Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (32 page)

“When the war’s over . . . ,” he said.

She walked away, leaving him behind.

“Marianne, wait.”

Head down, she quickened her pace. He let her go, and that
hurt too.

Seven horses, four riders, one wagon, and six passengers
filled the old road from Ginny’s to the Trace. Once they reached the Trace
itself, they spread out and Yves tried to maneuver his horse next to
Marianne’s. Marianne, without acknowledging his presence, nudged her mount to
ride between the wagon and the forest edge.

Damn that Lindsay Morgan. She’s poisoned every female mind
in three parishes, and Marianne --. It was painful to imagine what Marianne
must think. He really had not been as forward with Miss Morgan as the gossip
had it. When he’d first heard what was circulating, he’d been astounded. Yes,
he’d kissed her. And Lindsay had kissed him back. But they were not the kisses
he’d shared with Marianne. And he had not been “trifling” with Marianne’s affections,
as the saying goes. Pig-headed woman. If she’d just listen.

He rode up to join his father and Valentine in the lead.
Valentine was practically a member of the family. In fact, Yves suspected there
actually was a blood connection between Papa and the valet he’d had since
childhood; it was common enough. So when Valentine spoke, it didn’t surprise
him, but it needled him nonetheless.

“Looks like you made a mess of it with that Miss Johnston,
young master.” Yves had always hated it when Valentine called him “young
master” – an insincere epithet he used only in not-so-subtle irony.  “You
aiming to break another heart?”

“Valentine, I swear. If --.”

“You two,” Monsieur Chamard said. “It’s a beautiful summer’s
morning. Can’t a man ride in peace?”

“Ya’suh,” Valentine said in mock subservience. Monsieur
Chamard smiled at Yves, enjoying the charade, and Yves let his irritation go.

The three rode abreast, and he told his father about
Marianne’s scheme to free Luke and Pearl. Monsieur Chamard heard him out.

“The only way to make it legal would be to petition the
legislature,” Monsieur Chamard said, “and you know as well as I no body of
governance in the South will hear such a request in these times.”

“I tried to tell her so, but –.”

“ -- But she ain’t listening to you,” Valentine chimed in.

Yves glowered at him but didn’t take the bait.

“In fact,” Yves’ father went on, “having Miss Johnston’s
freed-papers in his possession would be riskier for this man than being a
slave. He’d have no one’s protection should he be accosted, and he surely would
be. I doubt anyone here would be generous or patient enough to send inquiries
to the Johnstons. More likely Luke would simply be put back on public auction.
The woman, too.”

“So Luke and Pearl would be better off if Miss Ginny had
ownership papers.”

Monsieur Chamard nodded. They rode a while in silence.

“Miss Ginny, she’s old,” Valentine said. “What happens when
she dies? They just live back in the woods hoping nobody comes up on them?”

What a tangle. Marianne wouldn't even speak to him, and here he
was trying to save her neck and keep her happy at the same time. Yves twisted
around in his saddle and looked back at her. Ha. He caught her. She’d been
watching him and hadn’t turned her head away in time to hide it. She was his,
whether she knew it or not.

He faced forward again, a sly cocky smile on his face. Which
Valentine did not fail to notice. “You think you got her, do you?” Valentine
shook his head. “I don’t know. This Miss Johnston got a head on her shoulders.
She’s no silly débutante like them others.”

“Valentine, you don’t have to lecture me about women,” Yves
said, all his pique dissolved by Marianne’s furtive look. “I believe Papa
covered all that some years ago.”

Monsieur Chamard continued as if there had been no break in
the discussion. “The most practical solution to Miss Marianne’s dilemma would
be to have our friend William Tadman agree to hold papers on these two. They
could still live out here on Miss Ginny’s place, but it’d be with William’s
official permission – and most important, under his protection. And it’d be
legal.”

Yves could just hear Marianne’s protestations. She wanted
Luke and Pearl to be free. But she couldn’t have it that way, and neither could
Luke and Pearl, not if they wanted to stay on Ginny’s place. Living in the
South, in this time of increased restrictions, Marianne would have to accept
the limits of her power to do as she pleased with her slaves. What’s more, she
seemed to constantly forget they were her father’s slaves, not hers, and Albany
Johnston was as invested in slavery as his father was.

Life with Marianne would not be easy, Yves realized. But it was
what he wanted. If she had the patience to wait for him. His spirits and his
confidence sank again. He hadn’t even won her trust enough for her to believe he
meant what those kisses promised.

