Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (2 page)

Papa ran up the stairs to the gallery, pushed past Maman,
and banged open the door into the house. Maman followed him with quick steps,
and Josie ran after her.

In Maman’s room, Papa was rummaging through drawers and
tossing them to the floor.

“Your jewelry box. Where is it?” he said to Maman.

“Emile, you can’t mean to --.”

“I haven’t the cash in the house. I need the pearls.”

“Emile, I will not have you take my pearls for that girl!”
She grabbed at his arm. “I will not have it!”

Papa seized Maman’s wrist.

“Let go,” Maman said. “I won’t give you my pearls.”

Papa shoved her onto the bed with Josie still clinging to
her dress. Ignoring Maman’s sobs, he ransacked the wardrobe until he found the
pretty painted jewelry box. When it wouldn’t open, he smashed it against the
hard floor, and Maman’s bright rings and necklaces spilled across the boards.

Papa snatched up the dark blue velvet bag that held Maman’s
precious pearls, the ones he’d bought her in Paris on their wedding trip.
“Emile,” Maman pleaded.

Papa’s boots thundered across the floorboards as he left the
house. Josie heard his spurs jangle down the gallery stairs, and then his
stallion’s hooves clattering across the courtyard.

Maman pulled herself off the bed and stood perfectly still,
her eyes on the door Papa had gone through. Josie gathered the jewels from the
floor to offer them to her mother, but Maman began to sway, her face seeming to
dissolve like the wax doll Josie had left too near the fire. Josie shuddered,
and Maman cried a single high note that ended only as she buckled to the floor.
She knelt there, her face in her hands.

Grand-mère Emmeline glided into the room and regarded her
daughter-in-law. “Well, Celine,” she said, “your plan has failed.”

Josie pulled a pillow to her as a shield against her
grandmother’s deep dark eyes, but Grand-mère’s attention fixed on Maman. “Our
Emile has more gumption than we anticipated,” she said. “That, at least, is a
pleasant surprise.”

At the end of that long day of whispers and stillness, Josie
leaned out her window and strained to hear Papa’s big horse over the singing of
the cicadas. When he came, it was deep twilight.

The stallion carried him directly under Josie’s window. Cleo
sat in front of him and Bibi rode behind, her arms around his waist. He’d
brought them home.

Josie ran to the back gallery to follow Papa to the stables.
She wanted to hold on to Bibi, to laugh with Cleo that Papa had let her ride
the big horse.

“Josephine.” Grand-mère sat in the oak rocker, watching the
dark slide through the trees and over the barn. “You may not leave the house.”

“But Bibi is home.” Josie could hear the whine under her
words. Grand-mère hated that.

“You’ll see her tomorrow. Go to bed.”

Josie had never gone to sleep without Bibi tucking her in,
kissing her, and telling her sweet dreams. She stood a moment in the empty
bedroom, then turned around and padded on bare feet to Papa’s big black chair
in the study, the one he sat in while he smoked and looked dreamily out the
window. She was almost asleep when Papa found her there. He lit a candle, then
kissed her as he lifted her from his chair and placed her snugly on his lap.

“Bibi and Cleo are home again,” Papa said.

Josie nodded, looking deeply into Papa’s soft grey eyes.
This was the Papa she knew, not the wild-eyed man who took Maman’s pearls.

“They’re with Grammy Tulia in the quarters, but after this,
Bibi will sleep in your room again, as always.” He stroked Josie’s light brown
curls. “And now Cleo, too. You won’t mind having Cleo sleep in your room, will
you?”

“No, Papa. I won’t mind.”

“Good. You’re big girls now. You should be friends.” He
shifted her so he could look at her directly. “Now, Josephine, listen
carefully.”

“I’m listening, Papa.”

“Josephine, I’m giving Cleo to you. I’ll have the papers
drawn up that make her your very own. Do you understand?”

Josie nodded. Papa had brought her a porcelain doll from New
Orleans for her birthday, but this was even better. Cleo was a real girl who
could walk and talk and play with her.

“And Josie,” Papa said, “you must always look after Cleo.
You’ll do that, won’t you?”

“I will, Papa.”

Josie kept her promise. When winter came and Cleo’s feet
were cold, Josie gave her a pretty pair of shoes from her own wardrobe. When
Maman handed out the rough cotton sacking for the slaves’ new clothes at
Christmas time, Josie gave Cleo a blue linen dress and another green one from
among her frocks.

