Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (23 page)

But the initial dazzle of the sophisticated Creole social
whirl had faded, and more recently Josie had come to see that as rigid as
society was, not all of its strictures were just. She was ashamed she’d been
such a snob. Phanor was a poor Cajun, it was true, but he was a man of ambition
and energy.

And, whether it was acceptable or not, Josie felt Phanor’s
pull. What a fool she’d been to deprive herself of his company that day in the
square. His black eyes and ready smile, the way his shoulders tapered to narrow
hips came to her mind’s eye. And of course his humor, his talent . . . his
élan
.
Regardless of their different spheres, she felt connected to him, and yes, she
admitted, she wanted him.

And what was she to do about that? Even now, with Phanor’s
allure freshly recalled, she knew the convention she scorned could not be
ignored. No, she would not allow anyone to force her into a marriage she did
not want; however, there was no future for her with Phanor DeBlieux. Phanor was true
of heart, and she hoped a friend forever, but they would never be more than
friends.

It was Bertrand whom she was meant to be with, she thought.
Sophisticated, worldly, mature Bertrand.

Sorting through these conflicting, confusing feelings put
Josie’s mind more at ease. She blew out the candle and lay back on her pillows.
Poor Albany, but in truth she could not blame herself. She had not encouraged
him, indeed she had not.

Her mind drifted and she imagined herself at a grand ball in
a green satin gown that showed off her eyes. The door opens, Bertrand steps in.
The women in the room take note of his figure behind their fans and watch him
as he crosses the room to Mademoiselle Josephine Tassin.

Bertrand and she speak only with their eyes. He takes her
arm, leads her to the dance floor. The orchestra is playing the new waltz.
Bertrand places his hand on her waist, she rests hers on his shoulder. He
guides her in sensual circles around the dance floor.

My skirt will swirl, touching his legs and then mine. His
eyes will never leave my face, and even when the music stops, we’ll waltz on
and on.

But, she recalled, the last time she’d seen him, he’d made
her feel like a child.
That will not happen again. Next time, his eyes will
not roam the room gazing at other women
.

She knew now she was a woman, woman enough to have had a
marriage proposal, and she intended Bertrand Chamard should succumb to her
charms as she had to his.

The Cherleu plantation had been badly run the last dozen
years. The old man had lost the will and the strength to keep it up. That made
it a good buy for someone willing to put in the work to bring it back to full
production. Bertrand put aside his tailored shirts, donned coarse trousers and
rough boots, and strode into the fields.

The soil was black and loamy, and the new overlay of silt
from the flood increased the depth of topsoil in the northern half of the
plantation. The experienced man Bertrand hired to oversee the slaves and advise
him about cane taught him to taste the dirt as they moved to different parts of
the plantation. This, the overseer explained, is the ground your cane will love
best. And that is where they planted the first shoots.

Too much good food and wine in New Orleans had left Bertrand
feeling slow and restless. Now he relished his muscles straining to handle the
hundred pound bags of cane stalks the slaves would chop into sections for
planting. He leant a hand in burning out a stump and in disentangling an ox
from a brier patch. He harnessed the mules to pull the wagons from the delivery
dock on the river, and learned the name and gauged the stamina of each of his
slaves.

At the end of the day, he returned to the big house dirty
and tired and happy. He washed in the basin, not overly concerned if his nails
were still black when he went to bed. His house slave Cora had been brought to
Louisiana directly from the west coast of Africa as a young girl. Toothless and
wrinkled as she was, she’d been a bargain at seventy-five dollars when he
stocked his new plantation from the slave market. She worked as hard as she was
able, and she cooked Bertrand’s meals and washed the mud from his clothes with
good cheer.

Cora was a talker, chatting at him as he ate his supper or
talking full-voiced to herself if he were in another room of the old mansion.
He could have told her to hush, but he didn’t. The house was empty and silent
but for the two of them, and gradually, he learned to decipher her thick and
broken speech.

“Misshie got ting aday,” Cora said.

“Thing? What kind of thing?” Bertrand said.

“Ting folded up. Ink on it. I get it fo you.”

