Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (8 page)
“How about if I just call you Liz—seems more fitting than a fancy name like Elise.”
Elise nodded. She saw no reason to begin a relationship by being contrary.
“Well, then, Liz, come on.” Mae did not smile, but there was a warmth in her brown eyes, offsetting the hardness of her tone. It was a warmth that Elise clung to hopefully.
Elise followed Mae down the main corridor, around a turn, and into a narrow hallway with guest rooms on either side. Two women were conversing outside one of the doors.
“So Maurry’s got himself a new girl,” one of them said. “ ’Bout time. I been working way too hard lately.”
Elise directed a tentative smile at the woman who appeared to be about her age. It seemed wise to be friendly. Who knew? These women might well become her only friends.
Mae paused before a door at the end of the hall with the number ten painted on the wood surface. “This is the smallest room.” Mae opened the door. “It’s only proper that the new girl get the worst room.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Mae eyed her curiously then led the way inside. “It’s right on the street, so it’s noisy with street sounds, but you’ll get used to it.”
“I’m sure I will.” Actually Elise was pleasantly surprised at the accommodations. This room was almost as nice as her room on the plantation when she was wife of the heir. Yes, it was small and cramped, but the bed was roomy and made of solid oak, and there was a matching dresser. It seemed to lack but one thing. “I was wondering,” Elise ventured, “if there is a crib available for my baby?”
“You can’t have the kid right out in the open, you know. But this ought to suit it—”
“She,” Elise put in. “Her name is Hannah.”
“Well . . . yeah . . . sure.” Mae opened a door to a small closet. “This room was the servant’s quarters at one time, and this was the broom closet. A crate for the kid . . . ah . . . Hannah ought to fit inside. That’s another reason for giving you this room.”
“I suppose it will have to do.” Elise didn’t like the idea of her baby sleeping in a broom closet, but in the last couple of weeks, Hannah had slept in worse quarters. Elise set her small satchel on the bed and walked to the window, pulling aside the curtain of old yellowed lace. The street below was bustling with activity. She turned back to Mae. “Will I have time to rest before I begin my work?”
“It won’t get busy here for a couple of hours.”
“What exactly will my duties be?”
“You don’t know?” When Elise shook her head, Mae rubbed her chin and grimaced. “You mean Maurry didn’t tell you anything?” Again Elise replied in the negative. “That coward! Naturally, he left it to me. You have no idea what kind of business goes on here?”
“A hotel . . . ?”
“That’s a nice way of putting it. There are other names more fitting. Maybe you’ve heard of a bordello, or a bawdy house?”
Elise gasped.
“That’s right, dearie. But this is a special place. We are all quadroons or, like yourself, light enough to pass for white. Maurry serves a broader clientele that way. And since he owns all of us, you can guess what his profit margin is.”
“I . . . I don’t care!” Clutching Hannah tighter than ever, she cast wildly about as if she could find a way of escape. “I won’t—”
“Liz, you don’t have no choice now, do you?”
“I’ll run away!”
Mae nodded indulgently. “Come with me.”
Elise hesitated, her mind in disarray, then dumbly she followed. They went to another room and Mae knocked. A dark-skinned girl answered. She could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen. Dressed only in a red silk wrapper over a ruffled chemise, she was quite lovely, even though she had not yet developed all her womanly attributes.
“This is Gina,” Mae said. Then to Gina she explained, “This is a new girl. She has the idea she can avoid working for Maurry. I thought you could set her straight.”
Gina shrugged. “I had the same idea once,” she said to Elise.
“Show her what changed your mind,” Mae said.
Gina turned her back toward Elise then lowered the shoulders of her dressing gown. Her back was crisscrossed with several scars, which, though mostly healed, were still red and angry looking. After rearranging the gown, Gina turned back and said, “I tried to run away. It didn’t take very long for Maurry to find me. I won’t do it again. What use is it? We’re only slaves, a fact best not to forget.” Then she shrugged resignedly. “Anyway, there’s lots of white women that don’t have it as good as us.”
