St. Charles at Dusk: The House of Crimson and Clover Series Prequel Page 4

  I pulled out a studio photo taken her sophomore year in high school, only months before her disappearance, indulging in a study of her long red hair and blue eyes. People used to say her eyes changed color with her moods, a truly rare occurrence. I knew that to be true, though it was the hue which changed, not the color itself.

  Attached to the left side of the folder was a brief history my father wrote on the family before I was born. He revised it right after the accident. It was not formally part of the legal file; rather intended as a quick point of reference for anyone new to the case who needed some background.

  File: Deschanel, Charles

  An Informal Family History

  Scribe: Colin Sullivan, Jr.

  Last Update: Fall 1996

  Nuclear Family:

  Charles Deschanel 1950-1996

  Cordelia Hendrickson-Deschanel 1951- 1996

  Nicolas Deschanel 1975

  Nathalie Deschanel 1977- 1996

  Giselle Deschanel 1978- 1996

  Lucienne Deschanel 1979- 1996

  Adrienne Deschanel 1980- Status Unknown

  Lisette Duchéne* 1958- 1980

  *Maid; Birth mother of Nathalie, Giselle, Lucienne, and Adrienne. Mother of legal record is Cordelia Deschanel.

  History:

  Charles Deschanel, and his wife Cordelia, were among the wealthiest of the New Orleans upper society. They owned and inhabited the great plantation, Ophélie, one of the few plantations on River Road still occupied by its original family owners. Charles’ second-great grandfather, a wealthy landowner also named Charles, emigrated from France to Louisiana and purchased the thirty acres of land in 1844, the same year he married Brigitte L’Allarde.

  A series of shrewd investments and boom profits left the family with immense wealth, both in physical land (their local properties included two Garden District homes, a townhouse on Esplanade Ridge, several office buildings in the Central Business District, and two entire city blocks in the French Quarter), in addition to investments all over the world.

  Charles and Cordelia were married in 1974. Cordelia was the daughter of a German textile merchant, Franz Hendrickson, though she was raised in the Garden District. Their marriage was skillfully arranged by Cordelia’s father.

  Both of Charles’ parents are deceased; August Deschanel passed in 1961, and his wife, Colleen, in 1994.

  As of record, Charles has five living siblings: Augustus, Colleen, Maureen, Evangeline, and Elizabeth, each with children, and in some cases, grandchildren, of their own. Refer to individual files for further information.

  Ophélie:

  In 1844, Charles Deschanel (the second-great grandfather of the above-mentioned Charles), emigrated from France to Louisiana and purchased thirty acres of land. While the source of original funds for this purpose is unknown, the family met with immediate success in sugar crops.

  In order to please his child bride of twelve years old, young even for that time, the original Charles Deschanel built the Big House, a forty-five room Greek Revival. The house sits back about an eighth of a mile from the road, and large parterre gardens flank either side of the dirt driveway (partial brick was added later). It was one of the few to upgrade to modern innovations such as indoor plumbing and running hot and cold water, although the original privy house remains intact. Galleries run the entire circumference of the Big House with two-story columns of Ionic capitals and un-fluted columns. The balconies are adorned with wrought iron lacework imported from Spain, and a belvedere was added to the roof several years after completion. Italianate bay windows line the back and left wing of the house. Although the floorboards were built from cypress, most of the building materials were imported from New England and Europe. The home was complete by the time their first daughter, Ophélie, was born, and it was after her the plantation was named.

  Similar to the other great plantations of the time, the farm was almost completely self-sufficient, with over two hundred buildings behind the Big House that kept daily life in the antebellum South smooth and efficient. Among them were kitchens, a chapel for family prayer and a cemetery, sugarhouse and sugar mill, plantation store, blacksmith shop, pigeonniers, overseer’s cottage, cisterns, storage sheds, curing huts, a carriage house, horse and livestock barns, silversmiths, and along the back, several neat rows of slave cabins, followed by acres of undeveloped cypress swamp. The home enjoyed privacy due to its position off the road as well as the numerous live oaks, magnolias, and banana trees that provided shade and shelter to the entire plantation. In the fifteen or so years preceding the Civil War, an extra wing was added as well as a garçonierre for their sons Jean and Fitz. For Brigitte, Charles contracted a botanist from Italy to come design a romantic and ornate garden to the rear of the house. Her diary suggests she spent many long hours roaming its paths.