It was easy to love Cleo. She was pretty as a brown doll.
She could play games and knew all kinds of rhymes she learned from Grammy Tulia
in the quarters.

Josie knew she pleased Bibi when she took good care of Cleo.
Bibi would see Josie share her drawing pencils or help Cleo button her shoes;
later, she’d pull Josie into her lap and hum to her while she brushed the long
brown hair. Papa too smiled on her when she played with Cleo.

Maman, however, did not. When Maman entered the nursery from
her adjoining room the day after Christmas, she found Cleo wearing the
embroidered blue linen dress. “Where did she get that?”

Josie’s throat grew tight. “I gave it to her, Maman,” she
said, her voice very small.

“Well, she can’t have it. She’ll wear the sacking like
everyone else on the place.”

Cleo sat with a cornhusk doll in her lap, her dark eyes
trained on Maman’s pale face. Maman marched across the room, grabbed Cleo by
the arm, and jerked her up. “Don’t you look at me like that.” She tore at the
buttons in the back, yanked Cleo’s arm out of the sleeve.

Cleo might have been a rag doll for all her reaction, but
Josie began to cry. Maman’s face was so mean, her lips just a white line and
her blue eyes hard and little.

“What’s all the ruckus?” Papa stood in the doorway. His
voice sounded mild, but Josie could see his face looked tight and angry, almost
as angry as Maman’s.

Maman released Cleo’s arm and whirled on Papa. “Look what
she’s wearing.”

Josie stopped crying, watching. Since the summer, when Papa
had taken Maman’s pearls, Josie had become attuned to the undercurrent of tension
in the house. Maman was angry all the time now. Josie knew she didn’t like Bibi
or Cleo, and now she didn’t seem to like Papa anymore either.

“It’s intolerable,” Maman said.

Papa walked over and bent down to Cleo, pulling the dress
back onto her shoulder. “It’s just a dress, Celine.”

Maman whirled out of the room, slamming the bedroom door
behind her. Josie heard her throw herself across the bed.

Papa buttoned Cleo’s dress. “You look very nice, Cleo.”

He straightened up and held his hand out for Josie to come
to him. When she stood before him, he took her face in his hands and looked
into her eyes. “You are never wrong to do a kindness, Josephine. Remember
that.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “Run along, both of you, and
find Bibi. Tell her you’re to have a slice of cake and a glass of milk.”

By the time Cleo’s little brother was born, the girls, seven
and six, were inseparable. They had become adept at finding ways around Maman’s
strict rules and frequent admonishments, and the current goal in their sneakiness
was to see the new baby.

Maman forbade the baby’s presence in her house, so Bibi had
to run from the big house to the quarters all through the day and night to
nurse Thibault. Maman had also forbidden Josie to go to the quarters, but she
found ways to slip off to Grammy Tulia’s cabin nearly every day.

“Ain’t a prettier face in heaven,” Grammy said. “Not even
you two gals was any prettier dan dis baby.”

Cleo put a finger on Thibault’s rosebud mouth. “Look at that
-- he trying to suck on my finger!”

“Les put a little honey on yo thumb and see how he like
dat.”

Cleo put her sweetened finger back in Thibault’s mouth. He
delighted the girls when he smacked his lips and sucked.

Josie leaned over the hand-hewn crib. “Can I try it?”

“Sho. Dip yo finger in de jar.”

The next time Josie and Cleo visited Thibault, Josie smelled
her Papa’s tobacco in the cabin. The time after that, she saw he’d left his
pipe on the mantle piece. My Papa loves babies, she thought.

Months later, Thibault was just as pretty. He was a
contented baby, sweet-natured and smiling. But he was oddly quiet. At nearly a
year old, he still didn’t show much interest in the toys Josie and Cleo brought
from the nursery.

On a bright summer morning, while Maman was still sleeping,
Bibi washed Josie and Cleo’s faces and told them to wait till she came back,
and then she’d give them their breakfasts. But the house was quiet, Grand-mère
already in her office and Papa out with his hounds; no one would miss them. The
girls carefully closed the door behind them and climbed down the back stairs,
then ran down the lane to Grammy Tulia’s house.

When Josie and Cleo shoved the gray wooden door aside to go
in, they found Bibi in the rocking chair, Thibault clutched tight to her
shoulder. There were tears on her face.

Josie stood on one side of the chair and Cleo on the other.
Cleo put a hand on Thibault’s head. “He’ll be all right, Maman,” she said.
“Thibault’s a good baby.”

