Legacy (17 page)

“Do you know where the young lady is, Tobias? I can’t seem to find her. I’d like to see her for a moment before we go down to dinner. Do you know which room she was given?”

“Yes, I do, sir,” Tobias answered respectfully. It was one of the few plantations where the slaves were treated well. Armand de Margerac had a reputation for being kind to them, and most of the time tried to keep families together, which was rarely the case in other homes, where husbands and wives were often separated, one of them sold to a different owner, and their children sold separately as well. It was a practice that always made Jean feel ill. It was one of the things about the New World that he had never liked. In France, the free trade of human beings like so much cattle was unthinkable. “Where is her room, then?”

“In the cabin next to mine,” Tobias said quietly, lowering his eyes. He had had a feeling that that circumstance would not go over well with their young cousin from France.

“I beg your pardon?” Jean decided that he must have been mistaken in what he just heard. There were no guest rooms in the cabins,
only slaves, and the quarters they were housed in. There were fourteen of those cabins behind the house.

“Your aunt thought she would be more comfortable there.” He had taken her there himself immediately after she arrived. He felt sorry for her, she looked so frightened and lost. He had left her with his wife, who was showing her around.

“Take me to her at once,” Jean said through clenched teeth, and then followed Tobias down the stairs, out a side door into a back garden, and then through a locked gate, to which Tobias had a key. Only a few of those who worked in the house did. The other slaves had no access to the main house. Nor did Wachiwi if she was behind that gate.

Tobias led Jean down a series of paths in a confusing pattern, past several buildings that were the “cabins.” Each one housed two dozen slaves. There were a few smaller, nicer cabins, where the more trusted house slaves lived, like Tobias, and his children when they were young. He stopped at one of the better cabins, and led Jean inside. There was a narrow hallway, a honeycomb of tiny rooms, and in each of them he could see several people. He found Wachiwi finally, in a back bedroom with four other women. Her trunks filled the room, and she was sitting on one of them, with a look of despair.

“Come with me,” he said quietly, his eyes blazing. He gestured to her to follow him, and she looked terrified that he was angry at her. She was sure she had done something wrong, and she had no idea who these people were or why she was in a house with them. She hadn’t seen Jean all afternoon. While he thought she was resting quietly in a guest bedroom, she had been shunted away to stay with the
slaves. He turned to Tobias then and told him to have her trunks sent to his room.

He took her back to his own room, took off her bonnet, smoothed her hair, and told her how sorry he was. She didn’t understand all the words that he said to her, but she got the idea. She was smiling again by the time her trunks arrived, carried by two of the house slaves. Jean opened one of them and took out one of her dinner gowns.

He dressed her himself, did up her corset, helped her into the underwear. He took out the fan he had bought for her, and when he was finished ten minutes later, she looked dazzling. She had been transformed. He brushed her hair until it shone, and she looked at him gratefully when she saw herself in the mirror. She looked exotic and at the same time elegant, fresh, and young, and totally respectable as he tucked her hand into his arm and led her down the grand staircase to the drawing room.

Angélique and Armand were waiting for him there. They had invited a few friends to dinner, but no one had arrived yet. They had been planning to have a quiet drink with Jean before dinner, and with his friend, before they knew what she was. Angélique had explained the situation to her husband, and he was greatly relieved that she had solved the problem so quickly. They agreed that their cousin had clearly lost his mind and judgment after spending too much time with the natives. It was unthinkable that he had brought one of them to stay with them.

They looked equally horrified when he strode into the room with Wachiwi on his arm. Her gown looked appropriate, although her flowing black hair wasn’t, and Angélique sat down looking faint when she saw her walk into the room.

“Jean, what are you thinking?” she asked him, as her husband stared at Wachiwi. He had to admit that she was beautiful and he could see why his young cousin wanted to be with her, but certainly not in anyone’s drawing room. The idea that Jean had dared to bring her here thoroughly shocked them both.

