Elise

a continuation of the short story

　

Part Two

 

Introduction

Margret’s Tante Elise was visiting relatives near Alexandria when she got the news that Margret and those that had traveled to New Orleans with her had returned to Belle Vert and that all of them were down with the dreaded Yellow Fever. Tante Marie had passed away on September 1^st 1878

The others seemed to holding their own against the onslaught of the disease and Margret seemed to be improving. However, while Robert, who had written the letter, was hopeful that his daughter and the others would eventually recover, suggested that Elise should return to Belle Vert as soon as possible.

Elise received the letter on the 5^th, left Alexandria on the 7^th and arrived at Marksville in the early morning hours of the 8^th. Margret died the evening of the 9^th.This chapter concerns Elise’s journey from Alexandra to Belle Vert.

Tempus Fugit

1.

Elise packed and arrived at the station/ stage depot in time to catch either the stage, which was leaving in an hour or the train which was scheduled to depart a quarter hour later and had a half hour lay-over in Bunkie before heading northeast to Marksville. The coach was slower but traveled a shorter distance going in an almost straight line from Alexandria to Marksville. Barring any mishap Elise knew that she would reach Marksville about forty-five minutes to an hour before the train and that the ride though a bit rougher would be smoke free.

The stagecoach left the depot on schedule at 5:30 pm with Elise, a Mrs. Trosclair and two gentlemen a M. St. Amant and a M. Jonquil. M. Jonquil had lost a lower limb in the late war at Fort De Russy and M. St. Amant was at least seventy years old.

Traveling over the rutted highway with the coach lurching from one pot hole to the next made for slow progress but the road was wide enough for two coaches to travel side by side or for one to pass another going in opposite directions and well drained. It was only after a heavy rain that road became difficult to navigate and it had rained hard earlier in the day although it had stopped about an hour before the coach left Alexandria or when Elise had arrived at the station.

However, the traffic that had traveled between Alexandria and Marksville during and after the rain had caused numerous new ruts or cut the older ones deeper not to mention widening and deepening the already existing potholes.

About five miles out from Alexandria they ran into a traffic jam one freight wagon had become mired in a particularly deep pot hole and no matter what he did or how much he swore the driver of the wagon could not get it to budge.

The coachmen and the freight wagon driver finally got the wagon on level ground after hitching the four coach horses with the six mules pulling the wagon and pushing the freight wagon from behind which did nothing for the cleanliness of their clothes or their language.

Finally after about an hour of pulling by the combined teams and the pushing from behind the freight wagon was freed and of course had to be loaded again but that was the teamster’s job not the coachmen’s so bidding the blue-in-the-face freight driver a fond fair well, the coach was once again on it’s way.

By this time, darkness had settled over the landscape. The coachmen stopped after another mile or so to light the lanterns on the coach sides… Both front and rear. These lanterns were not an aid the driver. It was more a precaution to assure that they were seen by other vehicles approaching from both the front and the rear than to help him to see the road. It also served as a beacon to any with nefarious plans in mind. Luckily, the moon was out and bright enough for the driver to see the curves in the road before actually coming to them.

Eight miles out of Marksville the coach was stopped by a tree that had fallen across the road. With only four horses in the traces, it was impossible for the tree to be moved to the side allowing the coach to pass.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a man appeared. He was dressed for the evening in a crème colored swallowtail coat under which, when it caught the light proved to be a ruffled pink shirt. He had beautiful, even white teeth that sparkled when touched by moonbeams that lighted his swarthy complexion. His eyes though were sad. He was riding an Appaloosa thoroughbred and leading four mules in traces.

There was, however something otherworldly about him. When a cloud passed in front of the moon

dimming but not completely blocking its light The man appeared to be translucent. But in full moonlight, he looked just as any other person would. This was not something he could control at will; at times, it was only in dim starlight that he appeared to be transparent. In darkness when the light did not illuminate his physical appearance, he was a picture of normalcy. But the odd thing was that he and his wife Jeanne could walk around in daylight as living human beings no different in general appearance than any other person.