  During the Civil War, Ophélie, and most of the outbuildings ,were spared due to the size and ability to accommodate an entire company of the Union army. New Orleans was captured early, and Charles’ brother was a remarkably gifted doctor whose services saved many Union lives. The family was able to retain most of their valuables, many of which are still in the Big House today.

  Following the war, the plantation saw only a few more decades of its once fertile and plentiful crops. Though the farming ceased, and the slaves were freed (or, in the cases of the most loyal, paid to remain), the Deschanels continued to live at Ophélie. During Reconstruction, the family profited from the boom in shipping and textiles.

  Ophélie was passed down, through the men of the family, from one generation to the next in strict tradition. Over the years, many of the buildings were torn down and at least half the acreage sold off to various oil refineries or other interested parties. By the time Charles and Cordelia inherited Ophélie, all that remained was the Big House, a handful of out-buildings, and half of the original sugar crops. The Deschanel estate, however, was another matter.

  Paranormal Elements:

  REFER TO CONFIDENTIAL FILE OF SAME NAME. LIMITED ACCESS.

  The rest of the file was mostly legal paperwork, excepting the few news clippings from the accident:

  MILLIONAIRE INVESTOR AND FAMILY MEET TRAGIC END NEAR LAFAYETTE; FAMILY OF 6 PERISH IN GRUESOME CAR ACCIDENT DURING SUMMER RAIN STORM; TRAGIC FAMILY ACCIDENT LEAVES SURVIVING SON GRIEF-STRICKEN AMID SPECULATION ON MISSING BODY OF SISTER; MONTHS AFTER SOCIETY TRAGEDY, BODY OF DESCHANEL TEEN STILL EVADES SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAMS.

  I couldn’t bring myself to read any of them. I knew the story already; knew more than the papers reported. The clippings relayed facts: names, places, events, devoid of feeling and the burden of experience. They said nothing of how beautiful those four girls–Nathalie, Lucienne, Giselle, and Adrienne–were; how their father doted over all four of them. It didn’t give any history of the family dynamics, nor did they tell of Cordelia’s cold regard for the four girls not born to her.

  I closed the file and reflected upon my deeper understanding of the Deschanels. Details passed safely, only by word of mouth, not part of this document, nor any journalist’s account.

  Having represented the Deschanels for many years, Sullivan & Associates were involved in many of the family’s affairs and dealings. The family, while universally of good intentions, had its share of oddities, many of which were documented, to some extent, in the locked file titled Paranormal Elements. Only a select few of us had access, as the secrets contained could be catastrophic to the family if revealed to the general public.

  While Charles Deschanel's line had used our firm for many generations, another section of the family, led by his sister Colleen Deschanel, also employed our services. We helped them manage the legal affairs of The Deschanel Magi Collective, a group formed to catalogue and manage those in the family who claimed to have "gifts." Having practically grown up with the family, witnessing things modern science could not begin to explain, I accepted these unusual talents as fact.

  Anasofiya, my first love, was a Deschanel cousin who could heal herself. I
watched her re-form a broken arm after falling from a tree, and make cuts and scrapes disappear entirely. Her father, Augustus, had the power to persuade anyone to do anything, which had served him well in managing his media company.

  There were many other Deschanels with unique abilities, though somehow, neither Charles, nor any of his children, had a single one. Benign, was the word the family used to describe them. Adrienne and her sisters were very normal children, in a family that was anything but.