Yves looked over his shoulder again. This time Marianne was
not watching him. She rode beside the wagon and was talking to Simone and
Gabriel. She was not meant to be a poor man’s wife, living on a journalist’s salary
in a cold climate.

Monsieur Chamard spoke quietly over the creak of saddle
leather. “You’re too much like your mother, son. All hurry and impatience. Give
it time. She’ll come around.”

It wasn’t that simple. “Papa, I’m ready to go. I’m taking
that job in New York.”

Monsieur Chamard nodded. “I expected it. But if you’re going
to go, Yves, I’d rather you go soon rather than wait for the political climate
to get any worse. You could be caught down here, and the way you feel – you’ll
be better off up north.”

Yves and Marianne skirted around each other the rest of the
day. Frustrated, he once more tried to ride with her. She silently but
emphatically would not allow it, reining her horse away from him. Yves found
himself red-faced, furious, embarrassed and bewildered.

I swear, he thought, I’ll never understand a woman. He had done nothing
she didn’t want him to do.  Even as he excused himself, though, he knew very
well what he’d done to Marianne, and guilt did not sit easily on his shoulders.
He’d allowed her to think, to expect, that he had intentions. And he did, dammit.
Just not right away.

With DuPree in her lap, Pearl sat squeezed between Miss
Ginny and Luke on the wagon seat, happy to have the three of them elbow to
elbow. We a family now. Miss Ginny our granny, and me and Luke got DuPree.

Pearl hugged Luke’s arm to her. He kept his attention on the
horses and the reins, never having driven a wagon before, but she knew his
heart. He glad as I am. He just having trouble believing it.

They camped out overnight. A light shower passed over them
before dawn, and Pearl fretted DuPree might catch a chill. “Hand him here,”
Luke whispered. He took the little fellow and cuddled him next to his big warm
chest, sheltering him from the rain. Every kindness Luke did DuPree, Pearl
remembered to thank God for it. You good to us, Lawd, and I knows it.

Luke made a grand fire to dry out and cook breakfast by.
Pearl mixed up corn meal and water to fry in the bacon grease while Miss
Marianne tended DuPree. Pearl had watched Missy being mean to Yves Chamard all
day, and she wasn’t any friendlier this morning. Whatever he done to make her
mad, she need to get over it. If she don’t come round, I maybe tell her dat.

At mid-morning, they crossed a stream running through a
meadow. Pearl was puzzled when Yves led their party off the road and
dismounted. His father settled his horse close up to the wagon while Yves
climbed in next to Gabriel and perched on the sidewall.

“Miss Johnston, will you please join us?” Yves said.

Marianne stopped next to Monsieur Chamard but stayed on her
horse. Look at dat face she pull, Pearl thought. She miserable being mad, but
she too stubborn to let it go.

“We need to settle this before we get to town,” Yves began.
“My father has confirmed what I feared. In the state of Mississippi, there are
very circumscribed laws about how a slave may be freed. And it is no easier in
Louisiana.”

Pearl took hold of Luke. Her heart started pounding so she
knew Luke could feel it through her arm. Dey not gone free us after all.

“In order to free Luke or Pearl, your father, Miss Johnston,
would have to submit a petition to the legislature. You know how unlikely it is
they would respond favorably in this political climate.” Yves looked at Luke.
“The government would have to grant your freedom, Luke. The Johnstons cannot do
it.”

Luke’s face was impassive, and Pearl looked only at her lap.
Don know why I believed it anyway, she thought. We’s slaves and dat’s dat.

Marianne spoke up. “Then Luke and Pearl won’t have their
freedom papers. They can still stay with Miss Ginny. Who’s to know?”

“Let’s say,” Monsieur Chamard proposed, “that Luke has a
fine crop of, I don’t know. Corn. He needs a new axe; Pearl needs calico,
shoes, sewing needles. Luke goes to the market.” He looked at all of them. “He
will be challenged immediately, and with no papers, he’ll not only be forbidden
to trade, he’ll likely be taken up.”

The party sat in the meadow in silence while the horses
munched on sweet grass and a blue dragon fly hovered. Pearl swallowed hard.  I
gone lose Luke again. He not gone stay wid me and DuPree.  When Luke squeezed
her hand, she felt her throat fill up as if her heart beat there. He telling me
goodbye already.

 “But surely someone on the Trace would trade with them,”
Marianne said. She looked at Luke. “Or you could --.”