“Bonsoir” gentilhommes “, he said bowing and doffing his hat as he eyed the two revolvers drawn and pointed in his direction from the dark interior of the coach. ‘

“I have no fusils with me only a small pistolet that I carry for protection and it is securely holstered so sil vous plait, put away the pistolets a’ six coups, he asked in broken English.

When he saw the gun barrels withdrawn and heard the clicks as the two men inside the coach turned the cylinders to resettle the hammers on the empty chamber he smiled broadly. His perfect teeth glowing in the bright moonlight.

“Aller a l ‘ouvrage, now to work,” he said to no one in particular. With that he dismounted and proceeded attach the traces of his four mules to the narrowest part of the tree that he could reach. A the same time the coachmen were leading the team of horses to an area near to where the lone horseman had hitched the mules.

Inside the coach the two women were interested in what was happening and tried to see what was going on but were seated on the side of the coach that faced the opposite side of the road, while the two gentlemen with them kept a wary eye on the efforts of the lone horseman and the two coachmen to move the tree enough so that the coach might pass.

Every now and then, when she happened to catch a glimpse of the other side of the road and spotted the men working the two teams of animals Elise thought the man in the swallowtail coat looked oddly familiar as though she knew him from a long time past. But try as she might to recall who he was she could not and that was strange because she prided herself on remembering people and being able to put names with faces.

It was around midnight before the tree had been moved far enough to the side of the road to allow the coach enough room to go around it. The two coachmen rehitched the horses to the traces on the coach while the man in the swallowtail coat undid his mules from the tree and returned to where he had tied his horse leading the mules behind him.

As he passed the side of coach that the women were on Elise stuck her head out of the window and started to ask where who he was and how she knew him. As he turned to answer her the moon scudded behind a cloud dimming the light just enough so that he appeared to be a translucent specter. His skull showed through the flesh of his face, his hair changed color from graying brunette to snow white; his eyes appeared sunken in their sockets, only his teeth remained as they had been. He was of course unaware of this. Mrs. Trosclair gasped and fainted and Elise stifled a cry placing her hand over her mouth. She now knew who he was he was her grand pere Antoine, who had died of yellow fever in 1853!

As the cloud moved away and the full light of the moon fell on Antoine, he became once again the person that had appeared from nowhere. Still unaware of how he had appeared when the moon went behind that cloud he bowed from the waist to Elise said softly, “au revoir, demoiselle, au plus tard.” With that, he turned off the road and as suddenly as he had appeared, he vanished.

The coach continued on to Marksville arriving a little before two in the morning. Elise decided to spend the rest of the night at the home of her Tante Alice and continue on to Belle Vert in the light of day.

Accordingly, she walked from Marksville’s stage depot the three blocks to her aunt’s home on Rue Savage and knocked on the door. She was admitted by a sleepy, surprised servant and went directly to the guest room where she slept until nine o clock in the morning.

Upon awakening, Elise surprised her Tante by walking into the kitchen in her nightdress.

“Why, ma chere,” her tante managed to say between chews on a particularly tough piece of fried beef;

What a pleasant surprise---- when did you arrive from Alexandria?

“At two this morning, Elise replied, smiling. It always amazed her that Tante Alice was never really surprised by anything and took all in stride as if her showing up in the middle of the night was the most normal thing in the world.

“How are Armand and his darling wife Mellissa?

Another thing about Tante Alice was that she knew all the gossip and comings and goings of most of the people that inhabited Marksville and the surrounding area.

“They are well Tante Alice and prosperous Mellissa is growing plump, she must be eating well.”

Elise noticed the smile that lit her aunt’s face and the sparkle in her dark blue eyes at the mention of Mellissa’s weight gain.

“It is not over eating that is causing her waist thicken chere,” Aunt Alice said with a smile.

“What? Elise exclaimed, she said nothing to me!”

“Melissa, as you well know is shy, she would never let out that she is in a family way.

I learned that bit of information from Armand a few days ago in a letter he wrote, I am surprised that he did not tell you--- I suppose he thought you already knew.

I hear from Belle Vert that Margret is very sick with the fever and may very well die from it. She is that sick Elise. I fear that we may be attending another funeral very soon.”

