Waltz Into Darkness

1

The sun was bright, the sky was blue, the time was May; New Orleans was heaven, and heaven must have been only another New Orleans, it couldn’t have been any better.

In his bachelor quarters on St. Charles Street, Louis Durand was getting dressed. Not for the first time that day, for the sun was already high and he’d been up and about for hours; but for the great event of that day. This wasn’t just a day, this was the day of all days. A day that comes just once to a man, and now had come to him. It had come late, but it had come. It was now. It was today.

He wasn’t young any more. Others didn’t tell him this, he told himself this. He wasn’t old, as men go. But for such a thing as this, he wasn’t too young any more. Thirty-seven.

On the wall there was a calendar, the first four leaves peeled back to bare the fifth. At top, center, this was inscribed May. Then on each side of this, in slanted, shadow-casting, heavily curlicued numerals, the year-date was gratuitously given the beholder: 1880. Below, within their little boxed squares, the first nineteen numerals had been stroked off with lead pencil. About the twentieth, this time in red crayon, a heavy circle, a bull’s-eye, had been traced. Around and around, as though it could not be emphasized enough. And from there on, the numbers were blank; in the future.

He had put on the shirt with starched ruffles that Maman Alphonsine had so lovingly laundered for him, every frill a work of art. It was fastened at the cuffs with garnet studs backed with silver. In the flowing ascot tie that spread downward fanwise from his chin was thrust the customary stickpin that no well-dressed man was ever without, in this case a crescent of diamond splinters tipped by a ruby chip at each end.

A ponderous gold fob hung from his waistcoat pocket on the right side. Linking this to the adjoining pocket on the left, bulky with a massive slab of watch, was a chain of thick gold links, conspicuous across his middle, and meant to be so. For what was a man without a watch? And what was a watch without there being an indication of one?

His flowing, generous shirt, above this tightly encompassing waistcoat, gave him a pouter-pigeon aspect. But there was enough pride in his chest right now to have done that unaided, anyway.

On the bureau, before which he stood using his hairbrush, lay a packet of letters and a daguerreotype.

He put down his brush, and, pausing for a moment in his preparations, took them up one by one and hurriedly glanced through each. The first bore the letter-head: “The Friendly Correspondence Society of St. Louis, Mo. — an Association for Ladies and Gentlemen of High Character,” and began in a fine masculine hand:

The next was in an even finer hand, this time feminine: “My dear Mr. Durand — ” And signed: “Y’rs most sincerely, Miss J. Russell.”

The next: “Dear Mr. Durand:... Sincerely, Miss Julia Russell.”

The next: “Dear Louis Durand:... Your sincere friend, Julia Russell.”

And then: “Dear Louis:... Your sincere friend, Julia.”

And then: “Dear Louis:... Your sincere Julia.”

And then: “Louis, dear:... Your Julia.”

And finally: “Louis, my beloved:... Your own impatient Julia.”

There was a postscript to this one: “Will Wednesday never come? I count the hours for the boat to sail!”

He put them in order again, patted them tenderly, fondly, into symmetry. He put them into his inside coat pocket, the one that went over his heart.

He took up, now, the small stiff-backed daguerreotype and looked at it long and raptly. The subject was not young. She was not an old woman, certainly, but she was equally certainly no longer a girl. Her features were sharply indented with the approaching emphases of alteration. There was an incisiveness to the mouth that was not yet, but would be presently, sharpness. There was a keen appearance to the eyes that heralded the onset of sunken creases and constrictions about them. Not yet, but presently. The groundwork was being laid. There was a curvature to the nose that presently would become a hook. There was a prominence to the chin that presently would become a jutting-out.

She was not beautiful. She could be called attractive, for she was attractive to him, and attractiveness lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Her dark hair was gathered at the back of the head in a psyche-knot, and a smattering of it, coaxed the other way, fell over her forehead in a fringe, as the fashion had been for some considerable time now. So long a time, in fact, that it was already unnoticeably ceasing to be the fashion.

The only article of apparel allowed to be visible by the limitations of the pose was a black velvet ribbon clasped tightly about her throat, for immediately below that the portrait ended in smouldering brown clouds of photographic nebulae.

So this was the bargain he had made with love, taking what he could get, in sudden desperate haste, for fear of getting nothing at all, of having waited too long, after waiting fifteen years, steadfastly turning his back on it.

That early love, that first love (that he had sworn would be the last) was only a shadowy memory now, a half-remembered name from the past. Marguerite; he could say it and it had no meaning now. As dry and flat as a flower pressed for years between the pages of a book.

A name from someone else’s past, not even his. For every seven years we change completely, they say, and there is nothing left of what we were. And so twice over he had become somebody else since then.

Twice-removed he was now from the boy of twenty-two — called Louis Durand as he was, and that their only link — who had knocked upon the house door of his bride-to-be the night before their wedding, stars in his eyes, flowers in his hand. To stand there first with his summons unanswered. And then to see it swing slowly open and two men come out, bearing something dead on a covered litter.

“Stand back. Yellow jack.”

He saw the ring on her finger, trailing the ground.

He didn’t cry out. He made no sound. He reached down and placed his courtship flowers gently on the death-stretcher as it went by. Then he turned and went away.

Away from love, for fifteen years.

Marguerite, a name. That was all he had left.

He was faithful to that name until he died. For he died too, though more slowly than she had. The boy of twenty-two died into a young man of twenty-nine. Then he in turn was still faithful to the name his predecessor had been faithful to, until he too died. The young man of twenty-nine died into an older man of thirty-six.

And suddenly, one day, the cumulative loneliness of fifteen years, held back until now, overwhelmed him, all at one time, inundated him, and he turned this way and that, almost in panic.

