Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (42 page)

Josie looked at the bundle of blankets on Cleo’s shoulder.
“That’s Gabriel,” she breathed. Cleo took a step back and held Gabriel tighter
against her chest. A mule and wagon rattled by, and tradesmen jostled them in
the busy street.

Cleo’s suspicion nearly crushed Josie. “I won’t try to take
him,” she said. “I won’t even ask to hold him.”

Cleo took another step back, her eyes locked on Josie’s.

“I’m so sorry, Cleo.” Josie’s breath seized in her chest.
“Forgive me. Please forgive me,” she managed.

Cleo’s eyes filled, but Josie read fear and mistrust behind
the blur of tears. As Cleo backed away, Josie sobbed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Good bye, Josie,” Cleo whispered. She turned and quickly
lost herself in the throng of people.

Josie leaned against a storefront and buried her face in her
scarf until her breathing eased. She wiped her eyes and moved through the crowd
Cleo had disappeared into, her whole heart yearning for her sister.

It was nearly dark. Josie put her handkerchief away and
hurried to buy two butts from the pork butcher. She carried the heavy basket
through the fading light back to the kitchen. She put the meat in a tin box to
keep the rats out and locked the kitchen.

The moon had not risen and the streets were dark as Josie
made her way to bed and rest. She was too tired and too preoccupied to be
afraid. She passed through the square where Phanor had played his fiddle that
Sunday. Likely to the same people who now bought her pies, Josie thought. Cleo
had looked good. Her cape was new, and now that she thought of it, her boots
were good too. She’d probably found Phanor, and he’d helped her. He was a good
man, Phanor was.

Josie climbed the stairs to her room.
If only I’d seen
Gabriel’s face
.

Louella was snoring softly when Josie entered. She undressed
and climbed in to the cold bed. She got up immediately, found a pair of wool
socks, and climbed back under the covers. She felt emptied and light. Even
though sobs still threatened, she had told Cleo she was sorry. There was that,
at least.

While Josie slept, Cleo sang at
Les Trois Frères
. She
wore a new gown, blue satin trimmed in black lace. Her voice was low and
intimate, and the diners quieted when she began. The gentlemen and ladies at
the back tables felt the same warm caress in her full-throated voice as the
admirers who made a point of sitting near the stage to see her.

Bertrand Chamard was the only admirer Cleo encouraged. He
came alone, drank his brandy, and gazed at Cleo as she sang. Afterwards, he
would take Cleo home to the little house in the
Vieux Carre
where
Gabriel and his nanny slept. He never stayed more than an hour or two, and
after gazing on his son in the crib, he’d kiss Cleo once again and go home to
his wife.

Chamard had discovered Cleo when he’d first come to town in
the fall. He, his wife Abigail, her brother Albany and his wife Violette had
dined at
Les Trois Frères
for a quiet evening’s reunion.

Cleo had noticed him immediately, and her whole body
remembered the hot, feverish beddings they’d shared in the little cabin at the
back of his plantation. She knew he sat with his wife, but she had long ago
come to terms with the fact that Bertrand came to her as a married man. He’d
stared at her for one intense quick moment, and then had looked away. When the
club closed late that night, he’d been waiting for her in his carriage.

Cleo wondered if she should tell Chamard she’d seen Josie. Would
he help Josie if she needed it? She hadn’t looked well. The familiar dark green
dress and jacket hung on her, and her face was thin. Her hair straggled from
the cap she wore, and her presence in Butcher Lane was unexplainable. Unless
she had guessed Cleo would be in touch with Phanor. He was easy enough to find.

As she snuggled against Chamard under the warm quilt, Cleo
realized she had over-reacted. She’d been afraid Josie would take her back. It
would have taken only a holler to commandeer several white men to seize her.
But Josie’s tears had been real. Her apology was real.

“I saw Josie today,” she said.

Chamard shifted his weight. “Did you?”

“In Butcher Lane. I’d left a bag of lemons for Phanor and
was coming back here when we practically ran into each other.”

“What was she doing in Butcher Lane?”

“At first I thought she was searching for me, but now I
think she was as surprised as I was. She’s thin, and a little haggard.”