“Oui, I received a letter from Robert not saying how serious the crisis is but urging me to return to Belle Vert as soon as possible, In the letter he said that it looked as though Margret was improving slightly which I took as a good sign.”

Alice shook her head, took another bite of fried beef chewed awhile, swallowed then replied.

It seems, Elise, that Robert’s hope, for that is all it was, is not going to be realized. The Doctor, Doctor Delacroix holds out very little hope for Margret’s recovery.

“Then I had best be going Tante Alice, it is another hour from Marksville to Belle Vert.”

“Sit ma chere, have some breakfast, then be on your way, I doubt if your presence or lack of it will make much difference one way or the other.”

After a hearty breakfast if fried beef, grits, eggs and biscuits Elise dressed and borrowed on of Aunt Alice’s buggies for the drive to Belle Vert.

A quarter of the way there whom should she meet on the road by the person she believed to be her Grand pere Antoine! He was dressed in riding clothes, a short burgundy colored coat and soft tanned leather riding britches that were tucked into calf-high leather boots dyed the same color as his coat.

He was not alone but had a riding companion, a woman Elise guessed to be about thirty years old sitting sidesaddle on a chestnut mare and dressed in a powder blue cotton riding habit, which set off her auburn hair to an advantage. The lady nodded to Elise, smiled, then turned to face Antoine. She said something under her breath that Elise could not quite make out---”Tu vien? Are you coming?”

A la longue ma vieille, a la longue.*”

“Bien, ” she replied. “good,” with a toss of her head the lady turned headed toward Belle Vert.

Elise could hear the whisperings between the couple but could not make out the conversation..

With the lady’s departure Antoine turned his attention again to Elise, “pardon demoiselle but my lady has to change for this evening’s constitutional through the garden. We fear that it will be last walk we will take for quiet a while.

His tone and the finality in his voice worried Elise. He sounded resigned to what she feared was going to happen in the next few hours.

“Come ma petite rose,” he continued, “I will see you the house where Robert and Madeleine are awaiting your arrival..

As Elise and her companion drove up the lane toward the great house, Elise glanced to the left and thought she saw Margret running over the lawn to greet them. She started to wave but dropped her arm when she realized that it was just a hound gamboling in the evening’s dusk.

Upon reaching, the door to the house Antoine helped her down from the buggy, when she turned to thank him he had vanished along with the appaloosa stallion he had been riding.

A happy but subdued reunion of brother-in-law and sister-in-law took place when she entered the house. The anteroom, foyer and rooms on either side of the entrance were dark and empty. Elise called out and was greeted by the sound of heavy boots rushing down the stairs toward her.

She met Robert at the foot of the stairs and noticed right off the haggard look on his face and the redness of his eyes. The dimness of the light from outside accentuated rather than hid his drawn look and the sorrow in his eyes.

Gathering Elise into his arms he kissed her forehead and cheeks, she returned his embrace and asked after Margret and how Madeleine was holding up. Robert only shook his head and let out a sigh.

“We have been on our knees, praying all day that le Bon Dieu let this pass. But Margret is losing ground, just a while ago, I returned to Margret’s room, she fights, but we both fear that it is a losing battle. The doctor is surprised that she has held on this long.

* A la longue ma vieille, a la longue= In due time my wife, in due time.

Maddie is brave and stronger than I am she has been all day without food but me I had to eat something. I was just on my way back to Margret’s room when I heard you call and rushed down to greet you.

“Come” Robert, continued, we will gather ‘round Margret’s bed and pray the rosary; Our Lord said the wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He is there with them. Perhaps with you here He will grant our request.

Elise replied, “Might it wait until I refresh myself and change for the evening? I believe that I may have a caller or callers this evening.

“Who?” Robert inquired.

“Oh” she replied, “an elderly couple I met on my trip back here, I invited them to stay in the guest house for tonight or longer if they so wish. However, I think they will be on their way tomorrow. They are going on to New Orleans where a nephew lives,” she lied, but they may stay over for another day or so.

“And their name” Robert asked.

