Mardi Gras Madness (Carnival of Love)

Chapter Seventeen

“We’ll have lunch in the garden,” Frank decided as he held the front door open for Barbara to enter. “You haven’t seen my garden,” he went on quietly. “I want you to. I think you’ll appreciate it. There’s a fountain and a great deal of shade. It’s quite a rendezvous for mocking birds, and I’ve had very good luck with my early flowers.”

Barbara drew in a deep breath and faced him candidly. “I’m sure that lunch in the garden will be quite nice... as a prelude,” she said softly.

“Exactly. I want this afternoon to be... perfection,” Frank said slowly. “I want it to be a jewel in your store of memories. A gleaming pearl which you can take out to fondle if life seems ever dreary to you.”

“You’re... quite understanding.” Barbara smiled at him bravely. “I... I think you’re the most... understanding person I ever met.”

“And you are the sweetest.” Frank smiled at her as he pulled a bell rope. “I’ll have Julia take you up and show you where you can freshen up a bit. Please get rid of that mask... and select anything you like if you wish to change.”

“You seem to have every facility for feminine comfort here in your bachelor abode,” Barbara said challengingly.

“Of course,” Frank acknowledged. “No use remaining a bachelor if one is not prepared to take full advantage of one’s estate. Oh, Julia,” he added as a trimly uniformed mulatto maid stood smiling in the doorway. “Take Miss Barbara up to the green room. See that she has anything she wants. And don’t be too long,” he warned Barbara. “I’ll go into conference with the cook and see what sort of Olympian luncheon can be arranged on the spur of the moment.”

“I’ll hurry,” Barbara assured him. She blew him a kiss as she followed the maid from the room and up the stairs which she had climbed the foregoing night.

Her heart was very light. The afternoon promised much. She refused to consider Bob. She thought only of herself and Frank. Frank had not asked her a single question on the ride to his house. Everything seemed to move toward a perfect adjustment.

She smiled happily at Julia as the girl opened a door and motioned her to enter. Then she gave a little gasp of delighted astonishment. The interior was a symphony in pastel shades of green. A boudoir of enchanted beauty. Walls, rugs, ceiling, furniture, decorations, all had been selected with the utmost discrimination to softly harmonize and achieve an effect of fairy-like splendor.

“It’s beautiful,” she exclaimed to Julia, clasping her hands and trying to see everything at once.

“Yas’m. Hit sho is.” Julia chuckled throatily. She moved sinuously across the room to open a paneled door. “Dis heah am de bafroom,” she announced. “An’ heah am sum things effen youall wants tuh change.” She stepped to another corner and drew back a drape of turquoise satin to disclose a vivid array of dainty gowns, lounging pajamas, robes, and negligees.

Barbara’s eyes sparkled recklessly as she stood in the center of the room. It was like being transported to a land of fantastic enchantment. There was a low vanity with triple mirrors at her left. An assortment of beauty lotions and perfumes were exquisitely displayed before the mirrors. She crossed to a chaise longue and dropped to its softness with a happy sigh.

“If you’ll draw me a bath,” she said slowly, “that’s all I’ll need you for.”

“Yas’m.” Julia smiled broadly and disappeared into the bathroom.

Barbara kicked off her slippers and peeled hosiery off slim legs. The oriental rug beneath her feet was luxuriously soft. She wriggled her toes appreciatively and sighed.

Julia’s beaming face appeared in the doorway. She held two crystal jars of bath salts in her brown hands! “Which youall like?” she asked dubiously.

“Let me smell them,” Barbara said eagerly. She felt like a small child suddenly set down in the midst of toyland.

Julia brought the jars smilingly and held them for Barbara’s inspection. One of rose quartz exuded a sweet and dreamy fragrance. The other was frosty green, giving forth a suggestion of piney woods and sunlight upon lush meadows.

“The green one,” Barbara said quickly.

“Yas’m. I laks dat one too.”

Barbara unfastened the domino and tossed it into the center of the room. It was an incongruous note in the fastidious boudoir. Mardi Gras seemed far away. Yet, inexplicably, the madness of Mardi Gras was the keynote of the bizarre situation.

