Le Petit Versailles was as ever splendid inside as out, its rococo revival furnishings floridly reinterpreting the court of Louis XV. Armoires – a matching pair, decorated with pineapple motifs; a black-lacquered Bureau de Dame, set in the bowers of a deep bay window fringed on the outside with vine. At the end of the room, above the bleu-turquin stone mantel, hung a large mirror with a porcelain-gilt surround and delicate mother-of-pearl edging. This mirror, slightly concaved, gave those present a sense of there being also present, an identical group of people to themselves. A gathering, which continuously aped their movements – and ‘somewhat disturbingly so,’ Oxy observed.
Both Patrick and Oxy realised it would be one of their few last visits to this splendid place, so often home to them in recent times.
The house had an air of impregnability, as if war could not touch this place. That it was impervious to war. Above it.
Patrick now looked about the room where they sat. The magnificent six-holdered pewter chandelier hung from a ceiling of asymmetrical patterns of scrollwork and shellwork: crabs, crayfish and crustaceans – les fruits de Mississippi. The ceiling was the river, which brought bounty to the table beneath.
The table itself was of sixteen-setting proportions and carved of solid mahogany. On its richly-hued surface, silverware sparkled, face downwards to reduce wear. Thus also, the Labiche coat of arms, finely etched onto the gleaming underside of each piece, was upturned to face the guest. Over the table was suspended a large shoofly fan, attached to a plaited cord of crimson and gold. Discreetly standing behind Patrick, a young slave boy, decorous in matching colours of gold-trimmed crimson, waited to pull the rope, which opened the fan, which shooed the flies.
And there were yet other intriguing inventions to deal with the tender vicissitudes of Southern life. A duo of flytraps of intaglio-design cut-glass sat innocuously at an even distance from each end of the table. These were filled with equal measures of molasses and sticky, sugar-laden poison. The molasses with which to entice and entrap, and the poison to eliminate these uninvited guests from the Labiche table.
Window draperies puddled the floor. ‘No cutting of one’s cloth to more modest measure here,’ Oxy quietly observed to Patrick.
Rosewood and tulipwood tables were arranged along the walls of the room. These, interspaced by gondola chairs and a pair of high-backed Hitchcock chairs ‘from New England, but beautiful,’ Lucretia Labiche explained, in their defence.
A dual coffee table cum serving tray, now bore to the table cherubic syllabub, heavy with mantling cream and syrup-of-peach liqueurs.
Oxy enquired about the pineapple motif on the tray.
‘The pineapple is a symbol of Southern hospitality, Mr Moran,’ Lucretia Labiche answered. ‘But beware should ever you find one at the base of your bed!’ She left the warning hanging there, suspended above them.
‘A pineapple is a double edged fruit so to speak … like a sword,’ Emmeline chimed. ‘On the one hand hospitality … on the other hand, one at your bed means you have over-extended that hospitality. Oh, but it never happens with gentlemen!’ Emmeline was quick to qualify her explanation.
‘But the very beds themselves are made of pineapple?’ Oxy offered, somewhat mischievously, causing Cordelia to titter briefly beneath the tips of her fingers.
Her father continued the explanation. ‘Hospitality is something that is not an end in itself – a notion of the Northern neo-Christians. Here in the South, people – our cousins – travel great and treacherous journeys to visit each other. So, here in Louisiana, no hog is not fattened, no juicy morsel left unpicked. Visiting is what binds the family, the community, the South itself! And for our glorious South no effort is too great, no welcome too lavish!’
Both Oxy and Patrick concurred wholeheartedly and said so, encouraging their host to give further vent to his favourite subject, the South … and its superior culture.
Oxy flashed a quick smile at Patrick and both slightly reclined in their seats to hear the ‘Sermon from the Mouth’, as Oxy ungraciously referred to these passionate monologues from their host.
They were not to be disappointed.
‘Low-born, East Coast Americans have always threatened our culture, laughed at our houses and refused to speak our language. Now …’ Emeritus Labiche seized his sword and flashed it in the air. Without a flaw in the arc of its flight, their host sliced in two an unsuspecting pineapple held quakingly on a tray in the attendant slave’s hands.
‘Till the spoilers be defeated and the Lord’s work completed,’ he said triumphantly, as the juice of the fruit dripped from his blade. ‘And neither will Southern hospitality be found wanting, even for our foes. Let them advance a hostile foot upon our soil, and we will welcome them with bloody hands and hospitable graves.’