One night, about a week after the excitement calmed down, Doc and Mr. Birt were in their easy chairs, lapping up baked apples, drinking toddies and smoking. They weren’t too careful about where they dropped the ashes and the room was downright untidy. Aunt Alice stomped around the kitchen banged dishes and talked to herself. She breathed fire when she brought second helpings. “I don’t mind hard work and can do all the cooking and cleaning, but it is not right when folks order me around like I was some black slave. I cook and nurse and do the housekeeping. Look at this room! Ashes and books and papers scattered around like you were living in a saloon. It’s time, you worthless men found wives.”
She took off her apron, slammed the door and went to read a book. Mr. Birt put down his seegar and took a healthy swig of his toddy. “God almighty, what was that all about?”
It wasn’t surprising when Aunt Alice mentioned the business about a wife because she got around town and heard folks say it was a scandal that an unmarried doctor looked after women. Their men folks were uneasy. It didn’t help people’s opinion when Doc drank hard liquor and skinned money out of the drummers, playing cards at the Camp House.
Doc looked hurt, like he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. “Hm, I haven’t been paying much attention to what’s going on around here. Maybe she needs another woman to help out.”
“She does have a point. It looks better if a doctor is married because folks think that there is less chance for a married man to fool around with women patients. With all your traveling around, you must have met some likely candidates,” Mr. Birt said.
I made out like I was reading “System of Surgery” by Samuel Gross, but perked up on account of talk about women was powerfully interesting. I wasn’t doing so good in that line. Some of the boys claimed they took girls back in the woods, but it was just talk.
Doc settled lower into his chair and snubbed out his seegar in an empty dish. “There were some ladies in Chicago, but they weren’t exactly respectable. The women in Paris and Edinburgh didn’t have time for a country boy like me.”
“There’s widows around these parts that would like nothin’ better than to hitch up with a man that has fine prospects. There’s Bessie, the preachers daughter,” Mr. Birt said.
“I did meet a fine woman in New Orleans, when I got off the boat from Edinburgh.”
“You been keeping secrets? Come, let’s hear about your New Orleans lady,” Mr. Birt said.
Doc closed the door to the upstairs so Aunt Alice couldn’t listen. I expected he would send me to bed, but I scrunched down and pretended to read. He turned his back to the fire and a sorrowful look came over his face. “I made enough money playing poker on the boat from England to spend a few days at the St. James hotel. One afternoon, I was having a drink with a Confederate officer I had met in Richmond. The planters promenaded with their fancy women when a ramrod straight older man limped though the lobby with his hand on the arm of a young, pouty-faced girl. The girl was no more than fifteen years old but was dressed in the latest frippery and her hair was done up in tight curls. The man was slim, tall, with a scarred, ravaged face, partly hidden by a mustache and a goatee. His grey suit with a big cravat was elegant, but threadbare. Confederate officer was written all over him, but he had fallen on hard times. A girl who looked to be in her early twenties and walked with willowy grace followed behind the pair. Even though she wore a simple brown dress she was every bit as proud as the old man. That girl, or woman, I should say, was easily the best-looking female in the room. Every man followed her with his eyes and when they passed our table, there was snickery laughter from the bar. The planter or colonel or general for that matter, turned and silenced them with a look of absolute rage.
“Confederate officers could do that,” Mr. Birt said.
“I asked my Southern friend why they laughed at the old man. He said it was something us Yankees could never understand. It was most perplexing. Later, the pair returned; the woman carrying a load of packages stumbled and dropped a hat box.. The girl with the pouty face cussed like a soldier and hit the woman with her parasol. I rushed to help. When I knelt to retrieve the box our hands touched and for a moment. “mercie,” said she. Her voice was soft and lilting. I mumbled something about it being a pleasure to help a lovely lady. Her smile would have melted the heart of a bronze statue, but the pouty girl shouted and the woman scurried away, loaded with bundles. The next afternoon I was having a drink when the same pair went off through the lobby again. An hour or so later, people screamed and scattered before a run-away carriage in the street in front of the hotel. The mulatto driver sawed the reins and hollered, but a back wheel came off and the carriage overturned. I ran to help, still carrying a julep. The pouty girl hit the driver with her parasol. “You damn nigger,” said she. The beautiful lady was out cold, face down on the cobblestones, with blood running down her forehead. People consoled the hysterical girl who wasn’t the least bit hurt until the old man came out of the hotel and held the pouty girl in his arms. I knelt down by the injured woman, felt her pulse and touched the gash on the side of her head.
