Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (29 page)

Josie was quite offended, even deflated, and yet here was
Phanor, handsome and winning, telling her she was pretty. In her confusion, she
didn’t know what to say and she kept her head turned away.

Phanor tipped his head to the side and bent over a little to
see her face. “
Je suis désolé
, Mademoiselle.”

Josie kept her eyes averted.

“Josie?” Phanor said. “Mademoiselle Josephine?” he sang
sweetly.

Against her will, Josie’s mouth began to pull up on one
side.

“I see that,” Phanor said. “Josie’s going to smile.”

She looked at him then, and she did smile.

Having won her over, Phanor turned serious. “Forgive me,
Josie. I’m still just a Cajun country boy, but I meant what I said. About your
being pretty.”

They shared a sweet moment holding one another’s eyes. Josie
felt she could forgive Phanor anything at that moment.

Voices and footsteps in the foyer downstairs reached them.
“That’ll be my Tante Marguerite. Stay a moment so she can meet you, Phanor.”
Josie quickly wiped at the beauty mark with her handkerchief before her aunt
entered.

Marguerite bustled in, as she always did, and greeted Phanor
cordially. More than cordially, Josie thought. Marguerite allowed her hand to
linger just a bit too long in Phanor’s, and her color was suddenly quite high.

“So you’re from Toulouse,” Marguerite said.

“A mile or two behind the plantation, Madame,” he said.

Josie eyed her aunt’s transformation from busy matron to
flirtatious coquette with disdain. She must be close to thirty, her aunt. Josie
glanced at Phanor. He would surely be ill at ease from such brazen attention.

If he was uncomfortable, however, it certainly didn’t show.
His beautiful smile on display, Phanor returned her aunt’s witticisms with the
ease of a courtier. Josie felt like a shadow in the room.

“Well, Monsieur, it is a great pleasure to make your
acquaintance,” Marguerite said. “And I’m so glad you will be on hand the night
of the party. I don’t know how we could manage the wines without you.”

“You needn’t worry, Madame. I will take care of everything.”
He turned to Josie. “Mademoiselle Josephine,” he said formally. “Madame.” He
bowed to each of them and left the room.

The door closed, Marguerite turned a bright face to Josie.
“What a lovely young man,” she said. “So handsome and well-made. Those
shoulders! And charming, too. He’ll go far, this Monsieur DeBlieux, Cajun or
no.”

Josie found her aunt’s attraction to Phanor distasteful. She
was practically gushing. Most unbecoming, Josie thought. She returned the
coffee cups to the tray and gathered her crochet bag. “I’m going upstairs,
Tante. I promised to read to André and Pierre.”

Upstairs, she found Tante’s three boys, Jean Baptiste,
André, and Pierre, eating an early supper. She joined them at their small
table, and Jean Baptiste climbed down from his chair to sit in her lap. Then he
stretched his arms for his plate and continued to stuff bread into his mouth.
Josie held him steady and ignored the crumbs he scattered over her skirts as
the two older boys proudly explained how they had made little sail boats with
paper and sticks.

Josie spent a happy hour with the children. When their nanny
announced it was time to wash faces and get ready for bed, Josie gave Jean
Baptiste a squeeze. He put his little hands on her face and said, “Jophine.”
Then Josie kissed André good night. The eldest, Pierre, declared, “I am too old
for kisses, Cousin.” He solemnly held his hand out, and Josie shook it just as
gravely.

In her room next to the nursery, Josie listened to the
children’s voices as nanny helped them put their toys away and change into
their night shirts. What a fine thing, she thought, to have a house full of
little boys. And what a delight it must be to have a little girl whose hair you
could fix and who would wear pretty dresses and ribbons.

Josie lit the oil lamp and set it in front of the mirror on
the dresser. There was still a slight smudge from the beauty mark. She
moistened her handkerchief and rubbed the rest of it off. She supposed it was
silly, after all. Phanor certainly hadn’t liked it. But he had said she was
pretty. She gazed at herself a while. Not a beauty, she could see that, but
fairly pretty. And when she was with Phanor, she felt pretty.

