton to sell and there were small craft to take it to the ships.

Tazewell Watling made up cargoes from dawn until the sun sank over the river. He penned terse responses to J. Nicolet's lengthy, worried telegrams. Nine hundred and sixty people died the first week of August. Twelve hundred and eighty-eight the second week.

As the only functioning cotton buyer, young Watling might have taken advantage of sellers desperate for cash to get their families out of town. Taz paid the regular price with a shrug. "We must help one another in these hard times, eh, monsieur?"

When cooler weather arrived and the epidemic wound down, those who'd lived through it felt like veterans of a war. When the big cotton houses reopened, many who'd done business with Monsieur Watling during the epidemic continued doing business with him. J. Nicolet's profits swelled dramatically.

Tazewell Watling had earned an honest man's reputation in a dishonest age. Tazewell did business with Democrats and Republicans and kept his political opinions to himself. He enjoyed a wide circle of acquaintances. Many New Orleanians had concluded that Captain Butler was Tazewell

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Watling's father, but since Taz didn't discuss his parentage, the topic wasn't raised in his hearing.

He became a man about town. Tazewell was quick to buy a round, and Jules Nore's joke was asking for a cigar and passing Taz's case until it was empty. Taz frequented sporting houses but had no favorite. Despite hints from several mamas, he never again attended a Quadroon Ball. When Tazewell's gambling friends asked for a loan to tide them over, Taz excused himself by saying he sent his money to his mother.

Three years after Taz started at the firm, J. Nicolet made him a partner. "You will do all the work and I will receive half the profits,

oui?"

Jules Nore was a lieutenant in the Mystick Krewe of Comus, the oldest of the Mardi Gras parade societies. Jules invited Taz to join.

"But Jules," Taz said, "I'm a bastard."

Jules was puzzled."What difference does that make?"

Four years after Tazewell Watling returned to New Orleans, he bought a stone house on Royal Street in the Vieux Carre.

The evening he recorded his deed, Tazewell Watling returned to his unfurnished home and sat on the parlor floor, with the French doors open on his garden.

His L-shaped kitchen was awkward and his parlor was small, but there were two bedrooms on the second story -- one with a separate entrance.

There were lime trees in his garden. There was a frangipani and a palm tree. The air was redolent with flowers.

Tazewell Watling sat listening to the faint clip-clop of horses on Royal Street. His moon rose over his lime trees.

The next morning, Tazewell Watling wrote, "Dear Maman, I hope you will consent to visit me in New Orleans. I have a grand surprise for you."

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Chapter

Chapter Thirty-seven

A Silly

J

oke

One brisk Atlanta morning, outside the Farmer's and Merchants' Bank, Rhett passed an elderly couple selling apples from a farm wagon. The man called in a singsong, "Keepers, I got keepers. I got ciders, dessert apples'll melt in your mouth. I got your pie apples and cobblers. I got yellows and reds and stripes! Apples, I got your apples!"

The man's Confederate coat had been neatly patched; his wife's coat had been sewn from a blanket. It was impossible to guess their age. Her teeth were gone and his few were tobacco-stained. His hat, which might have once been a soldier's, was a color somewhere between brown and green. She knelt in the back of the wagon, sorting apples from one cask to another, setting each gently to avoid bruising them.