Chamard was quiet, and Cleo let him think. He took her hand
and held it against his chest. “I’ll look into it.”

Cleo kissed him, and in a minute he threw the heavy quilt
off the bed.

Josie’s Tante Marguerite had not invited Chamard to her home
since his marriage to Abigail Johnston. He didn’t blame her for excluding him,
and at their mutual friends’
soirée
, she was her usual coquettish self.
She fluttered her fan at him, and he bowed deeply.

“Would you care to dance, Madame?”

She spread her fan over the lower half of her face, which
emphasized the merry dark eyes.

“I’d be delighted,” she said.

Chamard whirled her into the crowd of dancers, and the two
of them waltzed splendidly around the room. He was aware Abigail watched them
from her seat next to her mother, but he refused to bow to her childish
jealousy. He would dance with every woman in the room, if he pleased. Abigail
needed to relax, have some fun on her own. There were plenty of young men in
the room who would love to dance with her. She only needed to give them the
slightest encouragement.

The orchestra took a break, and Chamard escorted Marguerite
to the refreshment table. As he helped her to a plate of oysters, he said, “I
understand your niece is in town.”

“Josephine?” Marguerite said. She avoided his eyes, not her
usual bold style at all. “I’m sure she decided to stay on Toulouse with her
grandmother,” she said.

“How is Emmeline?”

“Much the same, I hear. Josephine runs Toulouse now.”

“They are much alike, I think,” Chamard said. “Both strong
women.”

Marguerite rather abruptly hailed her friend Achille. She
clearly did not wish to discuss her niece. Chamard bowed slightly and returned
to the dance floor with an elegant woman dressed all in creamy satin. If
Abigail continued to sit there with a long dull face, he would send her home
with the Johnstons and meet Cleo when she finished at
Les Trois Frères
.

The next morning, Chamard charged his man Valentine with
sleuthing out Josephine’s whereabouts. It would please Cleo, and he too would like
to know that Josephine was well. From the way Marguerite had avoided him the
rest of last evening, something was amiss.

Valentine had sources Chamard did not. He stopped in at the
kitchen behind Marguerite’s townhouse. Liza, the cook, welcomed him with a big
hug and an amorous kiss. “Where you been, you sweet thing?” she said. “It been
a month of Sundays since you been by.”

Valentine did his duty. He pretended to try to seduce Liza,
and she pretended to be just about to yield, but it was only sport.

Liza herself didn’t often go in the living quarters of the
family, but she got the news from the house slaves. “You right,” she told
Valentine. “Dere been whispering 'bout dat niece Josephine. Somethin' 'bout being
common, like a tradesman, and her a girl and just grown. It’s dis crash dey
talks about, I reckon,” Liza said. “Likely dat girl need de money.”

“You know where she is?” Valentine asked.

“She got a place down on de levee, I think. I don’ know no
mo’ dan dat.”

Valentine spent the next several afternoons strolling along
the river road, looking for any sign of a genteel lady out of her natural
element. He’d been disappointed when his master married
l’américaine
.
Mademoiselle Josephine would not have plagued him day and night like this
Madame Abigail did. Valentine, do this. Valentine do that, he groused. That
woman too damn lazy to scratch her own head.

He bought a pie from a slave woman in Jackson Square and
moseyed again down
Rue Chartres
. He left the busy street to explore the
alleys along the levee, and there he got lucky. Mademoiselle Josephine was
locking the door to a weathered board house. She strode off with a large basket
on her arm. Valentine followed at a distance, but he soon learned he needn’t be
particularly careful. The lady had no notion of being followed.

She bought produce in the farmer’s market and returned to
the kitchen near the levee. Shortly she emerged again, and Valentine followed
her to her lodging. It was nearly dark by then, and he stayed in the street
long enough to see her light a candle in the window above the doorway.