Doc picked up his dead cigar and lit it with a coal from the fireplace. Mr. Birt’s eyes were squinched shut as if he was asleep, but every so often he puffed at his cigar.
Doc watched the smoke rise up toward the ceiling. I told the old man that the woman needed medical attention, perhaps even trephination. The old man looked at the woman and the blood and his face softened. “Take her to the Charity Hospital,” he said. The grizzled mulatto called for a hack while the crowd fell back and became quiet as if they were afraid of that imperious, aloof old man dressed in a threadbare, but still elegant suit, that with a sash and a sword could have been a general’s uniform. I carried her to a hack and held her on the seat. Even with the trickling blood on her ivory face and matted hair, she was quite lovely. Her features, while not delicate were fine. Her bosom rose and fell with uneven breathing, but her heart beat was strong. The cab trotted to a side entrance of the hospital and it was not until I carried her into the receiving ward and saw the black people, did I realize that it was the Negro section of the hospital.
“Why this part of the hospital?” I asked. The mullato bowed his head. “She is octoroon,” he whispered.
Without even thinking, I piped up, “What’s an octoroon?”
Mr. Birt said, “An octoroon is one eighth negro.”
Doc went on talking as if I hadn’t butted in on his story. “There wasn’t a doctor or even a nurse. An aid with dirt-encrusted hands put her on a cot that smelled of urine from the last dozen occupants. There were no antiseptics but I washed her wound with soap and water. She moaned and opened her eyes.”
Doc got a sort of dreamy soft look. “God, Paul, you have never seen such eyes. They were green, sea green, like when clouds turn the ocean from blue to green on a hot summer day.”
Doc got out of his chair and paced back and forth, then poured another drink. “She the dark beauty you sometimes see in a French or Spanish woman. I was smitten, as much by pity and mystery as by her looks. I held a finger on her pulse. It was a small hand, but with signs of work. She was a lady, though; I had no doubt about that. She came awake, gradually, like a child coming out of a deep sleep. “What happened,” she asked. “There was an accident,” I said. . Then she asked if Felice, the pouty girl was hurt. I told her Felice was fine. She sank back on the cot and ran her fingers over the bandage. “I am Odette DuBucette,” she said. “That is French,” said I. “The family came from Haiti to Louisiana. My mother was the maid for the Master’s wife and I have always been Felice’s companion. The war ruined the family,” she said. When she asked for water, the mulatto came out of a dark corner with a pitcher. I added a tot of brandy.
The mulatto returned much later and swept her into his arms with great tenderness. “The massa is waiting with a carriage,” said he. The old man took her to the hotel and hired a slovenly nurse. “I spent every day with her until the danger of infection had passed. We talked of many things and I fell in love,” said Doc.
It was late, but I didn’t think of bed. Doc heated some left over coffee and went on with his story. “I played poker every evening took nearly three thousand dollars from the planters and Yankee traders. One night the old man came to the table, bowed and gave me an engraved carte de visite.
Colonel Antoine Henri Dubucette
Grand Gorgon of the Knights of the White Camelia.