  The public did not know of these things. They were too busy gossiping about the bigger scandal, namely the coinciding event of the births of Charles' four daughters, Nathalie, Giselle, Lucienne, and Adrienne, and the arrival of their nanny, Lisette. Perhaps the word gossip was misleading; it was common knowledge Lisette was the mother of the four girls. Everyone inside the family knew. No one ever denied it.

  How does a married man have children with his nanny–four times–and still be accepted in society? How does his wife hold her head up when she is in public? The simple answer is this is still the Old South, and we are a proud people, above our own private actions. The legacy of rich family history and wealth didn’t hurt, either.

  It was not uncommon to hear people whisper about what a mismatch he and Cordelia were, or what a good man Charles was for putting up with her. Either she was unskilled at hiding her true feelings or she did not care enough to do so, but almost everyone who knew her found her at best unpleasant, and at worst downright hateful. Regardless, the fact that Charles married her, and had been so kind and tolerant, was in and of itself enough to elevate him to sainthood in the eyes of the rest of New Orleans. That he found some comfort with the maid was of no consequence.

  After Nicolas was born, in 1975 (only a month after my birth), Cordelia made the private decision not to have more children. According to Charles, the doctors informed him Cordelia had been rushed into surgery for an emergency hysterectomy, but the firm found documentation which didn’t match the original story. It appeared Cordelia requested the clandestine surgery to escape the burden of future childbearing, signing a waiver indicating she understood the risks of such an unnecessary surgery at her age.

  Charles was mortified and unbelievably heartbroken, refusing to even speak to Cordelia at first. Later, when he confronted her with the findings, she declined to provide him with any reasonable explanation to ease his disgust on the subject. He threatened to serve her with divorce papers for her treachery, to which it is said she replied: “Not that! I will find a way for you to have your little girls Charles, on my word.”

  It was Cordelia’s mother who unintentionally saved the Deschanel marriage when she offered up her personal maidservant, Lisette Duchéne, to take care of young Nicolas. People said Cordelia no more wanted to be a mother than to be bald and penniless, so the offer was quickly accepted, and Lisette became a permanent fixture of the Deschanel household.

  To say Charles was smitten with the seventeen-year old French girl would be something of an understatement. He was fascinated with her naiveté and unwitting charm from the start. She spoke very little English, but understood every word he said. She was lithe and tiny of build, with a small face resembling a porcelain doll. Charles told my father once that when she uttered her broken English, he could do nothing but stare at her small, plump mouth, and think all sorts of unmentionable thoughts.

  And that was how it all started. Though Cordelia put up a fierce battle over the decision Charles made to have children by their young maid, she had only one other option: divorce. To Cordelia, divorce symbolized much more than the dissolution of the marriage. She would be shamed in her social circles. Her father, who had assisted in masterminding the union, would surely disown her. She would be left stripped of her money and reputation, the two things which meant the most to her. And Cordelia must have realized, on some level, this was entirely her own doing.

  So the firm drew together the necessary paperwork and the two signed it. The wording was lengthy, but the gist of it removed any right on Cordelia’s part to ever use this against Charles.

  Several months before Nicolas’ second birthday, in 1977, little Nathalie was born. Barely a year later, in 1978, the family welcome Giselle. Ten months later, in 1979, Lucienne. And finally, in 1980, Adrienne.

  How Lisette was able to have four daughters, four of what Charles wanted most, will always be a mystery, though the Deschanel family had a heritage of things going their way. Unfortunately, four daughters were all Lisette would ever have; she died while giving birth to Adrienne after a complicated pregnancy and difficult delivery. Charles was devastated, but there were many reasons why he could not publicly display any emotion for Lisette.

  Cordelia kept her status and money, and Charles got his four beautiful daughters. And beautiful they were!

  There was Nathalie, the tall lithe beauty with mahogany hair and brilliant blue eyes. The sensible one who kept her sisters, Giselle and Adrienne, out of trouble, and her father attached to his sanity.