“Le Carrie, your cousins I believe, Rene’s tante and oncle.

“Non,” he replied, it cannot be, they moved west after the war, when Rene decided to enter the priesthood.

He is their only heir and when they die, the estate will go to the church and not Rene, Oncle

Sebastian cannot allow that because he has been excommunicated. And refuses to leave anything that the church may profit from upon his death. Strange is it not, that their only nephew that bears the same surname became a priest and the Oncle is an excommunicate. That branch of the Le Carries had always been---- eccentric to put it nicely. I wonder why they are going to see Rene.”

“I have no idea“, Elise answered, “but whatever the reason I have extended our hospitality to them“.

As it turned out the Le Carries went straight on to New Orleans not spending the evening or night at Belle Vert. But Robert and Madeleine were none the wiser, because Elise did indeed welcome a couple of “older” people for dinner and to spend the night. Her arriere parents Antoine and Jeanne who, not to alarm the present residents of the house assumed the guise of the Le Carries. After a “Le Grande Dejeuner” and a bit of polite conversation around the supper table Robert and Madeleine excused themselves and retired to Margret’s room where they spent a painful and prayerful night listening to Margret’s shallow, labored breathing.

Elise, after bidding bon soir to her arriere parents joined Robert and Madeleine to pray by Margret’s bed throughout the night.

Margret lingered on through the day and early evening of the ninth passing away at 8:18 PM that evening. She was put to rest a week later in the family crypt.

Things at Belle Vert seemed to settle into the old familiar routines that are daily occurrences on a working plantation--------.

2.

After the funeral, Madeleine went through the daily chores as if in trance. She did her work with mechanical precision, neither smiling or crying, she ate when she felt hungry, drank when she was thirsty wrote the necessary thank you notes to those who had attended the burial. She spoke only when spoken to never starting or taking part in a conversation. Every day three times a day she visited the crypt morning, noon and evening would find her there, kneeling or walking round and round the tomb praying the Roman Catholic prayers for the dead reading from her Mass Missile.

Eventually she would return to the house and pick up her chores from where she left.

This went on for weeks; finally, near the end of November the dam broke she began to cry hysterically no matter what the others did she would not be comforted. She wandered through the house calling Margret’s name, she wandered the fields and woods that surrounded Belle Vert searching, calling, becoming angry when Margret refused to answer or show herself.

Madeleine no longer went near the family tomb and showed irrational fear when it was suggested that she go there to pray. She would run up to Margret’s room and latch the door behind her.

All the pounding on the door the threats and pleas to get her to come out were ignored.

“I am here with Margret,” she would shout through the door, “I will come out when she is asleep.”

And that evening around eight thirty she would exit Margret’s room and go down for supper

seeming in full control of her faculties. For the next few days sometimes a week or longer she appeared sane. Then something a visitor would say or some occurrence would set her off again.

As time went on Madeleine’s “spells” became longer and longer.

Finally, out of desperation Robert had her committed to a new facility for the insane in Jackson Louisiana

According to the mores of that time it was unseemly that a woman of Elise’s age, a spinster

should live in the same house as her brother-in-law. Who for all intents and purposes could be considered a widower. It was decided that she would move in with Tante Alice. That way the two ladies would have companionship and Elise could visit Belle Vert whenever she wished.

Shortly after Madeleine was committed, Robert placed a quarter of the Belle Vert shares he and Madeleine owned as husband and wife. In Elise’s name so that she would have an income. One quarter he kept to use for the bills Madeleine would incur while in the hospital and his half to run the plantation and for personal use. Whatever was left over from the years earnings was placed in a general savings account. That both he and Elise had access to.

When the war ended in 1865, Elise was at the optimum marriageable age of nineteen. But alas, it was not to be, the war had seen to that with the capture of both New Orleans and Baton Rouge in 1862 her fate was sealed. All of the young men she grew up with that would have been courting her were either dead or still fighting.

Reconstruction began in Louisiana in1862 and continued until Federal troops left the state in 1877. Elise was approaching thirty-two when Margret died of the yellow fever and had just crossed the threshold into what was deemed permanent maidenhood when Madeleine was committed to the insane asylum at Jackson Louisiana.