He invited me to his club the next night at ten o’clock. Somehow, I just knew that Odette would be at the club and fantasized a night of romance. Her air of mystery, native intelligence and beauty had stirred me like no other woman. The club was in an old mansion behind a high iron fence. A servant opened the door into a long glittery hall with candle chandeliers and gas lights where there was tinkling laughter and the click of dice. The old mulatto, stepped from behind a statue and silently motioned towards a door leading to a dark walled garden with the sound of water gushing from a fountain. I sensed her presence behind a screen of Spanish moss hanging from the drooping limbs of an ancient oak tree. There was a rustle of silk as her face floated in the gloom. She wore a black dress with a shawl over her head and shoulders. She was seductive and mysterious and she touched my hand. Her voice was a mere whisper “It is too dangerous, go away before it is too late. He will kill you,” said she. On impulse, I kissed her. She melted into my arms, then pulled away into the night. Dubucette was in a side room at a table with three men playing straight poker, no limit. He motioned me to an empty chair. Odette glided into the room and stood at his back. Her eyes were lowered and her face expressionless. He told her to bring the wine. Like an obedient servant, she brought a tray of glasses and a bottle of golden Madiera.
There were stacks of gold pieces and greenbacks before the other players. The Yankee bet recklessly and lost steadily, but Dubucette and the others were canny players. After a few hands, it was clear that they had often played together. I lost heavily then took back my losses, mostly from an old planter, who quit the game. When I bluffed on a pair of jacks and took a large pot, the Yankee lost everything and stomped away from the table. I thought of stuffing the money in my pockets, taking Odette by the hand and running away. She had scarcely moved but her eyes followed the cards. More than once, she mouthed a message, ‘leave’.
The Colonel’s eyes glittered. He talked constantly about the war and his devastated plantation. He was half insane and talked about the blacks as if there had been no war and they were still slaves. “The Negroes are shiftless, drunken and thieves who still need the whip and chain,” said he. He glanced at Odette. I care for some like little children,” said he.
I dealt the next hand. He leaned across the table to pick up his cards and for a moment I gaze into his eyes that were the same startling sea green as Odette’s. The thought struck me that he was her father. The room was suddenly oppressive. I needed fresh air and excused myself.
We met at fountain. “Is the colonel your father?” I asked. “Yes, he had two families, but now, Felice and I are all he has,” she said. She was so close I could hear the silk of her dress whispering against her skin. “He has my brother locked up. I cannot leave him,” she murmured. I held her until she broke away and left with a delicate sway in her hips that made the silk dress seem alive.
I had won nearly twenty thousand dollars, more than enough to set up a fine practice in Chicago. The banker had tossed in his last hand and left the table after gulping a large snifter of brandy. Dubucette was down to a handful of greenbacks. It was very late and the candles were guttering low when the Odette brought another deck. He opened the new pack and shuffled. It was my deal, but he continued to riffle the cards from one hand to another.
“You fancy my Odette?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want her bad enough to bet your winnings? If you win she is yours.”
“Odette is not a thing to be bought and sold,” said I. “You Yankees will never understand the South,” said he.
I pushed my pile of coins and greenbacks to the center of table. He dealt five cards face down. At the last card, he smiled and turned over a pair of queens. I hesitated and turned over two nines then a deuce and a seven. My last card was the nine of clubs. Three of a kind beat his pair. The old man remained perfectly still; his face was impassive but his right hand was under the table. Odette’s face was frozen in fear. Everything was wrong. Dubucette had a nickel plated pocket pistol. I ducked and tipped the table in his lap. The bullet whizzed harmlessly past my ear but the the bartender gave me a terrific clout. The last thing I remembered was Odette’s scream.
“I woke up in the back of a carriage with a terrible headache. The kind old mulatto drove me to the dock and carried me up the gangway of the Memphis Queen headed for St. Louis.”
Mr. Birt opened his eyes like he was coming out of a dream. “Robert, you should go on back to New Orleans and get that woman, even if you have to shoot the old man.”
Doc looked into the dying fire a long time. “I couldn’t shoot him, but I think about her every day. She probably doesn’t even remember me.”
Doc was unsteady on his feet when he showed Mr. Birt to the door. I drifted off to sleep by the fire and dreamed but Rachel and Odette got all mixed up and confused. Real life was a whole lot different from the dime novels, where the hero always rode off with the girl.