Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (34 page)

“I believe dat de whistle for it,” Joseph said.

At the well Joseph hurriedly poured water over her hands.
She splashed some in her face and tucked a stray tress back in her bonnet, then
made her way through the lower garden, into the formal gardens, through the
back green, and across the veranda.

She rushed into the central hall and there was Albany
Johnston just taking off his hat.

“Father!” Marianne ran to him and he hugged her tight and
whirled her around, though not so high as he once had. Freddie barked and
jumped deliriously.

“How’s my girl?” Mr. Johnston kissed her and held her back
to look at her. For a moment a crease of displeasure crossed his forehead.
“Your face is brown as a nut!”

Marianne laughed. “I’m not a drawing room kind of girl,
Father.”

“Well, it becomes you. I’ve seen enough paste-skinned women
up North. I don’t believe most of them have ever been outdoors more than ten
minutes at a time.” He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and led her
toward the parlor. “How are your roses?”

Marianne’s father eased his considerable bulk onto the sofa
and pulled her down next to him. “Tell me everything.”

Well, not everything just now, she thought. She did tell him
about her roses and some other details about the house, but she wisely led him
to talk about Saratoga. He described the horse racing, the promenades, the
social scene.

“Where is Adam?”

“I don’t know whether he’s in New Orleans or at Lake
Maurepas, Father.” She told him about Gabriel Chamard’s abduction and Adam’s
part in searching the docks of New Orleans. “Gabriel has only been home a week,
and Adam has not yet returned.” Her own part in Gabriel’s rescue she decided to
explain another day.

“He’s left you here alone all this time?”

Another thing Father didn’t need to know, how little Adam
had kept her company on the plantation since he’d been gone. Father was angry
with Adam half the time anyway. “I’ve been busy, Father. Not lonely a bit.”

“You are one of those fortunate people who enjoys her own
company,” he said. “Well, do you suppose we could have dinner in half an hour?
I’ll clean up, and then I’d like nothing better than Lou’siann cooking. Not a
single dinner did I have in Saratoga good as what Evette puts on the table.”

Annie took her place in the dining room to pull the rope of
the great punkah hung over the table, fanning the diners and scattering the
flies as the Master and Mistress ate their dinner.

After buttery cornbread, black-eyed peas cooked with fat
back, stewed chicken, red beans and rice, pickled cabbage, red potatoes, pole
beans, and fresh cut peaches with strawberries and cream, Albany Johnston
folded his napkin and sighed. “That was good.”

Marianne smiled. Her father loved to eat, and she took pride
in managing a kitchen that pleased him. Not that she had labored over a hot stove,
she reminded herself.

“My dear, I have some news.” He twisted his water glass and
kept his eyes on the table.

Father’s nervous? It’s that Marguerite. Oh heavens, he’s
going to marry her.

“You know Madame Sandrine, of course.”

Marianne nodded. She allowed Freddie to jump into her lap to
be petted.

Her father cleared his throat. “We, ah, we ran into each
other in Saratoga.” Liar she thought, and smiled. “She was accompanied by her
youngest son --.”

“Jean Baptiste?” Marianne interrupted only to tease her
father a little. Being of an unflappable disposition, he seldom gave her the
opportunity.

“Yes. Jean Baptiste. So it was quite proper that we should
spend some time together.” He drank from his water glass.

“Yes, Father?”

 “Over the course of the summer, we have formed an, ah,
attachment.” He smiled at her sheepishly, and Marianne grinned at him. “You
already know what I’m going to say, you imp.”

“I believe you are contemplating marriage, Father.”

“You don’t mind?”

Carrying Freddie in one arm, Marianne left her chair to hug
her father. “Of course I don’t mind.” Even though Marguerite Sandrine was a
calculating, flirtatious female whose reputation was perhaps not as white as it
might be.  “I’m sure Madame Sandrine and I shall be great friends.” As long as
she stayed out of her garden and out of her way.

Marianne kissed her father’s forehead. “I’m very happy for
you, Father. When is the wedding to be?”

“Soon. Marguerite wants the wedding to be the first big
event of the season.”

