Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (35 page)

Josie had to wake up. She had to take control of Toulouse.

Her first action was to have the stocks destroyed. LeBrec
had scorned her for coddling the slackers, but Josie knew they had not been slackers
before LeBrec arrived. She forbade any lashings until he had consulted with
her, and then she found less drastic, painful repercussions for the slaves who
had offended LeBrec, especially the young girls whom she suspected had run from
his attentions.

So, for the sake of her people, Josie had become the
mistress of Toulouse in more than name.

She excused LeBrec from her parlor and went to her
grandmother’s room to rummage for the book on remedies. Long ago, Grand-mère
had learned every infusion and salve the book described, and had even concocted
her own remedies. Josie would find a potion to fight the fever in the quarters,
and she would administer it to the children herself, as her grandmother always
had.

Josie took the book of remedies to the gallery where Laurie
sat fanning Grand-mère. She polished her spectacles on her skirt and told
Grand-mère what she was looking for. The children were fevered and complained
of ear ache, she said. No rash, no runny nose.

Grand-mère indicated Josie should put the book on the table
next to her. Her good hand, though not paralyzed, trembled so that she could
not hold a pen or a teacup, but she was able to fumble with the book until she
found the right page. It was stained with traces of the medicines she had brewed
in years past, and in the margin were notes in her handwriting.

“This one?” Josie said. She considered it miraculous that
Cleo had no difficulty understanding Grand-mère, but the emphatic grunt was
clear.

Willow bark tea for the fever, Josie read aloud. Sweet oil,
just warmed, for the ear ache. Next to the recipe Grand-mère had jotted down
where she’d gathered the herbs and the willow bark. “Do you use olive oil?”
Josie asked. Grand-mère nodded yes.

Josie thumbed through the worn pages. “You know all these
remedies, Grand-mère?”

Grand-mère’s fierce eye gleamed. She let forth a long string
of words and stabbed a finger in the air toward Josie.

“She says, it’s the mistress of a plantation’s
responsibility,” Cleo said. She had walked up silently behind Josie with a
pitcher of cool water. “She says you’re the mistress now.”

Yes, I am
. Josie looked at Grand-mère’s drooping left
eye, the twisted mouth, the sash that held her upright in the rolling chair.
Josie had it to do. She would not spend the coming season attending parties in
New Orleans. She would not be a wife. She would run Toulouse. There was no one
else to do it.

Josie stuck a marker in the book and stood up with purpose.
“I’ll see to these earaches.”

In the nights, long after everyone in the house had gone to
sleep, Josie lay awake, allowing herself to feel, trying to make sense of what
had happened to her. Couldn’t Bertrand have found another way to save Cherleu
if he really loved her? Why had he let her go so easily?

She reviewed all the betrayals she’d endured, including her
own father’s insistence on having both Bibi and his wife. Intolerable.
Unforgivable. And his divided love extended to her as well. She knew her Papa
had loved her, but he’d loved Cleo more.

Were there men who were faithful? Tante Marguerite admitted
her husband, Oncle Sandrine, had a woman from the Blue Ribbon. How is it
Marguerite could smile when she told her that? But Marguerite herself was
faithless -- she had kissed Phanor in her husband’s own house.

Phanor -- his fickleness burned even now. She had thought
there was a connection between the two of them. Yes, he was poor, and just a
Cajun, but . . . somehow, she’d felt he was hers. That was nonsense, of course.
She had no claim on him. But to make love to her own aunt -- even Phanor had
hurt her.

The morning found Josie hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, but
she did what needed to be done. With so many pressing tasks, she put her
wounded feelings aside, and the days of sticky heat rolled on. She read the
letters from the bankers in New Orleans. She pored over the accounts books. And
with Cleo helping her understand Grand-mère’s advice, she wrote back to the
creditors asking for extensions on the loans, taking care the perspiration of
her hands didn’t smear the ink.

She watched for the mail boat, hoping and yet dreading the
answering mail. One after another, the faceless men who held the fate of
Toulouse in their hands turned her down. And then the letter from Monsieur
Moncrieff, who held the largest loan, arrived.

Josie wadded up the letter and tossed it in the corner.
“That’s what I think of your offer, Monsieur.”