The girl’s words were true enough, yet at the same time horrifying in her tone of glib practicality. Elise gaped, stunned both at the words and at the sight of Gina’s back.
In a moment the numbness subsided, and Elise cried, “I’ll never accept it!” Tears and fear clogged her voice. “He can’t make me! I’ll die first!” She spun around. She would flee this place. She didn’t care how hopeless it was. Let them kill her. She could not live like this. Death was preferable.
But as she started blindly forward, she crashed up against a towering solid obstacle. Maurice Thomson.
“What’s this?” His tone was mocking. “Do I detect resistance? This simply won’t do. I have customers arriving soon.”
The collision had started Hannah crying, but Elise hardly noticed through her own tears of rage and terror.
“You can’t make me!”
Before she perceived her danger, certainly before she was able to guess anyone could be so heartless, Thomson whisked Hannah from Elise’s arms.
“No!” she screamed.
Her sudden lunge for the baby was anticipated, and Thomson quickly jerked out of her reach, causing Elise to stumble forward, her flailing arms only reaching for air. Mae caught her before she went sprawling on the floor.
“You will not see the baby again until you prove complete submission to my will.” Thomson’s cool voice rose to a growl. “And just remember, your own death will not protect the baby.”
“How can you be so heartless?” Elise sobbed.
“This is business. You are my property, as is the infant. If you are not obedient, I will sell the baby for whatever I can get and have done with it. Now return to your room. I’ll be there shortly to ensure you are in the proper frame of mind for work. If you behave and my clients depart contented, you may see the infant in the morning.”
E
ARLY AFTERNOON WAS USUALLY QUIET
at the hotel. The women didn’t wake until late morning, and because they had few chores, the time until the evening activities was spent lounging about, gossiping, and taking care of personal needs like laundry, mending, and such. Elise had the additional task of caring for Hannah.
The baby had been returned to her after two days. It had been a harrowing separation for both the mother and the three-month-old child. The child had been placed in the care of a maid who knew nothing about children. She had tried to wean Hannah, and Elise had helplessly listened to the baby’s cries of protest echoing through the house. Mae eased Elise’s worries somewhat by telling her a wet nurse had been found. Maurice traded one of his maids straight across for the wet nurse, who could also perform maid’s duties. Elise’s encounters with Thomson thus far told her this act was more for the protection of his investment than for charitable reasons.
Only thoughts of Hannah kept Elise going. Determined to get her daughter back, Elise performed her duties to the satisfaction of her new master. It had sickened her so that she had literally vomited after her first encounter, though she had waited until she was alone so as not to displease the customer.
Once Hannah was returned to her, Elise tried to perform her loathsome duties in a way that would appease Maurry, but she could not shake her visceral sense of revulsion each time she led a customer to her bed. She tried to smile in a beguiling, tempting manner as the other women did. Perhaps if she indulged in alcohol as they did, she might be able to pretend more easily, but she refused that temptation because she wanted to have a clear head for Hannah. Thus, even she could sense the wooden, stiff result of her attempts at merriment. How could one smile and laugh when each time her insides twisted and trembled, writhing like an animal half-dead, half-alive?
The copious amounts of strong drink consumed by the men certainly did not keep them from complaining and refusing her company. But Maurry was furious with her. His threats became more and more ominous, and finally he came to her bed himself to teach her how to behave. He arrived drunk, as he often was, and executed his “lessons” in such a vile and violent manner that she was left physically bruised and emotionally shattered. Instead of turning into a saucy strumpet, she cowered in terror.
Elise thought frequently about taking her life but knew she would never do that and leave Hannah to the bereft mercies of her owner. She must escape. It was her only hope. So early one morning after her last customer had departed, Elise made a desperate attempt to flee. She had not even as viable a plan as she had had with her hapless flight back at the Hearne plantation; she simply gathered Hannah into her arms and slipped out of the house. But having been in New Orleans only one week, she had yet to venture out into the city, so she had no idea where to go once she left the house. It was too late to ask directions or to find a hack. Even if she could do so, she had no money to pay for passage from this town, her prison. She wandered the streets for hours, fear gnawing at her. Hannah’s cries echoed that fear.