It had touched her deeply, Barbara reflected. Changed her. Twisted her ideas and her ideals. Changed her character, her personality, her very being. Turned the course of her life from a serene future to a turbulent uncertainty.

She wondered how many others had been so dominated and changed by the festival. Robert, of course, and Hattie. Her mind dwelt upon them broodingly as she stood erect and slipped off the tight costume. Julia had gone out and closed the door softly behind her. The green boudoir was a miraculous sanctuary.

She stood before the triple mirrors and peered curiously at her nude body. White, slim, virginal. Chastely beautiful. She studied the phrases mockingly. Her body was the same. Remembered curves, straight, clean limbs.

She clasped her arms behind her head and turned lazily to study her profile over a smooth shoulder. Her breasts were thrown out and upward. Proudly. Expectantly. A little quiver passed over her young body and something flamed in her eyes as she studied the firm ovals which lifted from her body as though straining to be away. Ovals of alabaster, flame-tipped and vibrant.

She closed her eyes and shuddered as she felt, once more, Frank’s moist lips as they had seared her white body the preceding night.

Then she sternly pressed such fancies away and hurried to the bathroom. It was exquisite, with sunken tub and softly gleaming marble. She sighed and relaxed in the tantalizing warmth of the fragrant water.

Later she stood before the rack of beautiful garments to choose something to wear in the garden. The nightgowns and negligees were entrancing, but she put them aside with a little smile. She considered, flashingly, what other girls had stood thus and made a selection to please Frank’s sybaritic fancies.

But she put the thought away as displeasing and of little moment. What mattered the past?

She selected a suit of lounging pajamas of sheer silk. A two-piece ensemble of lovely green and burnt umber. She gasped doubtfully as she studied the effect in the mirrors. The garments flowed about her voluptuously and revealingly. The exquisite silk clung to her flesh, and each time she moved the perfection of her figure was wholly revealed. The loose blouse was so designed that the clinging stuff was molded about her breasts as though in passionate embrace.

But she lifted her head proudly as she turned from the mirrors and passed from the room. Why not? Why should she blush to make evident her charms? Had she not come with Frank for this? She had not come with shame, nor with downcast head. She had come willingly... freely. He understood that. Then why shrink from displaying herself to him?

So her lips smiled and her chin was tilted when she met him in the drawing room. He stepped forward with an answering smile of delight and took her hand in his.

“You are a vision of loveliness,” he said shakily. “Almost I fear to take you into the garden lest the flowers hang their heads in shame.”

“You’re a sinful flatterer,” Barbara laughed.

Frank had changed to fresh flannels and a white sport shirt, open at the throat and sleeveless. He looked youthful and vigorous.

“We’ll have to defy the flowers,” he said quietly, linking his arm in hers. “Come.” He led her toward French windows which opened on the garden.

“Oh! How lovely,” Barbara gasped ecstatically.

A high wall of stone and mortar surrounded the garden. Purple bougainvallaea had been trained to cover the wall, and was a mass of exotic blossoming. Narrow shell paths were a delicate tracery among riotously informal flower beds. An oval pool in the center sheltered lily pads and blooming water hyacinths.

A marble nymph in the center of the pool assumed an attitude of nonchalant ease while a thin spray misted down from the ruby nipple of each golden breast. Linden trees were picturesquely spaced to provide wide areas of shade.

“Luncheon is served in the rose arbor,” Frank told her as she gazed about with parted lips. “I’ve arranged for a mocking bird symphony... and methinks I hear Jake setting out the chilled consommé. He’ll be over here after us if we don’t hurry.”

“It’s like fairyland,” Barbara exclaimed.

Frank looked down upon her head with a weary smile. “It’s been waiting for years for you to come along and appreciate it.”

“I’m sure it’s been well appreciated before I came along,” Barbara said lightly.

A round table was set for two in the rose arbor. A damask cloth and gleaming silver. A grizzled Negro hovered about the table anxiously. Barbara smiled a greeting as she recognized him as the same who had greeted them at the door the preceding evening.

“Sit down before Jake knocks you down,” Frank said humorously. “He’s awfully cranky about serving lunch in the garden.”