The banker had refused to extend her loans another quarter.
Instead, Monsieur Moncrieff had offered to buy a parcel of Toulouse’s acreage
for a fraction of what it was worth. That sum would have reduced the
plantation’s debt by an even smaller fraction. She would have to raise the
money some other way.

She’d already appealed to Tante Marguerite and Oncle
Sandrine, but they were as short of cash as everyone else. The only ones who
seemed to have prepared for the crash were some of the Americans. The
Johnstons, rather than being in debt themselves, held paper on half a dozen
planters in the area. But Josie would rather die than humble herself to Albany
Johnston.

While Josie struggled to figure out how much cane Toulouse
might reasonably produce in the fall, Cleo watched a steam boat churn up the
river and then veer for the dock, its big paddle wheel backing water long
enough for a passenger to disembark. It was Phanor, Cleo was certain. She
called Laurie to sit with Madame, and then she ran down the stairs to meet him.

Under the oak canopy of the alley, Cleo hurried to him, her
face alight. Phanor would carry another letter from Remy.

As she approached him, though, she slowed her steps.
Something was wrong. Phanor did not answer the smile on her face, didn’t raise
his hand to her. As he closed the distance between them, the sense of
foreboding built in Cleo until she could hardly breathe.

“What’s happened?” she said.

Phanor took her elbow and guided her toward the wrought iron
seat under one of the ancient oaks.

“Tell me now,” Cleo demanded.

He led her to the bench and insisted she sit down. “It’s bad
news,” he said.

“Remy…?”

“On the docks. There was a fight,” Phanor said. He took
Cleo’s cold hand. “Between the Irish workers and the free blacks, over who
would keep the jobs. Someone pulled a knife, and then others pulled theirs too.
Remy was stabbed, Cleo.”

“How bad is it? Does he need a doctor?”

Phanor shook his head. “He died on the docks.”

Cleo rocked back and forth on the bench, a low sound coming
from deep in her chest. Her body shook.

Phanor’s own grief was still sharp, yet there was nothing he
could do but sit close to Cleo, his arm around her shoulders. She buried her
face in his chest and sobbed like a child.

Phanor held her close and considered how Cleo would be able
to hide her grief from her madame and mademoiselle. They had no idea she knew
where their runaway had gone, much less that she had corresponded with him.
They would want to know what was wrong with her, what Phanor had said to her.

He offered her his handkerchief. “Cleo,” he said. “You can’t
let them see you like this.”

Cleo wiped her face with the handkerchief and shook her
head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Madame Emmeline has had a stroke. No one
will notice me.”

Phanor looked up at the house as if he could see Madame
lying in her bed. She had been good to him. His eyes fell on Josie standing at
the gallery rail, watching them. On the trip upriver, Phanor hadn’t known
whether he would see Josie at all. She had been so cold, so superior, the last
time he’d come. He’d had no opportunity to try to excuse himself, to explain to
her about being in the pantry with Marguerite. What could he have said, anyway?
He had kissed her aunt, had kissed her heatedly. Even now, her perfume lingered
in his mind.

Even if Josie didn’t want to see him, he would at least go
to the house to inquire about Madame Tassin. He owed her that much, and maybe
there was something he could do for her. But first, he supported Cleo to the
cookhouse. The grief poured out of her all over again as Phanor explained to
Louella that Remy had been killed. Louella handed her a glass of
tafia
,
the rough spirits the cook made herself.

“You go on, M’sieu. I feed her dis till she sleep.”

Phanor climbed the back gallery steps and tapped on the
dining room door. Josie herself took him inside.

“What’s wrong with Cleo?” she said without greeting him.

“Remy is dead.”

Josie eyes were blank for a moment. “Remy?” Then he saw
recognition dawn on her. “But Remy ran away nearly a year ago. How does she
know?”

Phanor let the obvious answer sink in. He had committed a
crime when he helped Remy escape, and had compounded it all these months by
keeping his whereabouts secret.

“You’ve known all along where he’d run to?” Josie said.

“Yes.”

Josie’s posture stiffened. “But you knew he was a runaway.”

“Josie – ”

“You knew he belonged to my grandmother. After she’s been
such a help to you. How could you?”

“Josie, you don’t understand. You were in New Orleans. You
didn’t see what he endured.”