She came back into the dining room where Bertrand ate his
solitary dinner at the stained mahogany table. The Cherleu daughter had taken
all her china and linens when her papa sold him the place, and Bertrand ate on
the same wooden platters as the slaves did.

“Here tis,” Cora said. “See, it got ink.”

“A letter, Cora. That’s called a letter.”

“I know dat’s a letter, Misshie.”

Bertrand tore the heavy paper open to read an invitation
from Madame Emmeline Tassin of Toulouse. Would he care to dine with her on
Thursday? Nothing formal, just the two of them, neighbors now with their cane
fields abutting.

“Tomorrow you can take an answer back to Toulouse. Do you
think you can do that? Can you find it?”

“Yes, Misshie, I do dat. I do dat in de mawnin after yo
eats, and be back to cook yo dinner ‘fo noon. I likes de walkin and I likes
seeing de river move on along ‘side me. I do dat, shore.”

On Thursday, Bertrand rode his stallion down to Toulouse. He
was dressed once again in fine linen and wool, and though his velvet collar was
in need of pressing, he was a handsome figure. He expected Josie’s favorite --
was her name Cleo? – to open the door when he arrived. Her big almond-shaped
eyes, the curve of her long neck, the smooth creamy brown skin – she was a
striking girl. She had been solemn and rather unresponsive the day he’d brought
Josie back from the Johnstons, but then she’d just lost her people in the
flood.

Instead, it was Madame’s little favorite who opened the door
to him. Laurie took his hat very properly and asked him to sit in the parlor
while she fetched her mistress. Bertrand idly examined the stereoscope on the
table until Madame entered, then he stood and bent over her hand. “Madame
Emmeline,” he said.

“Bertrand, I’m so happy you could come.”

Emmeline rang a silver bell before she sat down. They would
enjoy a glass of sherry before dinner.

Bertrand was discussing the Louisiana winter, so much warmer
but damper than Paris, when Cleo brought in a tray with the sherry decanter and
two crystal glasses. He eyed her absently as she poured the wine, taking in the
well-made dress she wore, the leather shoes. No doubt hand-me-downs from
Josephine, he thought.

The evening passed pleasantly. Madame Emmeline and Bertrand
had so much in common, working the slaves, planting the crops, caring for the
land itself. Emmeline freely shared her knowledge and experience, and he was
impressed with her business sense.

Cleo waited table mutely and efficiently, giving Bertrand
ample time to observe her. The faded dress did Cleo’s figure justice, he
thought, cinched in at the waist, swelling tightly over her bosom. She seemed
different somehow, less girlish. No doubt she’d taken a lover among the other
slaves by now and was a woman. It became her.

When Bertrand spoke of having seen Josie in town, Cleo stood
behind Madame Emmeline and openly listened. He felt the power of her deep eyes
on him, and smiled inwardly at himself to be so distracted by this girl.

In the following days, Bertrand and Madame Emmeline fell
into the habit of dining together at one o’clock twice a week. He admired her
shrewd intellect and listened attentively to all her advice. She even knew how
much water the hive-shaped cisterns held and how long the water in it could be
expected to last in the dry season. He learned from her mistake in trusting too
much to her overseer, resulting in the breached levee and all the devastation
from the flood.

“You must ride out on the property yourself, Bertrand,” she
told him. “That was my mistake, staying too much in this house instead of
seeing the plantation for myself.”

Bertrand continued to labor on his land, his afternoons with
Madame Emmeline his only concession to the life of a gentleman. By the end of
January, the cane cuttings had all been planted and they needed only to be left
alone to sprout when the ground began to warm. Bertrand pulled his slaves from
the fields and put them to work on the outbuildings. They tore down the old
smithy and built a new one, repaired the brick cisterns, built a dove cote and
new chicken coops, and then made their own cabins more habitable.

On the first Sunday morning in February, Bertrand sat at his
desk figuring costs and assets, pleased with the way the plantation was beginning
to function. Cora shuffled into the room, her hands already talking before she
spoke.

 “Misshie, Misshie, der a man comin up to de do’! I seen him
slide off a horse dat big, and he comin in here.”