Tante Alice lived another two years leaving this world at the age of 101years and all of her worldly possessions to Elise as all three of her boys had been killed in the late war and buried in anonymous graves leaving as far as could be determined no heirs.

This turn of events left Elise quite wealthy . “A lady of means” as the saying went. Soon most of the eligible men, both widowers and bachelors were “camping in her dooryard.” She still had a few childbearing years left which made her that much more attractive.

But Elise would have none of it for almost two years she had been fending off suitors and shortly after Tante Alice died, she decided to take a trip to New Orleans.

In November 1880, Elise went to Alexandria to catch the train for New Orleans. When she arrived at the station the train she wanted to board was almost filled to capacity the two passenger cars seemed to be overflowing with vacationers and people going to New Orleans or points along the way for business or pleasure. The hubbub, and people rushing hither and yon was both exciting and maddening as it made the way difficult for those who were trying to board the last train to leave for New Orleans until the next morning

Five minutes before the train was scheduled to depart the conductor appeared on the steps of the leading passenger car. He looked drawn and pale as a ghost his rummy black pupils, burning coals in his sunken eye sockets.

“There is room for another passenger,” His voice sounded hollow, spectral, he tried to smile but it appeared to be more of grimace. Elise was hurrying forward when her way was blocked by none other than Tante Alice! She smiled at Elise and beckoned her to the side. Responding without a second thought Elise joined her aunt. As soon as she had stepped aside and out of the boarding line the gentleman behind her tipped his hat and hurried forward to get the last seat available.

Elise followed her to a less crowded area of the station wondering what it was that was so important that she had to miss the last train to New Orleans.

It was then she realized who it was that had caused her to quit the line.

Aunt Alice grinned at her and said

“ There will be another train tomorrow Elise, This one will only get to Donaldsonville-----” When Elise started to say something Aunt Alice smiled at her and was gone before she could get a word out.

With evening closing in, and Elise not relishing the thought of returning to Belle Vert by night coach she decided to seek a room at a nearby boarding house. The closest one was three blocks from the station. Seeing that twilight was just settling in and believing that she could walk the three blocks to the boarding house before full dark saving cab fare Elise started out, leaving her luggage in the station house “safe” room for the night. After arriving at the boarding house and paying for her room, she inquired of the clerk if there was an eating establishment nearby. The clerk replied in the affirmative and gave her directions to the restaurant, which was a block from the boarding house and around the corner to the right.

As she walked to the restaurant, the wind picked up causing Elise to wrap her shawl more tightly around her. The trees boarding the street rattled their limbs and sent a shower of leaves running up the road.

After her supper of buttered bread and tea Elise was returning to the boarding house this time heading into the wind instead of being pushed along by it. She had her head down and watching where she stepped only glancing up every now and then to see how much further she had to go. Once when she glanced up she thought she saw a man coming toward her, his face hidden by the cloud shadows that drifted across the moon’s white pocked face. As he drew closer, a break appeared in the clouds and she recognized the conductor of the train that her Aunt Alice had kept her from boarding. His face was pale, bloodless in the light of the full November moon and his eyes shone with a fierce greenish light. He wore no hat and his hair, what there was of it, trailed in long gray strands behind him like a tattered flag in the wind. Just before he reached her he grinned showing decaying teeth, he reached out to take hold of her arm---- The next thing she knew she was standing before the entrance of the boarding house in a daze, breathing in short gasps trying to catch her breath. a person, their back toward Elise was re-boarding the cab after having walked with her to the door of the house. She assumed it was a woman, because she thought she heard the soft rustle of taffeta as the person settled onto the bench of the cab.

She had no way of knowing whom her benefactor was not having seen the him/her clearly. There had been someone else in the cab also, an adolescent girl on the cusp of womanhood, who kept to herself in the shadows. Elise did not remember climbing into the cab for the short ride to boarding house. But she did remember to thank her rescuer and the girl. The girl said nothing, giving no sign that she had heard Elise’s thank you.