“Endured? No more than any other field hand, and . . .” She
faltered. She didn’t know what had gone on while she was in New Orleans, and
Grand-mère had not been herself.

Phanor ran a hand through his hair. “Let me show you,” he
pleaded. 

He stepped over to the little rosewood desk and helped
himself to a sheet of paper. In quick strokes, he sketched the cage the
overseer had locked on Remy’s head.

“The bells rang, day and night, with every movement.
Remember, I told you in New Orleans? If he shifted in his cot, if he took a
deep breath, the bells jangled. And it was heavy, Josie. It was iron. He had to
do a full day’s work with that on, trying to keep his balance, to carry its
weight, and still wield a hoe in the fields.”

“We’ve never done anything like that to a slave,” Josie
said. She gazed at the drawing, and her shoulders slumped.

Phanor lowered his voice, sure the cruelty had touched her.
“Your Monsieur LeBrec did this. After he cut off half of Remy’s ear.”

“My God,” she whispered. She put a hand to her mouth. “I
didn’t know.” She squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head.

Suddenly, Josie stiffened her spine. “Nothing like that will
ever happen again on Toulouse.” Her eyes blazed, and for the first time Phanor
could see the resemblance to her grandmother.

“And the fact remains,” Josie said, “Remy belonged to
Toulouse.” She tilted her chin up.

Phanor met her eyes and saw no hope of forgiveness. Flushed
with indignation, she’d never looked more alluring, nor more distant, and
Phanor’s heart ached.

He put his hat on his head. “Mademoiselle,” he said, and
left her.

Phanor gone, Josie paced the parlor, her skirts sweeping
roughly against the horsehair settee with every turn. How dare he collude in
helping an escaped slave?

No matter how angry she tried to be with Phanor, though, her
mind returned to the drawing of the cage, to the image of LeBrec cutting Remy’s
ear.

Abruptly, sobs erupted and Josie’s steps faltered. She fell
onto the settee and cried out all the hurt she’d been carrying all these weeks.

And through her own heartache, she felt the suffering that
seemed to permeate the world. Was there a soul living that wasn’t burdened with
pain? Blessed Mother, how are we to bear it? A mother loses a child, a child
her father, her mother. Injustice and loss all around her.

Mother Mary, take pity on your poor children. Blessed
Mother, take Remy’s soul, for Cleo’s sake, she prayed.

In the following days, Josie and Louella took over Cleo’s
duties. They bathed and fed Grand-mère while Cleo slept or stared at her hands
idle in her lap. Finally Cleo bestirred herself and began to take long walks in
and around the plantation, indifferent to whether LeBrec found her or not. Josie
imagined she revisited every place she had been with Remy, relived every moment
they’d spent together. She knew about that kind of remembering.

Finally one morning as Josie helped Grand-mère with her
breakfast in the dining room, Cleo appeared. Her face had a little color in it,
Josie thought. Maybe she’d slept last night.

“I’ll do it,” Cleo said. “I’ll take care of her.”

Josie vacated her seat next to the rolling chair.

Cleo picked up the teacup and held it steady for her, but
Grand-mère pushed it away.

“What’s wrong?” Josie said. Grand-mère had taken the tea
readily enough from her.

Grand-mère said something like “oo eet.” Josie was about to
ask her to repeat herself, which always made her furious, but Cleo had
understood.

“It’s too sweet?”

Grand-mère nodded. “Ooeet.” Cleo smiled, and Josie realized
she hadn’t seen her smile in a very long time, long before the news about Remy.
Josie had just been too happy, and then too miserable, to notice.

“Josie likes sugar,” Cleo said, including Josie in her
smile.

“Well, I never,” Josie said.

 “I’ll fix you a cup the way you like it,” she said to
Grand-mère. “After breakfast, I’m going to get to work on this floor. It’s past
due a good scrub. You can sit in here, Madame, and tell me not to scrub the
roses off the paintwork.” For the first time since her stroke, Grand-mère tried
to chuckle, and Josie felt her burdens lighten.

Cleo took over most of Grand-mère’s care and rolled her from
room to room with her as she did her housework. The few and intermittent hours that
the old woman was awake, her mood brightened to be moved about and to have
Cleo, who understood her better than anyone else, include her in the busyness
of the house.