The following evening, Josie arrived at the little room just
at sunset. Louella hadn’t come in yet, and the room was cold and dark. Josie
struck a match to the candle and shucked her shoes off. The soles had worn
thin, but she didn’t want to spend her hard-earned profits on shoes. Not yet,
anyway. When the rain started soaking her stockings, then she might replace
them with the brogans she saw the other working women wear. She’d completely
abandoned her pride in such trivial matters. The girls she knew from last
winter had never crossed her path, and they certainly would never be seen at
her shop. Anyway, who cared if they saw her earning a living in clod-hoppers
and mob cap? She needed something to keep the hair out of her eyes while she
cooked, and the delicate slippers of high fashion were of no use to a woman on
her feet all day.

Someone tapped on her door. Louella never knocked.

“Who is it?”

The door opened.

Josie sat with a shoe in her hand, gaping. “Bertrand? What
are you doing here?”

“May I come in?”

Josie stood up. “What do you want?”

“I heard you were in town, yet you haven’t been at any of
your friends’ parties. I wanted to assure myself you are all right.”

“I am well, thank you,” she blasted him with arctic fury.
“You need not concern yourself.”

“Josephine, please. You have every right to be angry with
me, but... I want to know if you need some assistance.”

“I do not.”

Chamard looked around the room. Two cots, a chair, a table.
No rug on the floor. A shabby curtain at the window. The grate had only a few
coals in it.

“Who stays here with you?”

“What difference does it make to you?”

“Please, Josephine. What are you doing here?”

Josie lifted her chin. “I’m making money. Isn’t that what
counts in this world? Money?”

He ignored the barb. “How are you making money?”

“With the work of my own hands. I have a kitchen. We make
pies. We sell them.”

Chamard sat on one of the hard cots, his hat held between
his knees.

“Are you making a profit? Truly?”

“Even more than I’d hoped. So you see, you need not concern
yourself. You may leave in good conscience.”

Chamard studied her in the candlelight. Josie’s dress bore a
streak of flour across one breast, and her hair was mussed from pulling off the
white cap. “You’re a beautiful woman, Josie. Not just a pretty girl. And tough,
like your grandmother.”

Josie held the door open. “I don’t want you here, Bertrand.
I don’t need you.” Would he say he was sorry? Sorry he broke her heart? Sorry
he’d been more interested in money than he had been in her?

Bertrand stood and put his hat on. “I made a bad bargain,
Josephine. I’m the poorer for losing you.”

Josie closed the door behind him and leaned against it. I
told the truth, she thought.
I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone
.

As the winter weeks passed, Josie found bitter irony that so
many people, poor and rich alike, endured desperate circumstances while she,
the spoiled and delicate Mademoiselle, made money in a humble kitchen baking pies.
The laborers at her counter sometimes lined up all the way to the corner, and
she and Louella had all they could do to keep up with the orders. She hired an
Irish girl, not much younger than herself, to help, but there was a limit to
how many pies one oven could bake, no matter how fast they were put together.

Josie visited Monsieur Moncrieff at his bank. She paid him
the interest for the quarter, but instead of also reducing the principal as
she’d planned, she persuaded Monsieur to be patient a little longer. She would
use the capital she’d earned to good effect. She would open another kitchen,
closer to the docks, and by this time next year, she would be in a position to
make regular reductions in the debt.

Monsieur Moncrieff gazed at her over the glasses on his
nose. Josie knew he would be thinking she was too young to trust in financial
matters, but she’d brought her account book. She laid out the figures for him
and answered all his queries.

“Very well,” Moncrieff said. "You must still make your
interest payments, of course, but I will continue to hold your debt. I confess,
Mademoiselle Tassin, your success so far is impressive. I will follow your
enterprise with great interest, and you must feel free to come to me for
consultation whenever you like.”

“Thank you so much, Monsieur,” she said, smiling sweetly,
the little woman grateful to the big smart man. What she thought, however, was
Consultation
my foot. I doubt you know very much about the price of lard or what my
customers will pay for breakfast. Pompous ass
.

Josie quickly opened up the second kitchen and hired two
Irish girls, one to help Louella and one to help her with the new business. As soon
as it was running efficiently, and profitably, she began to think of setting up
a third kitchen that would sell better pastries to the restaurants in the
Vieux
Carré
. Louella baked a fine custard cake, and her crème puffs were as good
as any cook’s in New Orleans. But Josie would have to hire more help, and
Louella would have to train them. One step at a time, Josie thought.