“What am I thinking, cousin?” Jean asked, his eyes smoldering dangerously. Wachiwi had never seen him that way before, nor had they. But they were getting a clear picture of what his temper could be like. Normally, it took a great deal to anger him. But now he was enraged, on Wachiwi’s behalf. “I’m thinking you’ve been extremely rude to my guest. I found her in the slave quarters half an hour ago, in a room with four other women. There seems to be some mistake. I’ve had her moved to my room,” he announced smoothly. “I’m sure you understand.”

“No, I don’t!” Angélique said, springing to her feet, her eyes every bit as ominous as his. “I will not have a savage in my house. How
dare
you bring her here! She belongs in the slave quarters where Tobias put her. I will
not
have a black woman at my dinner table. Get her out of here at once!” She wanted Wachiwi to disappear immediately, before her other guests arrived, and her husband was fully in agreement with her. Jean was not.

“She’s not a black woman. She’s a Dakota Sioux, and her father is a chief.”

“What? One of those savages who run around naked, killing people? Who did she murder before she came here? What white woman’s baby did she kill? Are you insane?”

“That’s a disgusting thing to say. If you’d like me to, we’ll go back to New Orleans immediately. Send your carriage around,” he said firmly as Angélique blustered at him, as furious as he was.

“That’s an excellent idea. And where do you think you’ll stay in town? No decent boardinghouse will have you either. You can’t bring an Indian girl into a proper establishment, any more than you could bring one of our slaves.”

“She’s not a slave,” he said sternly. “She’s the woman I love.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” Angélique assured him. “Thank God your parents aren’t alive to hear you say a thing like that, about
her.”
Wachiwi was watching them battle back and forth, not entirely sure what the argument was about, except that she did not feel welcome here. And she could only assume the argument was about her. She didn’t want to cause problems with his family. But Jean stood next to her in a reassuring protective way. It was obvious how angry they all were from the harsh tone of their words. In the short time she had known him, she had never seen Jean act that way or heard him speak as fiercely before. He had always been gentle and kind, with her and everyone else. But he was clearly furious with his cousins, and they were equally so with him.

“We’ll find a place to stay in town,” he said calmly.

“I doubt you will,” Angélique said shrilly, and as she said it, they heard carriage wheels on the driveway in front of the house, and both senior de Margeracs looked panicked. “Get that woman out of my drawing room immediately,” she said tersely, and without another word, Jean took Wachiwi’s arm and led her up the stairs. They had just reached the upper landing when the first of the guests walked in. And as soon as he reached his own room with Wachiwi, he explained to her as simply as he could that they were going back to town.

“They are angry for me,” she said clearly, looking sad for him. Tobias
walked into the room then, and Jean asked him politely to pack his things. Wachiwi’s trunks were all over the room, but very little had been unpacked.

“No, I am angry at them.” He didn’t want to hurt her feelings and try to explain it to her. But their reaction had been a revelation to him. Was this what they had to look forward to, if they stayed in New Orleans? He had naïvely expected a warmer reception than this, in a civilized place. And now where were they supposed to go? Where would they live, if they stayed together, which he wanted very much now. But where? In a shack at the edge of Indian territory, like Luc Ferrier, hidden away with his Indian concubine until she died, never to go into the polite world again? Were people so narrow-minded? So mean-spirited? So absurd? And where was he going to take Wachiwi now?

The only relatives he had in America were his cousins in New Orleans. He knew no one else, except travelers and explorers and surveyors and soldiers he had met on the road. And it was one thing to lead a nomadic life alone, it was entirely different doing so with Wachiwi. He had hoped that they could stay there for several months, as he had before, until he figured out their plans. That night his elder cousins had shortened that time considerably.

The Margerac carriage drove them back to town half an hour later, and it was nearly midnight when they arrived at the boardinghouse in the city where they had stopped for a few hours earlier that day. Jean had asked to be taken back there. He had had no problem before, but had said they would only be there for a few hours. This time the desk clerk looked at him strangely, went to consult the manager, although it was the middle of the night, and finally gave them a small
room at the back of the house, usually reserved for slightly unsavory people. They hadn’t seen Wachiwi when they gave him the room that afternoon. But at least they had a place to stay.