The other person, her savior, nodded briefly and Elise thought that she saw the ghost of a smile on the person’s lips.

As she stood in the alcove she took a final look at the disappearing cab, with a shock she recognized the face of the girl/ woman looking at her from the rear window of the vehicle It was Margret!

Early the next morning Elise, along with most of the citizens of Alexandria learned that the train “The City of New Orleans” had derailed just outside of Donaldsonville killing fifty-two passengers and sending a number of others to hospitals in Baton Rouge.

“This is not an auspicious time to be traveling on holiday,” Elise thought to herself, “I believe I had best go home.”

She left Alexandria within the hour in a rented buggy heading back to Marksville. The trip back was uneventful the weather was bright and sunny but a cold wind was at her back helping her along. she arrived at the house on Rue Savage three hours after departing Alexandria.

All went well for the remainder of November and the better part of December. The sugar cane had been harvested and prepared for market. The speculators paid top dollar for the product. Robert and Elise had money in the bank---- Yes despite the personal tragedies suffered over the past year and a quarter. The owner and operators of Belle Vert were doing well.

Eduard, Elise’s brother had been in Europe for the past two years conducting business and enjoying an extended vacation. However he wrote he would be home for Christmas or the New-Year.

Which was welcome news as no one absolutely no one could throw a party like Oncle Eduard.

He knew of the Yellow Fever outbreak, learned of it through Ruther’s News service and he had received the sad news of Margret’s death along with that of his Tante Marie by telegraph.

He had wired back his condolences but replied that he could not just yet take ship for home as his business had yet to be concluded.

In reality he would not have been able to get back to Louisiana in time for the funeral and all knew that.

At the beginning of December 1880 Robert received news that Madeleine had died at the facility in Jackson. The people there offered to bury her on the grounds and erect a proper headstone.

Of course Robert and Elise refused and made arrangements for her body to be shipped home by rail.

He immediately wired his brother-in-law of Madeleine’s death and requested that he board the next ship for home. “Things,” he said in the telegram, “ were coming unglued at Belle Vert and he was needed at home yesterday.”

Robert had never been privy to the comings and goings of the various ghosts. If anyone of those privileged to have had contact with them had said something to him about them he would have shrugged it of as nonsense. After all he had been through a horrible war saw men literally blown apart or die in slow agony. There was one death that stood out vividly in his mind a death he would never forget.

A solider, he did not know the man, had snatched the colors from the dying hands of the previous flag bearer and was charging straight toward the Confederate lines waving the Stars and Stripes and yelling at the top of his voice.

A minie ball struck the man in the mouth followed by a fuselage of bullets that struck his body in numerous places and kept striking him. The flag pole had stuck into the ground and the man’s hand was still holding on to it. The bullets kept striking his torso keeping him erect. Even though the solider was his enemy Robert could not help the tears that fell from his eyes as he watched in horror for what seemed an eternity.

“Please God,” Robert prayed aloud “let him fall, let him fall.” But the bullets kept striking the now dead body, it could not fall. Finally the firing from the Confederate line diminished allowing the almost unrecognizable body to fall to earth.

That picture stayed with Robert haunting his dreams for a long time after the war had ended.

“Ghosts? Pah! He would have thought, what foolishness!

It took the better part of a week for Madeleine’s body to arrive at Alexandria and then more time to prepare for the crypt for proper burial of her remains.

Therefore, for the time being the casket had been placed in the large parlor or main sitting room

As the room was then called. A wake was held and people from as far away as Baton Rouge attended. Robert’s cousin from New Orleans, Rene now Father Rene Le Carrie was asked to officiate at the funeral Mass to be held the day of the burial. Eduard arrived home by steam packet and private coach in the early morning hours the day of the funeral; having steamed across the Atlantic on a steam-powered sail-driven frigate and boarding the steam packet for the trip up the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya and thence to Pointe Coupee and the private coach awaiting him at Simmsport.

Saturday the eighteenth arrived gloomy and wet matching the spirits of the mourners for Madeleine had been well loved by family and friends.

Madeleine was buried as were most of the deceased with a portrait of her in life embedded into a sheet of lead and covered with a pane of thick glass.