Maurry found her eventually and dragged her back to the house. After wrenching Hannah from her arms, he took her into her room and beat her, not with a whip and in no place where the marks would readily show, for he was conscious of not damaging prime property, as he called her.
When he was done with her, she asked, like the fool she was, “Where is Hannah?”
“Forget about the brat. You ain’t never going to see her again.”
“No!” she screamed.
For the next three days she was allowed to believe the worst, that Maurry had sold Hannah. In a fit of despair, she found a knife and would have used it on herself, but Mae, fearing such an action, had been keeping a close watch on Elise and stopped her in time.
Later Maurry came to her room. “You ungrateful little tart!” he railed. “I give you a roof over your head, food, everything a body could want, and you repay me like this.”
She could almost have laughed at the gall of the man. He now thought
she
owed
him
something! Yes, it was laughable, but all it did was bring tears to Elise’s eyes.
“Without my baby, I don’t care if I live or die,” she sobbed.
“Well, I don’t like hearing that.”
Suddenly Elise realized she had her own weapon, though she was painfully aware that it was a weapon with a double edge, just as lethal to her as it was to Maurry. Only her desperation made her use it.
“Maurry, I’ll do anything if you get Hannah back to me.”
“How can I get her back if I sold her?”
“You can do it. I know you can.” She crawled from her bed where she had been lying and dropped to her knees in front of Maurry. “Please! I’ll give you what you want. I’ll do all you ask. Just get me Hannah!”
Maurry rubbed his chin, his beady little eyes narrow with thought. She knew he was thinking of his investment. She no longer cared. All that mattered was getting Hannah back.
“No more shenanigans?” he said.
“I’ll be good. I’ll be obedient.”
“How can I believe you?”
“I . . . I give you my word.”
“You know what the word of a nigger is worth?” His eyes glittered with cutting amusement.
“It’s all I have,” she replied lamely.
“That ain’t exactly the case. . . .” His smile made her skin crawl. “Okay, I’ll put you on . . . I think it’s called ‘probation.’ You prove to me I can trust you, and I’ll see what can be done about the brat. But I swear, you cross me again, and I will do more than sell her!”
Thus, after a week, Elise had learned to be a very obedient prostitute. And for her good behavior she was allowed to
visit
Hannah. It was several more weeks before Elise was given permission to have her child whenever she wished.
Mae taught Elise their nefarious trade well. Her first lesson being, “Think of something else, dearie. I think of all the fine dresses in the latest
Godey’s Lady’s Book
, which ones I would like and in what colors.”
Clothing was one of the few pleasant aspects of Elise’s plight. Maurice Thomson prided himself in operating a high-class bordello and wanted his women to look accordingly. Elise was given a few hand-me-downs at first, but after two weeks of obedience, Mae was given permission to take her to a dressmaker to be fitted for several outfits of her own. These were hardly of the style worn by a plantation lady, especially a matron, who was encouraged to wear sedate navys, browns, grays, and such. A genteel southern lady most often wore her hair confined to a conservative chignon, and face painting was considered absolutely scandalous. Sometimes, for a ball, Elise had been able to get away with a bit of pale rouge on her lips, but little more. Not so for the women of Maurice Thomson’s employ. He insisted on gowns of bright, saucy colors, usually with a plethora of lace and the lowest cut décolletage possible.
Elise accepted this not only as a distraction, which she indeed learned to cling to, but also as another vital way to cope with her circumstance. The bawdy clothes and the liberal face painting provided a way in which Elise could further distance her inner self from what she had become. When she was outfitted in such a manner, she could hide her true self. In a small way this seemed to protect the core of who she was. It helped that when she looked in a mirror, she did indeed look like another person. Mother Hearne, or even Kendell himself, probably would not have readily recognized her.
In this way Elise managed to live from day to day. She survived, but it was a survival built on the shabbiest of foundations, much like the set of a stage play—very showy on the outside, but behind the glitter, nothing but scaffolding and sandbags. Elise had become an actress, playing the part of a fancy lady. Thus her world, such as it was, took on a semblance of security.