  Giselle, the second born, was the opposite of her reserved older sister. Blonde, flaxen hair, the signature blue eyes all four girls had, and curves that landed her in more trouble than Charles would have liked. Only to her sister, Nathalie, did she answer, as her father was too enchanted to consider discipline. Giselle devoted most of her time to the affections and attentions she attracted from her many suitors.

  Lucie, christened Lucienne, was physically speaking the twin of her sister Giselle, but the similarities stopped there. Shy and timid, she said little. Her eyes expressed her emotions and she projected much of what she could have said into poetry shared only with her sisters.

  And then there was Adrienne.

  When we are trying to describe someone important to us, we feel compelled to box them up neatly, or make comparisons to others. But Adrienne was not like anyone, really. Not like anyone I knew or would likely ever know. She had a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, but not enough of any one thing to be compared to another.

  Charles adored all four of his daughters, but Adrienne was the apple of his eye. She was the only one of the four born with bright red hair, though she shared the blue eyes of her sisters. She was always out and about, either exploring, or reading about places far away that she would one day visit. By the age of nine, she had read most of the classic literature in her father’s massive library, from Dickens to Yates. This must have been an interesting surprise to Charles, who still believed only men could read serious literature.

  Like her two blonde sisters, she was blessed with a figure. Where the other two were almost overly endowed in certain areas, Giselle full in the chest and Lucie full in the hips, Adrienne was the pièce de résistance. As she grew older, she kept a trim figure, but her bosom soon filled her little girl dresses quite provocatively, and she had curves that terrified her poor father. Her small hips were anything but boyish; I remember on more than one occasion having to turn the other way when she wore those tight jeans of hers that hugged right below the waist. It felt unnatural to be looking at my best friend’s sister with such impure thoughts when she was only a little girl.

  In her teens, she refused to wear dresses, or anything with lace or frills. Cordelia used to say with disdain that Adrienne looked like the model for the local second-hand store: ripped jeans, t-shirts that didn’t fit right, hair affright.

  Her hair was probably the most remarkable thing about her, though. Unlike most redheads, hers was soft, thick and lustrous. It was a rich, dark color and every strand vibrated with life. She wore it three-quarter length down her back, straight. When she walked, it swung from side to side, dancing seductively with her hips.

  Yet, she was far from perfect. Her laugh was loud and unseemly for a girl. Her directness in speech often came across as arrogance, and sometimes was even offensive to those who didn’t know her good intentions.

  Sometimes it was easy to overlook those things; other times they were glaring.

  The four girls were a walking family clic
hé: Nathalie was the sophisticated brains, Giselle the devil-may-care nymphet, Lucie the sweet and inhibited doll, and Adrienne the exotic, untamable tomboy. Each were known and admired for their uniqueness, but you rarely saw one without the other three. Watching them, it appeared they lived inside a bubble, apart from everyone and everything else.

  I never knew that bubble to include their half-brother, Nicolas. It was apparent to me there was a clear and marked difference between Nicolas and the girls, one which went beyond the disparity in mothers.

  Nicolas had always been my best friend. This started as toddlers, when my father would bring me to Ophélie during his meetings with Charles. From early on, our fathers arranged it so Nicolas and I were on the same little league teams, and in the same classes. In high school, we ended up graduating with nearly identical transcripts. Our parents were overjoyed when we both were accepted and enrolled at Tulane.

  When I asked my father why the friendship was so important, he answered, “In New Orleans, you can never be too careful with your children’s associations.” In truth, I felt my father was a little insecure around Charles Deschanel. My family came from blue-collar Irish workmen and spent years establishing themselves, whereas the Deschanels had a deep-rooted history, and could probably never remember a time they were anything other than elite. My father’s aspirations, in pushing us together, were to cement our family’s place in society.

  Nicolas never talked about his sisters. The rumors surrounding his family, ever since Nathalie’s birth, did not concern or affect him. He also seemed to be filled with a deep contempt for the way Charles favored them. But while he never talked intimately about their history, he was always there to step up to their defense when a vicious student would try to resurrect the nasty stories.