Bertrand would never have been so gauche as to wipe it off
with his thumb, like Phanor had done, but he might have thought how foolish she
was, all the while he was being charming. Thank goodness Phanor had saved her
from that.

Since the moment she’d read Tante Marguerite’s invitation
list, Josie had been picturing the evening. Bertrand would arrive in his
red-lined cape. She would be aware of Bertrand’s entrance, but too engaged with
the several gentlemen who surrounded her to greet him. He would look for her
and spot her immediately. When he saw his chance, he would approach her, a
little taken aback at how she had matured these last months.

“Josephine,” he’d say, “you are absolutely enchanting.”

Josie would employ her fan and murmur, “
Merci
,” and
she would contrive to blush just a little. He would want to kiss her again; she
would see it in his eyes.

The musicians would begin playing a waltz, and Bertrand
would say, “Will you dance with me?”

She would place her hand on his arm, her dainty lace-clad
hand -- and then the fantasy fell apart. The lace was black, and she would
invite censure yet again if she danced in her mourning silks. And her hands
weren’t dainty either. Her fingers were quite long, really, like her long arms
and legs. Elegant, she thought, rather than dainty. At least she hoped she was
elegant.

Dainty or not, she was not the girl Bertrand had last seen
in the fall. Now that she had had a season’s worth of parties and practice,
Josie felt quite capable of entertaining several men, the handsome Alphonse
among them, and Bertrand would see she was ready for him.

For the first time in his life, Remy had enough to eat.
Every coin he earned, he spent on food those first days. And he earned more
than he had ever thought possible. However, Remy had no notion of what things
cost, and so he spent his earnings carelessly. A plate of beans and rice might
be two pesetas at one establishment, and six at another, but Remy simply paid
whatever he was asked.

The escape had gone flawlessly. Louis had advised Remy to
change his name before they reached the river, and no one questioned the Cajun
gentleman and his slave Alain. Once in New Orleans, they found Phanor waiting
for them. He had met every steamboat for three days, taking care that his
presence was unremarked, but growing increasingly anxious. Phanor greeted Louis
warmly with kisses on both cheeks, but quite properly ignored Louis’ man Alain.

Phanor led them through the lower streets of New Orleans,
past the warehouses full of imported French silks, satins, wines, furniture,
china, crystal, and books. They picked their way through the working district
watching out for manure and other filth in the unpaved streets. They passed
noisy grog shops that catered to sailors, cheap brothels where a skinny woman
with unbelievable red hair beckoned to them, and on to the Rue Boucher where
they were assaulted by the smell of butchered beef and the drone of black flies
dining on offal and blood.

The following morning, Louis caught a boat going upstream.
Remy remained out of sight in Phanor’s rented room, a sparsely furnished
chamber above one of the many butcher shops in the lane. Phanor went in search
of the kind of paper a statement of ownership might be written on. He had seen
such a document when he struck up a conversation with two slaves working on the
docks. Their arrangement with their master was that they brought him sixty
percent of their wages and were then allowed to support themselves as they
wished with the remaining forty percent. The two slaves had been challenged so
many times by white troublemakers that their owner had allowed them to carry a
copy of their papers.

Were Phanor to create papers showing Remy was a freed man,
then Remy would be at the mercy of any white slaver unscrupulous enough to
steal him back into slavery. There were enough of these men in the cities to
make it a real risk for black men, especially one like Remy with no experience
of urban life. It was safer to present himself as the property of a white man
and thus under his owner’s protection. Freedman papers could come later.

At the stationers, Phanor chose three sheets of official
looking paper and bought a fresh nib for his pen. Back in his room, he used a
scrap sheet to draft and redraft the forgery. When he was satisfied with the
wording and the arrangement of the heading, he wrote a certificate of
ownership: One Phanor DeBlieux had purchased one Alain for the sum of $800 in
the year of our Lord 1832. He then experimented with one of the extra sheets to
make it seem worn and old. A wash of weak tea on both sides of the paper was
very effective, but it made the ink run, so he started over on the remaining
sheet. Using fine blotting sand, he was able to distress the paper to a
realistically worn look, and then he folded and refolded it until it was soft
and creased.