Wild roses were blooming all over the trellis. Their fragrance hung heavily in the air, almost as a tangible essence. There was a gently cooling breeze which seemed to be wafted magically through the arbor. Barbara spoke of it as she found the consommé delightfully tasty.

“That’s one of my pet arrangements,” Frank told her proudly. “I’d have been dreadfully disappointed had you not noticed it. There’s a big electric fan in the cellar with concealed pipes which circulates cool air through the arbor all the time.”

“You seem to have thought of everything,” Barbara murmured.

“I’ve tried to,” he told her quietly. “Perhaps I’m a voluptuary. At least I have very definite ideas concerning the proper introduction to love.”

“Love?” Barbara spoke the word with raised eyebrows.

“You caught me,” Frank admitted. His lips twisted into bitterness for a moment. “I used the word at its accepted valuation,” he said slowly. “I have found that women are likely to condone anything they would otherwise consider shameful if they can be allowed to call love the motivation.”

“But... do you recall our first talk together... on the shore of the lake?” Barbara’s voice was brave and full.

“I’ll never forget... the one time when I was foolish enough to speak what I believed the truth.”

“Foolish?”

“Wasn’t it? I think it’s always foolish to talk logic to a woman. They don’t want logic. It frightens them.”

“Do I look frightened?” Barbara looked at him composedly.

“You will be if I tell you I don’t love you... don’t intend to love you... don’t want to love you... in short, if I admit I don’t know a damned thing about love.” The words fell brutally from Frank’s lips.

“Try me.” Barbara leaned across the table and looked intently at him.

Frank studied her face for a moment without replying. Jake deftly removed the consommé cups and placed iced melons before them.

“I almost dare to,” he said slowly.

“Isn’t Mardi Gras... a time for spiritual enlightenment?”

“Mardi Gras is a time for anything,” he replied somberly.

“But isn’t there more to Mardi Gras than just this insanity I’ve seen? There must be some deeper significance. I’ve a feeling that we all are sitting atop a world which may explode at any moment. What... what gives me that feeling?”

“That’s what Mardi Gras is, of course,” Frank said slowly. “A grand gesture of farewell to the fleshly pleasures in preparation for spiritual fruition.”

“Tell me about Mardi Gras,” Barbara begged eagerly. “I’m so woefully ignorant. Exactly what does it mean? I’ve been hearing about it all my life in connection with frolicking and fun. Isn’t there something more?”

“You mean to say you don’t know the derivation of the fête? You don’t know the religious significance behind it?” Frank looked at Barbara in astonishment.

“I don’t know anything,” she said angrily. “I feel as though I’ve been dead for twenty years. Mardi Gras means license in the lexicon of my family.”

“I thought everyone knew what Mardi Gras really is,” Frank said wonderingly.

“Well, tell me,” Barbara said impatiently.

“The words themselves mean Fat Tuesday,” Frank said slowly. “They are French, of course. That’s an allusion to the fat ox which the French ceremoniously parade through the streets on Shrove Tuesday.”

“Shrove Tuesday?” Barbara wrinkled her brow prettily. “Seems to me I’ve heard of Shrove Tuesday,” she acknowledged.

“The day preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. You know what Lent is?” he challenged.

“Of course,” Barbara said indignantly. “It’s the period of fasting or something before Easter.”

“Forty days of spiritual cleansing before the Resurrection. Shrove Tuesday is so-called because it’s the day of shrift, or confession before the fast begins. It’s been a day of celebration for centuries. The last grand gesture of gorging and merrymaking to prepare for the fast during Lent.”

“But no one fasts during Lent any more,” Barbara protested.

“Catholics do,” Frank told her. “In Protestant countries the custom has merely survived because it’s a good opportunity and excuse to blow off steam. New Orleans, of course, was predominantly French at one time, and predominantly Catholic. It’s been something like a hundred years since the first Mardi Gras Carnival was celebrated in New Orleans. At the beginning it was just a procession of maskers and buffoons.”

“And this is what a hundred years has done?” Barbara murmured.