Any love, from anywhere, on any terms. Quick, before it was too late! Only not to be alone any longer.

If he’d met someone in a restaurant just then—

Or even if he’d met someone passing on the street—

But he didn’t.

His eye fell, instead, on an advertisement in a newspaper. A St. Louis advertisement in a New Orleans newspaper.

You cannot walk away from love.

His contemplation ended. The sound of carriage wheels stopping somewhere just outside caused him to insert the likeness into his money-fold, and pocket that. He went out to the second-story veranda and looked down. The sun suddenly whitened his back like flour as he leaned over the railing, pressing down the smouldering magenta bougainvillea that feathered its edges.

A colored man was coming into the inner courtyard or patio-well through the passageway from the street.

“What took you so long?” Durand called down to him. “Did you get my flowers?” The question was wholly rhetorical, for he could see the cone-shaped parcel, misty pink peering through its wax-wrappings at the top.

“Sure enough did.”

“Did you get me a coach?”

“It’s here waiting for you now.”

“I thought you’d never get back,” he went on. “You been gone all of—”

The Negro shook his head in philosophical good nature. “A man in love is a man in a hurry.”

“Well, come on up, Tom,” was the impatient suggestion. “Don’t just stand down there all day.”

Humorous grin still unbroken, Tom resumed his progress, passed from sight under the near side of the facade. Several moments later the outermost door of the apartment opened and he had entered behind the owner.

The latter turned, went over to him, seized the bouquet, and pared off its outer filmy trappings, with more nervous haste than painstaking care.

“You going give it to her, or you going tear it to pieces?” the colored man inquired drily.

“Well, I have to see, don’t I? Do you think she’ll like pink roses and sweet peas, Tom?” There was a plaintive helplessness to the last part of the question, as when one grasps at straws.

“Don’t all ladies?”

“I don’t know. The only girls I—” He didn’t finish it.

“Oh, them,” said Tom charitably. “The man said they do,” he went on. “The man said that’s what they all ask for.” He fluffed the lace-paper collar encircling them with proprietary care, restoring its pertness.

Durand was hastily gathering together his remaining accoutrements, meanwhile, preparatory to departure.

“I want to go to the new house first,” he said, on a somewhat breathless note.

“You was there only yesterday,” Tom pointed out. “If you stay away only one day, you afraid it’s going to fly away, I reckon.”

“I know, but this is the last chance I’ll have to make sure everything’s— Did you tell your sister? I want her to be there when we arrive.”

“She’ll be there.”

Durand stopped with his hand to the doorknob, looked around in a comprehensive sweep, and suddenly the tempo of his departure had slackened to almost a full halt.

“This’ll be the last time for this place, Tom.”

“It was nice and quiet here, Mr. Lou,” the servant admitted. “Anyway, the last few years, since you started getting older.”

There was a renewed flurry of departure, as if brought on by this implicit warning of the flight of time. “You finish up the packing, see that my things get over there. Don’t forget to give the keys back to Madame Tellier before you leave.”

He stopped again, doorknob at a full turn now but door still not open.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Lou?”

“I’m scared now. I’m afraid she—” He swallowed down his rigid ear-high collar, backed a hand to his brow to blot imperceptible moisture, “—won’t like me.”

“You look all right to me.”

“It’s all been by letters so far. It’s easy in letters.”

“You sent her your picture. She knows what you look like,” Tom tried to encourage him.

“A picture is a picture. A live man is a live man.”

Tom went over to him where he stood, dejectedly sidewise now to the door, dusted off his coat at the back of his shoulder. “You’re not the best-looking man in N’Orleans. But you’re not the worst-looking man in N’Orleans either.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that kind of looks. Our dispositions—”

“Your ages suit each other. You told her yours.”

“I took a year off it. I said I was thirty-six. It sounded better.”

“You can make her right comfortable, Mr. Lou.”

Durand nodded with alacrity at this, as though for the first time he felt himself on safe ground. “She won’t be poor.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry too much about it. When a man’s in love, he looks for looks. When a lady’s in love, ’scusing me, Mr. Lou, she looks to see how well-off she’s going to be.”

Durand brightened. “She won’t have to scrimp.” He raised his head suddenly, as at a new discovery. “Even if I’m not all she might hope for, she’ll get used to me.”

“You want to — just make sure?” Tom fumbled in his own clothing, yanked at a concealed string somewhere about his chest, produced a rather worn and limp rabbit’s foot, a small gilt band encircling it as a mounting. He offered it to him.

“Oh, I don’t believe in—” Durand protested sheepishly.

“They ain’t a white man willing to say he do,” Tom chuckled. “They ain’t a white man don’t, just the same. Put it in your pocket anyway. Can’t do no harm.”

Durand stuffed it away guiltily. He consulted his watch, closed it again with a resounding clap.

“I’m late! I don’t want to miss the boat!” This time he flung the symbolic door wide and crossed the threshold of his bachelorhood.

“You got the better part of an hour before her stack even climb up in sight ’long the river, I reckon.”

But Louis Durand, bridegroom-to-be, hadn’t even waited. He was clattering down Madame Tellier’s tile-faced stairs outside at a resounding gait. A moment later an excited hail came up through the window from the courtyard below.

Tom strolled to the second-story veranda.

“My hat! Throw it down.” Durand was jumping up and down in impatience.

Tom threw it down and retired.

A second later there was another hail, even more agonized.

“My stick! Throw that down too.”

That dropped, was seized deftly on the fly. A little puff of sun-colored dust arose from Madame Tellier’s none-too-immaculate flagstones.

Tom turned away, shaking his head resignedly.

“A man in love’s a man in a hurry, sure enough.”