From the day of Madeleine’s funeral things at Belle Vert began to deteriorate . At first it was hardly noticeable small objects either disappeared or were moved to another location. Then Margret’s bedroom door was found to be latched from the inside. Yet when one of the servants climbed through the bedroom window to get to the door it was found unlatched.

On moonlit nights the figure of a woman in her late thirties or early forties was seen wandering throughout the house first on the stairs, then the upper landing, then crossing the kitchen across the breezeway. Wandering over the grounds , at the tomb. She could be seen just about anywhere with the moonlight shining through her lighting her skeleton through transparent flesh.

She didn’t seem sad or happy just there as though she was searching for something or someone.

Robert saw her as well as others staying at Belle Vert . It was as though she wanted her presence known.

Things continued like that for months but only on moon lit nights if there was a storm or new moon or even heavy cloud cover things were quiet until the next time the moon shone.

The End of Time

Robert and Elise were married on Saturday June 11 1881 and moved to Elise’s house in Marksville leaving Belle Vert in care of a human caretaker and the various ghosts that now inhabited the plantation house. For the previous six months before the marriage, Robert who lived there alone except for house servants was visited almost constantly by mischievous sprits. A various times Margret could been seen running about the house, or sitting on the porch in her favorite rocker talking and laughing with her mother and grandparents The phantoms of Tante Marie and others standing or sitting around holding quiet conversations when Margret or her mother and grand parents were elsewhere. It was as though when Madeleine was placed in the crypt the tomb became alive.

The house was kept in good repair. Robert and Elise worked there during the day with little interference

From the “others” Except for every once in while the ledgers were found with mysterious erasures or additions or a pencil would be broken, an inkwell overturned. It was as if a group of unruly children were running amuck when the office was closed for lunch or the evening.

On Christmas Eve 1881 Robert and Elise decided to spin the night at the plantation and have Christmas dinner there the next day.

They invited a few friends over for the day. Things were going perfectly the day was almost cold and a merry fire crackled in the huge hearth keeping the hosts and the guests warm and comfortable. Dinner was a success and the mulled wine and drinks served afterward put everyone in the holiday mood.

The party went on for hours. By the time it was time to go to evening Mass, Christmas this year being on a Sunday; the party goers were in a very jovial mood and all piled into a large wagon to go to the Christmas Mass.

No one bothered to blank the fire in the dining room or the adjacent parlor. As most of the neighbors were also at the evening Mass The fire at Belle Vert was not discovered until almost too late The house itself, the main living area was nearly completely destroyed. The only thing that was barely touched by the fire was the adjoining kitchen area across the breezeway and the adjacent servants quarters. And this was due to the fact that while the owners and guests were at Mass a rainstorm had developed and drenched the southern part of Avoyelles parish effectively putting out fire.

It took more than six months to restore Belle Vert to its former state and this exhausted Robert to the point where his health was put into serious jeopardy.

Elise of course took care of him as best she could but he continued to be weak in strength and seemed to have lost the will to live.

He lingered on until early October dieing on the fourteenth just two days after his forty fifth birthday.

He was followed in death by Elise two months later on sixteen December 1882.

She was buried in the family tomb next to her husband and the tomb was sealed shut.

Eduard the only surviving family member of the original family sold all of the family holdings to a corperation with the proviso that the home and grounds be kept up. He then moved to Texas where he lived out the remainder of his days in comfort.

No one ever lived in the house at Belle Vert again although it was and still is kept in good repair by the Sugar cane co-op that owns and raises cane on the property.

It is rumored however that on nights of the waxing moon there are lights and music and laugher that can be heard coming from Belle Vert and some nights, particularly when the full moon shines directly down on Belle Vert there are ghostly lanterns hanging on the gallery and surrounding trees as a swarty man with perfect teeth glides over the ground of the dooryard holding a pretty, petite red haied woman in his arms.

And a man with a solider’s bearing dances with a young strawberry blonde as two slightly older women watch from rocking chairs on the gallery awaiting their turn to dance.

　

　

Finis!