“Exactly. From a simple procession of masked paraders it has evolved to the spectacle you saw climaxed to-day. Of course, you saw only the Rex pageant. There are many others, all rivaling Rex in magnificence. The Krewe of Comus, the Krewe of Momus, the Krewe of Proteus, the Ancient Order of Druids... and, of course, hundreds of smaller organizations all over the city.”

“And all of that started from a little happiness on the Tuesday preceding Lent?” Barbara marveled.

“But the underlying motif is the same,” Frank pointed out. “Beneath all the hilarity and merriment there is a deeply religious fervor. Your own feeling is better proof of that than anything else. Knowing nothing about it, yet you sensed the feeling of something more than the mere spirit of play. That’s why the madness will rise to such heights to-night. One of the most impressive aspects of Mardi Gras is the descent of the mantle of spiritual dignity at midnight with the tolling of the Cathedral chimes. Almost instantly the masks are discarded and the frolicking thousands assume the sober garb of Lenten simplicity.”

“You speak very feelingly,” Barbara said slowly. “With superb oratorical effect. Your face is lighted and almost radiant.”

“It gets hold of you somehow,” Frank said simply. “I’m not a religious man, but one can’t play through a Mardi Gras Carnival and see it end without being impressed. To-night you’ll see a sort of supertensity grip the masqueraders as midnight approaches. Instinctively every ear will be waiting to hear the chimes proclaim the end of another Mardi Gras. The merriment will mount to a thunderous crescendo... with each madly endeavoring to crowd a lifetime of laughter into the last hour... the last minute. It’s gripping. Magnificent. Perhaps a reversion to the superstitions of the Dark Ages, but, to me, it speaks well for our modern civilization.”

“I see.” Barbara drew in a deep breath and her eyes were luminous. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I understand better... how I feel. And why I feel that I must find understanding before midnight... before the end of Mardi Gras. Will you... help me?”

She arose from the table and her face was white. She swayed toward him supplicatingly.

“You’re very sure... of what you want?” He caught her in his arms and held her hungrily.

“Very sure,” she responded. “I’m glad that... last night was a fiasco. I’m stronger to-day... know better what I want... surer of myself. I want you to take me.”

Her white face was upturned to his. Her body was soft and pliant beneath the thin silk. Her lips were a gash of scarlet which parted entreatingly.

Frank looked deep into her eyes for a long moment. Her passion communicated itself to him as the sweet warmth of her innocent body enveloped him.

Bending swiftly, he gathered her in his arms and carried her easily into the drawing room and up the broad stairs. Into his room where he deposited her on the same bed she had lain upon the preceding night.

“Take those pajamas off,” he said harshly. “Strip every thread off your body if you’re in earnest about going through with this.”

He drew away from her and stood in the center of the floor. Barbara sat up in the center of the bed and her fingers trembled uncontrollably as she drew off the blouse and untied the wide sash.

Her eyes were fastened on Frank and frenzy lurked there as he flung his shirt to the floor. His magnificent torso bared, the sash came loose, and her pajamas joined his flannels on the floor.

This time she didn’t faint.

She sat upon the bed, unclothed and unashamed. She smiled mistily at Frank, and patted his cheek tenderly.

“And that’s all there is to it?” she asked.

Frank raised himself on one elbow to study her face. “Disappointed?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Barbara made a vague gesture. “In myself perhaps. Now. Studying my reaction after it’s over. I wasn’t disappointed... a few moments ago.”

“You were glorious.” Frank attempted to draw her down to him. “Stop analyzing your emotions, and enjoy them,” he commanded sternly.

“That? From you?” she asked in wide-eyed surprise. “It was you who taught me to analyze,” she reminded him.

“There are times for analysis, and times for enjoying the moment,” he said petulantly.

“I know of no better time to study myself than right now,” Barbara told him calmly.

“Why now, for heaven’s sake?”

“Technically, I’ve just entered into a new phase of development,” she returned coolly. “Half an hour ago I was a virgin. Now I’m what Cousin Hattie would call a loose woman.”

“Do you feel sinful?”

“No. Only released. That’s the only change I can sense. And... very happy,” she went on, studying her words carefully.

“Happy? Tell me why.”

“Because you’ve shown me that passion without love is much more glamorous in expectancy than in reality,” she told him serenely. “Because I’ve just learned how little passion or sexual giving has to do with love. Because I know now what life can be with love to give meaning to desire.”