Luke shook his head. “No way to live, wondering every minute
some neighbor man gone turn you over to de slavers.”

He gone run, dat’s what he means. Pearl bored into Missy’s
blue eyes, all the yearning in her heart in the look she gave Marianne. Dat man
Yves love you. You ask him, he fix dis.

Marianne did look to Yves, her appeal silent but eloquent.
She felt connected to him even now, in spite of her disappointment, and Pearl
needed him.

“Yes,” he answered her. “There may be another way.”

Monsieur Chamard explained his plan involving William
Tadman. “You’d legally belong to Mr. Tadman, Luke, but you’d live on Miss
Ginny’s place. When you came in to town with your produce, you’d have your
paper of permission from Mr. Tadman. You’d have his protection.”

“And if dis Mr. Tadman don want me up at Ginny’s?” Luke said
to the elder Chamard. “If’n he decides he want Pearl in his kitchen, maybe, and
me in some cotton field?”

“I know Mr. Tadman. I trust him. That’s all the guarantee I
can give you.”

“Miss Ginny, you understand all this?” Yves said.

Her eyes flashed at him. “I’m old, not stupid.”

Gabriel guffawed.

“You hush, Caleb, or whatever your name is. This here Caleb
and his Pearl willing to stay with me.” She turned to Monsieur Chamard. “You
make it happen, Mister.” Miss Ginny looked at Luke. “Caleb . . . all right,
Luke, then. You take it. It’ll be a better life than you ever had.”

Pearl could have kissed the old woman. Hope surged again: It
would work. We can have us a life on dat little farm.

Luke bent his head and Pearl leaned her forehead against
his. They didn’t speak, but they didn’t need to.

Please, Lawd, Pearl prayed, help him see it gone work.

Luke raised his head and studied Monsieur Chamard a moment.
“All right. I’ll stick it.”

Pearl bent over her knees, trembling in her prayers. Thank
you, Lawd. Luke took her in his arms, right in front of all those white people,
and pulled her onto his lap. “I got you, honey,” he whispered. “It be all right
now.”

They reached Natchez in late afternoon. Marianne strained
her patience as Monsieur Chamard settled Gabriel in the hotel, Simone tending
to him. At last, the rest of the party followed Main Street to the home of Mr.
William Tadman where Luke and Pearl’s fate would be finally determined.

Marianne nodded to Luke and Pearl to wait around back of the
house. Monsieur Chamard knocked on the front door, and Mr. Tadman’s wife
admitted Bertrand and Yves Chamard, Marianne, and Ginny.

 “Why, Mr. Chamard, good morning. Won’t you come in?” Mrs.
Tadman said, casting a glance at Ginny’s filthy bare feet. She seated them in
her fashionable parlor. “Mr. Tadman is at the barber shop this afternoon.” She
called her pickanniny. “Run after Mr. Tadman, Susie. Tell him Mr. Chamard is
here.”

While they waited, Mrs. Tadman served them lemonade and
sugar cookies. This was a new experience for Marianne. Mrs. Tadman’s skin was
dark, her nose was broad and flat, yet she wore a lovely day gown of fine
yellow cotton and white lace. Her black tightly-curled tresses were free of the
ever-present tignon the slaves had to wear, and it was arranged much as
Marianne fashioned her own hair.

“Yes, sir, the Natchez market is flooded with cotton,” Mrs.
Tadman was saying. She was as cultured and gracious a hostess as any Marianne
had encountered. Free Negroes, educated and sophisticated, who owned slaves.
Marianne glanced at Yves, wondering if he dwelt on the irony as well.

Mr. Tadman arrived. The gentlemen shook hands, introductions
were made, and the problem put before Mr. Tadman. Marianne wondered if he still
had her pearls. Monsieur Chamard and Yves both trusted him, not only with
pearls, but with the lives of two people she’d come to care about. She would
have to trust him too; there was no other solution.

Mr. Tadman led his guests to the back courtyard to inspect
the two slaves they set such store by. Pearl sat on a bench in the shade with
DuPree on her lap eating a fig the cook gave him. Luke stood, the tension in
his body making him stiff.

Mr. Tadman asked Luke a few questions, assuring himself the
man knew what was expected of him. Marianne breathed easier, now. It was all
but settled. Tomorrow they would have the papers drawn up to transfer Luke and
Pearl’s ownership to Mr. Tadman. Then Luke, Pearl, DuPree and Ginny would drive
back up the Trace to the farmstead to begin their new lives.