Marianne looked around at the furnishings her mother had
chosen. The deep red upholstery of the dining chairs, worn thin at the corners,
the nicked mahogany table, the stained turkey carpet. All sumptuous, at one
time, and now comfortable and familiar, if a little outdated and worn. She
supposed Madame would want to re-decorate.

Well, and when she married Yves, she wouldn't live here anyway. 
Where would they live? For that matter, he had said nothing about when. Oh. She
was unsettled to realize how little she knew what his plans were. He should
have told her. She supposed he tried, that day in Natchez. She had to listen more
and kiss less. Not what she wanted to do at all!

Marianne hugged her father again, and they repaired to the
parlor where the doors and windows let in the breeze.

The following day, Mr. Johnston took his coffee to his
office and began to go through the correspondence. Mr. McNaught was to report
to him in the afternoon, and Marianne thought she had better have her
confessional time before the overseer brought in all the bad news.

She told him about McNaught’s dogs, about Peter and John Man
and Luke running away, about little Sylvie’s death.

Mr. Johnston shook his head. “I didn’t leave Magnolias for
my daughter to have to manage on her own. I’ll be speaking to Adam about this.”

“Adam was here then. The Chamard brothers were too.” She
took a deep breath. “Father there’s more I have to tell you.”

She left out what she could. Father didn’t need to know about
Eleanor and Ebenezer or the three escapees from another plantation. But she
told him she’d left home with the spinning wheel for Martha Madison, Joseph and
Pearl accompanying her. She told him they’d met up with Yves, who was on his
brother’s trail, and that she and Pearl had joined him because Gabriel
reportedly was sick and injured. She’d sent Joseph back with the wagon. After
that, she kept to the truth: finding Luke, finding Gabriel, leaving Luke and
Pearl and the baby with Miss Ginny, the agreement with William Tadman.

Mr. Johnston did not interrupt. He watched his daughter tell
her story, and he knew exactly when she began to tell him the whole truth. He
already knew her sentiments about slavery. Four years ago when she’d come home
from Boston, she’d been afire with abolitionist drivel. He should have known
she’d not forgotten that nonsense. Hard-headed, willful. Amazing she’d not
given him trouble before now. He wished Adam had her gumption.

Marianne finished and folded her hands in her lap. Her back
was straight, but at least, Mr. Johnston thought, she didn’t blaze defiance at
him – she kept her gaze on her lap in imitation of a demure young woman.

Mr. Johnston poured her a small brandy and a large one for
himself. “So. You have run all around this country like a wanton, risking the
family reputation and your own neck, and you have cost me two slaves, is that
what you’re telling me?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Drink that,” he said. He took his own brandy to the window
and stared out at the lawn and the gardens beyond it. What was he going to do
with her? She was too old to send to her room. Too old to shake a finger at. She
should be married by now. That’s what she needed. A husband and a houseful of
children to keep her busy. Too much time on her hands.

“I can make it up to you, what Pearl and Luke cost, Father.
It might take me two seasons, but I can do without the usual wardrobe expenses.
And I can economize in other ways, I’m sure.”

“Very noble-minded, my dear.” Mr. Johnston turned back to
the desk and sat down. “I have another idea. This season, I want you to stop
sending all the young men away. You make yourself unapproachable when you want
to, I’ve seen you do it. You’re pretty as any girl on the river, richer than
most. The suitors come around, but you scare them off. It’s time you were
married. You see to it this year, and I will forgive all the rest, the
‘adventure,’ and the slaves. Is that a bargain?”

Tears gathered on Marianne’s lashes and she beamed at him.
“I promise to do my best to be married this year, Father. I really do.” She
left her chair and went to him. He took her on his knee as he had so many times
when she was a girl and hugged her. “You’re a trial, you know that, Marianne?”

“Yes, Father. I love you too.”

A few leaves began to turn yellow announcing that once again
fall would succeed summer. Marianne treated heat rash among the babies in the
quarters, ministered to two cases of poison oak, and resumed Peter’s reading
lessons. If Father noticed she spent an inordinate amount of time in the
quarters, he did not mention it.