“You learned all that from me?” Frank asked the question weakly.

“Yes. The experiment was a huge success.” She smiled at him.

“Experiment? I like that.” His tone said that he didn’t like it at all.

“Wasn’t it an experiment? You were careful to explain in the beginning that you didn’t love me,” Barbara reminded him.

“See here! Where does all this lead to? I feel like a bug impaled on a pin beneath a microscope,” Frank protested.

“All this leads to Sonia,” Barbara said firmly.

“Sonia?”

“Sonia Jenson,” she explained patiently. “Ethel told me you knew her quite well.”

“Sonia Jenson?” Frank’s voice was desperate. “What the devil has she to do with you? What is this? A guessing game?”

“Tell me about Sonia,” Barbara persisted. “And I’ll tell you why I want to know.”

“There’s not much I can tell you about Sonia,” Frank said sullenly. “I don’t know the words you’d understand. She’s almost a nymphomaniac.”

Barbara sat on the bed and quaintly considered his words. The implication disturbed and frightened her. She shrank in horror before a vision of Bob and Sonia which arose before her. Then she thrust her jaw out angrily. If this was true, then it was all the more important to rescue Bob from her. She turned quickly to Frank.

“I want you to take me to Sonia,” she said firmly. “At once.”

“What’s on your mind, dear?” Frank regarded her anxiously. He had heard of women going goofy after the shock of first intercourse.

“Has Ethel told you anything about Bob, the boy I was engaged to for so many years?”

“She told me about some farmer sweetheart, but she swore to me that the affair was all off,” Frank said vehemently. “I made her give me her word that it was out,” he went on plaintively, “for I never intend to interfere with the course of true love.”

“You’re sweet,” Barbara said impulsively. “And you haven’t interfered. You saved it from ruin. I can’t explain,” she went on swiftly, “but having known you has made Bob a hundred times more necessary to me than ever before.”

“I still don’t see where Sonia comes in,” Frank complained.

“Bob followed me here to make up,” Barbara explained. “He arrived Sunday night and telephoned to the Brinkleys. I was out with you and... and he must have been hurt. So he went out and... and got tangled up with Sonia. He... he stayed all night with her.”

“Good God!” Frank sat upright. “Your Bob is a fool,” he said softly. “You’re worth a thousand Sonias.”

“I want... a chance to prove that to Bob, and he’s going to take Sonia to a masked ball to-night. At some Manor.”

“I know,” Frank interjected with quickened interest. “The ball at Brierly Manor. It’s an annual affair. I’m going. So are you and Ethel.”

“I thought if I went to Sonia and explained everything... she might understand,” Barbara said desperately. “Then I... I can go masked too. And if she’ll... if she’ll let me have a chance to win Bob back... to... to show him that I... that I can give him as much as she...”

Barbara’s voice broke.

“Oh! It sounds like a crazy idea,” she cried desperately. “But I have to do something.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Frank contradicted her. “It’s a magnificent plot. Worthy of a correspondence course scenario writer.”

“You’re laughing at me,” Barbara accused in a small voice.

“I never felt less like laughing in my life,” Frank assured her. “I adopted the light tone to keep from bursting into tears. You shall have your chance to vamp your sweetheart... and if the oaf doesn’t crash through I’ll take great personal satisfaction in wringing his neck,” he finished venomously.

“Then you think... Sonia will help me?”

“Not a doubt in the world,” Frank told her cheerfully. “Put it to her straight, and she’ll play along with you. She’s probably getting tired of him already anyway,” he added darkly. “One night is usually her limit.”

“Can I go to see her now?” Barbara asked quickly. “Will you take me?”

“Why not?” Frank moved to the edge of the bed with a sigh. “Picture of a young man practicing self-immolation,” he muttered.

“I could almost love you.” Barbara threw her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek to his.

“Here!” Frank pushed her away determinedly. “You’ll arouse something more than brotherly interest in my bosom if you don’t get some clothes on before embracing me,” he warned gruffly. “Get yourself clad and we’ll seek out the seductive Sonia in her lair.”