“Cora, you can manage this. Simply open the door and ask him
in. Then take his hat for him and let him sit in the parlor.”

“Sure, I do dat. I let him in.” She shuffled as quickly as
she could back to the front door.

Bertrand ran a comb through his overlong hair and tied it
back with a leather string. He congratulated himself that at least his hands
were clean and checked that his shirt was fresh. It would have to do.

He heard Cora admitting the visitor two rooms away and took
the time to button his collar. Then he proceeded to see who had come to call.

“Albany, my friend!” Bertrand held his hand out as he
crossed the room, remembering how uncomfortable Americans were with the Creole
habit of kissing cheeks. Albany met him half way to shake hands with
enthusiasm.

“Cora, light us a fire,” Bertrand said. “Sit down, Albany.
Mind the furniture, though. What’s left in here threatens to give way under me
every time I sit down.”

Albany laughed and lowered himself carefully onto the
ancient settee, which creaked a little as it accepted his weight.

“You’ll find the rest of the house is much the same,”
Bertrand explained. “The whole place needs painting and updating, but the
prettifying can wait until I’ve a crop in the field and promise of some return
on the initial investment.”

“I understand completely. Indeed, you do look the part of
the old-time planter, Bertrand, just as Madame Emmeline has told me you would.
I’ve just come from Toulouse, in fact.”

“And then back to New Orleans?”

“Yes. I’ve taken care of business on this end for Father,
and later today I hope to catch the steamboat from your dock. Will it stop
here, do you think?”

“Certainly. I’ll have the flag put out for you.”

The two men spent the morning riding over the plantation,
discussing the merits of giving slaves an extra half day off on Saturdays, the
advantages of allowing the slaves to go to church on Sundays, the expectation
of losses during yellow fever season. They returned to the house for a late
dinner.

Cora, who’d been trained as a cook for field hands, had
scrubbed the polish off the old mahogany table till it was as smooth and dull
as the table in the cookhouse. She served up collard greens and pork chops,
stewed apples and sweet potatoes to the men, chatting all the while about how
good her collards and turnip greens were because she picked them first thing in
the morning.

Bertrand smiled and shrugged a shoulder when Albany caught
his eye. He imagined his friend must think him hopelessly lax, but that was all
right. Bertrand liked old Cora just as she was, and someday, when he had a wife
and a table to impress people, he’d bring Valentine in from the stables, and
Cora could put her feet up in the cook house and relax. Meantime, she’d do
fine, and his long-time valet was of more use tending the horses and mules.
Valentine made no secret that he preferred running a household to a stable, but
it was only for a year or two.

Over their cigars, Bertrand said, “So you’ve been to
Toulouse. I’d say Madame Emmeline must be one of the best planters on the
river. This new overseer she has, LeBrec’s his name, has nearly got the fields
in order and they have most of the cane planted. She’ll soon have Toulouse
making a profit again. A flood won’t stop that lady.”

“Yes, it’s a good property. I hear in the city, though, that
Madame Tassin has had to mortgage it. Too many expenses in rebuilding for
out-of-pocket resources. But even under debt as it is, I’d be interested in
adding it to my own. I’ve been to speak to Madame Tassin about her
granddaughter.”

“Have you?” Bertrand narrowed his eyes at Albany through his
cigar smoke.

“With disappointing results, I’m sorry to say, with Madame
and Mademoiselle.” Albany relit his cigar. “But I’m a patient man. I can wait.
In fact, if Madame Tassin has her way, I may wait quite some time.”

“Holding you off, is she?” He wondered if Albany was, in his
indirect way, warning him off from Josephine Tassin.

“She expects Josephine to succeed her in running Toulouse.
There’s really no one else, now, and she intends that Josephine be thoroughly
capable of running the plantation. I gather Madame Tassin has had her disappointments
depending on the men of the family, and she will have Josephine an independent
woman.”

Bertrand held up his hands in mock horror. “Lord spare me
from an independent woman.”

Albany laughed. He tapped the ash from his cigar, and then
confided, “And of course, I am not Creole.”