“Will you be staying long, sir?” the clerk asked uncomfortably.

“I don’t know,” Jean said honestly. He had no idea where to go. And for the time being at least, he had no desire to see his cousins, nor expose Wachiwi to them again. “It may be several weeks,” he said solemnly, wondering if he should take her north. For the moment, he had no idea.

Once in the room, he took his coat off and laid it on a chair. He helped Wachiwi out of her gown, and she put it into the trunk, and gratefully took the corset off and the complicated undergarments. He had bought her several nightgowns to sleep in, but she put on the elkskin dress instead. It was more comfortable than anything else she owned, and it was familiar for her. To Wachiwi, it was like the buckskin breeches he wore to ride when he traveled, which were easiest for him.

He talked to her about his own homeland then, as they sat in the small room. He didn’t know what else to say to her to distract her. It must have been obvious that something had gone very wrong. And as he talked to her, he had an idea. He was not sure if things would be better there, but they couldn’t be much worse than here, and he was beginning to fear that Wachiwi would be treated badly everywhere in the New World, west, north, south, or east. He wanted to take her home with him.

He told her there was a great lake called the Atlantic Ocean, and he lived on the other side. It would take them two full phases of the
moon to get there, which seemed like a long time. He told her of the beauty of it once they arrived, the countryside in Brittany, the people she would meet in France, his brother who lived in their family château. He said that their lodge was much bigger than the one she had seen that night. She laughed at him then and said it was called a “house,” not a lodge, and he laughed back. With her he could face anything, climb any mountain, overcome any obstacle, and he wanted to protect her from the terrible affront and humiliation she had experienced at the de Margerac plantation. He suspected now that others would be as unkind to her as his cousins, and he was convinced that things would be better for them in France. He hoped that there she would be considered a rare and exotic bird, and not someone to be punished and mistreated, and cast away. He knew what he had to do now. He would take her home to Brittany with him.

He planned to write to his brother the next morning, saying that they were coming home on the next ship. His letter would only arrive weeks or days before they did, but it would warn Tristan that they were arriving, and roughly when. Jean was going to book passage for them on the first possible ship going back to France. There was nothing for them here. It would be yet another adventure for them, and a long one, but after all they’d been through so far, being tossed around on the Atlantic Ocean for two months didn’t seem so bad. And for the first time in five years in the New World, Jean felt ready to go home. He hadn’t seen his brother nor his homeland in all that time. But he had done everything he had come here to do, discovered new places, had astonishing adventures, and now he had met the love of his life, a beautiful Sioux woman he wanted to marry and
have children with. He had no idea what his older brother would think of it, but Tristan was a wise, understanding man, and no matter what anyone thought, Jean knew that Wachiwi was the woman for him. They were going home to start a new life together. As he smiled at her, he knew his boyhood days were over. And with his bride, the rest of their life would unfold.

Chapter 11

Just as Jean had decided the night before, after their disastrous visit to his cousins, and as he had told Wachiwi he would, he wrote to his brother Tristan in the morning. It was a long, careful letter that gave him the important points and left out some of the details. He didn’t tell him that he had murdered a Crow chief and absconded with the woman he intended to marry, who had been the chief’s slave. He said simply that he had met the woman of his life at last, that he was ready to come home and help his brother run their large estate. His wandering days were over now. It was time to settle down, and he had never felt that way before.

He was ten years younger than his brother, who was a widower with two young children, one of whom Jean had never met. When Jean had left Brittany, his brother Tristan had had a beautiful young wife and a year-old baby. A year later Tristan’s wife died when their second child was born. As far as Jean knew, his brother had been alone ever since. He hadn’t remarried, although Jean had no idea if he had a mistress of some sort, but Tristan was such a serious man
that Jean doubted he would engage in anything but marriage and a respectable life.