With this document safely tucked into a wallet in his
pocket, Remy presented himself at the docks to hire on as a stevedore. The head
man asked a question or two, glanced at the proof Remy was no runaway, and put
him to work loading bales of cotton in a ship bound for New York.

At night he returned to the Rue Boucher. Under Phanor’s
tutelage, he learned to handle his wages from the docks and found he could save
nearly a fourth of what he earned. Someday he would have enough to buy Cleo’s
freedom.

Phanor bought chalk and a slate. In the evenings, he began
teaching Remy to read and write. While Remy practiced making letters on the
slate, Phanor studied the French grammar Madame Emmeline had loaned him. The
first time he opened it, he had found Josie’s childish scrawl on the inside
cover: Josephine Louise Anna Emmeline Tassin. He had run his finger over the
rounded loops and smiled. It would amuse her to know he had her old grammar.
Someday he would show it to her, and they would look at the page in the first
chapter that was stained with something that looked suspiciously like chocolate.

When Phanor received the note from Josephine to call on her
aunt, he had had three weeks with the grammar book. He took his time, tore up
the first attempt, and finally produced a respectable note in return. He used
the two hours before the appointed time to brush his coat, shine his boots, and
scrub himself from a small basin on the floor.

He had arrived at Madame Marguerite Sandrine’s block half an
hour early, so he walked back toward the river and sat on the levee a while.
The Mississippi was hopelessly fouled at this point. Logs always rode the
current, but so did carcasses and all the filth of the city. If it had been a
narrower river, Phanor thought, the air near the water would be unbreathable.
As it was, the view of ships pulling in and out of the docks was not sufficient
reward for the stink. Phanor retreated to the streets, bought a coffee, and
watched the people passing. New Orleans never lacked for diversion. Phanor had
even seen Chinamen hurrying along in their funny baggy clothes and the wide
conical hats they made for themselves.

Phanor had returned to Josie’s aunt’s and knocked on the
door. When Josie herself called to him from the balcony overhead, his
uneasiness vanished. She looked wonderful, and she was smiling at him. Of
course, later in the day as he reflected on how he had smudged the spot next to
her mouth, he cringed at his gaucherie. How was he to have known she would put
a black spot on her face -- on purpose?

He had the menu and the number of guests. He spent the
evening calculating how many bottles of which wines to deliver. Josie’s aunt
had left it all up to him, and it would present a very nice profit for Monsieur
Cherleu. And for him. He was now to take a commission from the sales, to
encourage him, Monsieur had said.

That aunt, Marguerite, her name was. She was a handsome
woman. And very charming. She’d liked him, clearly, but Phanor remembered
Josie’s face as Marguerite had flirted with him. Her blank expression was as
clear as a scowl to Phanor. Josie was not pleased. He smiled a little at that.
Good, let her be jealous. He’d certainly be jealous if he were in her place,
some man flirting with her while he stood by helplessly.

Remy’s footsteps on the stairs announced he was back from
his labor on the wharves. Phanor put his papers aside to hear how Remy’s day
was. Often he came back to the room with questions about how he should handle
this or that situation. Once he had been watched by two grungy white men as he
rolled kegs of beer up a gangplank. One of them shifted his coat and Remy
caught the gleam of metal handcuffs hanging from his belt. The other man
gestured toward Remy, and Remy feared they’d noticed his maimed ear. But, he
reminded himself, lots of slaves had notched ears. He touched the pocket in his
rough pants for reassurance. He was not a runaway: his name was Alain, and he
had paper to prove he belonged to Monsieur Phanor DeBlieux of the Rue Boucher.

The two men approached the head man and nodded toward him.
Remy was trapped on the long gangplank. He considered diving in the water, even
though he couldn’t swim. Or he could push the other stevedores aside and make a
run for it. But the headman saved him, whether he knew it or not. He shook his
head once, then gestured toward the city behind him. The meaning was clear. The
slavers were not welcome on the docks, and they’d do well to make their exit.

Since that day, he wore a red plaid kerchief on his head.
Phanor had bought it for him at one of the open-air shops near the levee, and
he tied it so that it covered his ruined ear. Someday, he would repay Phanor
for everything. The escape, the reading lessons, the help in every way. Someday
he would be independent, and he would be Phanor’s devoted friend until death.