Tears flowed from under Bibi’s closed eyes. She shook her
head and rocked.

“What’s wrong?” Josie whispered. Sometimes Cleo got to come
to the cabin when Josie had to sit with Maman. Cleo knew things she didn’t, and
Josie often felt left out. “Why’s Bibi crying?”

“Thibault is simple.”

Josie looked at her without understanding.

“It mean he can’t never be a smart man. He gon’ be simple,
like Smilin’ Nick. You know which one he is? He cuts cane with the others.”

Josie nodded. Everybody knew who Smilin’ Nick was. Even the
overseer, Mr. Gale, treated him extra good because he smiled all the day long.

Bibi opened her eyes and looked at Josie for a long moment.
“I know you just a little thing yo’self.” She took hold of Josie’s wrist. “But
you got to know, Josie. You got to take care of dis one and Cleo too. You hear
what I’m saying?”

Josie nodded. “I’m almost eight.”

“You hear me?” Bibi tightened her hand around Josie’s arm.
“Dis here baby is yours, yours and Cleo’s. If something happen to me, or to yo
Papa, you de one dat see he taken care of.”

Josie nodded. They all belonged to her, Grammy Tulia, Bibi,
Cleo, Papa, and Thibault. Every one of them belonged to her. And she loved them
all.

Childhood days rolled on, hardly a day less happy than the
one before it. Josie and Cleo played hide-n-seek with the overseer’s children
and even with Cleo’s darker cousins from the quarters. Sometimes, when he was
old enough, they took Thibault with them to catch tadpoles in the creek or to
search for quail eggs. Thibault smiled whether they crowned him with
honeysuckle or filled his pockets with caterpillars.

Elbow John, his right arm permanently cocked from a logging
accident, watched over them during the day. He’d follow along absent-mindedly
while the girls explored the swamp at the edge of the plantation or climbed on
the cypress knees where the cottonmouths hid in the black water. If the girls
grew drowsy with the afternoon heat, he’d sit with them under the live oak tree
behind the house and tell them stories from Africa he’d learned from his
grand-père.

Now and then, Josie and Cleo would quarrel.

“I’m the Princess,” Josie asserted.

“You always the Princess. It my turn today. I’m the
Princess, and you the Knight.”

Soon they were shouting and crying, and Bibi sent them to
opposite ends of the house. Hours later, when she allowed them to be together
again, they hugged as if they’d been lost from one another for long long years.

When Josie turned nine, Maman sent Elbow John back to the
stables. Josie was to have lessons, she was to keep her petticoats and her
hands clean, she was to become a young lady. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Madame
Estelle drilled Josie in English grammar. On Monday and Wednesday, Mademoiselle
Fatima enthused over French literature. Fridays, Monsieur Pierre insisted Josie
sit straight in front of the piano as she practiced scales. Afterwards he held
her in his wooden arms to teach her to dance.

Josie would so much rather be outside climbing a tree or
helping Louella haul water. But Maman had hired tutors to counter just that
sort of behavior. Other daughters of good family did not spend their hours like
little hoydens.

So the tutors came, and Josie had to curtail her jumping and
running and swinging. Cleo keeping her company, she sat with Mademoiselle
Fatima who, with her mustache and moles, leaned in too close when she read
from Victor Hugo, the spittle flying from her mouth. Monsieur Pierre was not
above rapping Josie’s wrists if she let them drop at the keyboard. Worst of all
was Madame Estelle, who demanded absolute perfection.

“Put, put, put,” Josie recited. “Run, ran, run. Sit, sat,
sat.” She could discover no pattern to the English verbs, and she suffered from
the disgusted sneer on Madame’s face when she made a mistake. Sometimes she
appealed silently to Cleo, sitting on the floor in the corner, and Cleo would
mouth “swam” at her, or else shrug her shoulders, equally at a loss.

Only Papa looked in during study time. Usually he simply
leaned against the door jamb for a few minutes and listened to Josie conjugate
an English verb or read a few lines of Baudelaire, which for all she understood
of it, might as well have been in English.

One particular morning, as Josie labored under Madame
Estelle’s tutelage and Cleo sat on the floor copying letters on a scrap of
paper, Madame took Papa aside.

“Monsieur Tassin. Perhaps you are not aware the little slave
attends Josephine in her school hours. I am most uncomfortable with this
flaunting of the law.” Madame referred of course to book learning as a
forbidden activity for a slave; indeed, teaching a slave to read had been
labeled a crime by the wise men of Louisiana.