After ten days at home and no word from Yves, Marianne was
fretful and anxious. She suffered most when she was supposed to be resting and
enduring the languid hours of afternoon heat. Annie, her shadow since she’d
come home, offered to fan her while she lay on her divan, but the child’s head
nodded and the fan fell from her fingers. Marianne lifted her onto the day bed
and let her sleep. She considered stirring about to take her mind off Yves, but
thinking of Yves was a constant anyway, and the slaves needed a respite.
Marianne sat in the shady window seat and leaned on the sill.

Fact one, he’d said. She was accustomed to a life of ease
and luxury. Yes, she was. But she knew how to work, too. She could be content with
much less, if Yves were with her. As for fact two, the election was nearly
three months from now. Mr. Lincoln had not made a significant speech in weeks,
and Father thought he was afraid to rouse the Southerners any further by
opening his mouth. Maybe Lincoln would lose, and there would be no need for
secession. That left fact three: Marriage! She didn't see any reason to wait
longer than they were supposed to. Even if there was a war. They would wait only long
enough for propriety.

Marianne knew very well that if one announced one’s
engagement and then married too quickly afterwards, all the scolds and gossips
watched a woman’s figure to calculate just when she had allowed herself to be
ruined. So the engagement had to be long enough to prove Yves had not proposed
simply to do the honorable thing. A New Year’s Day wedding would be nice.
Everyone would be in town, and Father and Marguerite would be married by then.

But planning a wedding required a groom. And Yves did not
appear. Not the second week, nor the third. As improper as a written
communication from her would be, Marianne considered it. But how could she
write without sounding like a desperate nag? No. Yves had to come to her. She
could do nothing.

Twenty-six days. Marianne thought she’d lost him. He’d
changed his mind. He’d forgotten her. He was as bad as Lindsay Morgan said he
was. No, he loved her. Or perhaps he didn’t. And then the heavy cream-colored
letter arrived addressed to Mr. Albany Johnston from Yves Chamard. She could
have wept at the sight of it.

He would call on Mr. and Miss Johnston on the morrow if he
might. He was coming. Marianne rushed upstairs. She would wash her hair. What
would she wear? “Hannah!”

She sat in the window to let her hair dry and imagined
rushing into his arms, heedless of her father’s amazed disapproval. No, she’d
be aloof. How dare he ignore her for nearly four weeks! She’d tell him what she
thought of him. She’d fuss and rant – he’d take her by the shoulders and hush
her with his mouth on hers.

Marianne kept vigil on the upper gallery, wondering if he
were coming from New Orleans or from his father’s plantation only a few miles
upstream. She spied a rowboat on the river and watched as it rode the current.
She could make out the slaves with oars, and another man sitting in the bow.
The boat slipped out of the central current and angled toward the east bank,
toward Magnolias. Surely it was Yves.

She clattered across the upper hallway, down the stairs, and
out to the front porch. Then she stopped. He’d kept her waiting twenty-six
days! She peered to be sure it was Yves in the boat. It was. She strode inside
and closed the door firmly behind her, then marched upstairs to her room and
closed that door too. She meant to take as long as she liked before she
descended those stairs again. Let him wait.

She sat at the mirror fussing with her hair when she heard
the knocker downstairs, then Charles’ measured footsteps, the murmur of his
greeting, the closing of the big door.

He’ll be following Charles into the parlor now. He’ll be sitting in
the green chair facing the door while Charles fetches Father. He’ll be wondering
why I don’t come down. He knows I know he’s here.

Marianne put her ear to the door. Father’s heavy footsteps
crossed the hall, and in the parlor his big voice greeted Yves, son of his
friend Bertrand, friend of his son Adam. And beloved of his daughter Marianne.

Lil’ Annie’s quick light steps came up the stairs. She
knocked on Marianne’s door and came in without waiting to be called. “Dat man
you likes come, Miss Marianne. You sposed to go down to de parlor, Charles
say.”

“Annie, you’re to wait for me to call you before you open
the door, remember?”

“Oh, yessum. I remembers. I jest don see no use in it. You
gone tell me come in anyway.”

“Go on with you, Annie. I’ll come down when I’m ready.”

“Yessum.”

Marianne left the door ajar, but she could make out only
murmuring voices. She went back to her desk and picked up a book, read two
pages without any notion of what the words on the page said, put it down,
checked her hair again. She tapped her fingers on the dresser. Arranged her
neckline.