by T. K. Lukas
“I see. And the slaves?”
“All gone, except for Addy-Frank and her eldest child Birdie. I’m afraid that they are all you have left.” The doctor patted his forehead again, blotting the perspiration.
“All I have left? What do you mean? I have the animals—the house—the property.” That’s not logical, Leighselle thought. The doctor was making no sense to her.
Doctor Bronstein looked hard into her eyes. “Let me be quick with this. It’s best to be quick. On his deathbed, I promised your father that I would look out for you. He sent for his attorney to witness me becoming your guardian. Do you understand?”
Leighselle nodded her understanding.
“Both your father and your mother loved you very much. It was their final wish that you should not have to worry about the future, if you survived. They asked that I sell the ranch and put the funds in a trust for you. Do you recall your neighbor to the north, the man whose plantation borders your property?”
“Yes, I know him. My father called Misseur Baptiste a bragger and a crook and a cruel excuse for a man. Father said he once beat a horse half to death for sucking in air and refusing to be saddled.”
“Yes. He has a reputation for being rough. But he offered a fair price for your property, including the cattle and horses.” Then, looking at Big Betty, he said, “Please bring me a glass of water, Betty.”
“Yes’suh.”
Doctor Bronstein tapped his pocket as if remembering where he put his glasses, and then slid them back onto his face, nudging them into place. “Misseur Baptiste’s one stipulation was that the buildings be set afire. I could not convince him that the air in your home was not tainted, that this disease did not come from bad air. But, he insisted.”
Leighselle looked out the window. “The sky was on fire this morning. I saw it from my window. I thought I was dreaming. That was my—”
“Yes, that was your house. The carriage house and the slave’s quarters, too. He sent his men over. I had no choice. Besides the money from the land, you’ve retained ownership of Addy-Frank and Birdie.”
“Ownership? I don’t know the first thing about taking care of slaves. I’ll set them free. I recall Father tell Mother that others are doing so.” Hearing clearly her father’s voice in her head speaking to her mother seemed surreal. They’re gone now. I’m all alone.
“In some northern states, yes. But it’s against the law in Louisiana to emancipate a slave. You could go to jail right along with the slave you were trying to free.” He reached for the glass of water. “Thank you, Betty.”
“Yes’suh,” nodded Big Betty as she moved to the side table and began her preparation of medicinal tea.
“Besides,” the doctor continued, “you’ll need Addy-Frank as your hand maid to help you with personal, day-to-day requirements. I’ve enrolled you in school up in Shreveport.”
Leighselle’s stomach lurched. “What kind of school? I’ve never been to school. Mother hired tutors.” A cold sweat began to form on her brow. She reached for the cup of tea Big Betty offered, her hands unsteady and weak.
“I understand this is a shock, so much information to take in at once. But this is best. You’ll not be tied to a place of bad memories. The ranch would be impossible for you to undertake on your own. You’ll be going to school at the Medical Hospital in Shreveport. That’s where I studied to become a doctor. It’s one of the finest facilities to learn medicine outside of Virginia Military Institute, which doesn’t allow females. Shreveport will allow female students in their nursing program.” The doctor emptied the glass of water, refilling it.
“But I don’t like to be around sickness,” Leighselle protested, trying to keep her voice even despite the adrenaline pushing it higher. “The smell of vomit gags me. The sight of blood makes me swoon. The sound of pained wailing terrifies me. I—I cannot.”
“Don’t be afraid, child. You’ll be fine. It’s all settled. I’ve paid your tuition with the proceeds from the sale of your property, and you have a tidy sum remaining in a trust fund that I’ve set up for you at the National Bank in New Orleans. Once you are out of school, you can open a clinic of your own. Of course, you’ll have to hire a doctor to run the clinic. But, technically, he would work for you. Now, is that not a fine idea?”
Leighselle lay back on her pillow, staring at the ceiling. “Mother and Father dead. The ranch sold. Mammy Hannah, Johnny Boy, Esther, all the others gone, too. Me in nursing school with Addy-Frank and Birdy? I need time to think this all through.”
“Of course, my dear. When you awake tomorrow morning, I trust that you’ll see that I have done my best for you. You’ll have an education, money in the bank, and you can leave this sorrowful place and put your sadness behind you.” Doctor Bronstein stood up, steadying himself against the doorframe.
“My sadness will come with me. It’s stitched to me like my own skin.”
“In time, that sadness will diminish. Your heart will find ways to refill itself with other joys. Rest, drink the medicine Betty prepared, and continue getting stronger.”
“Yes, Doctor. Thank you.”
Leighselle rolled over, scooping Jacques up from where he’d burrowed under the covers, placing him on the pillow next to her. Looking out the window, she tried to envision this red land without her parents, without the slaves who had always been a part of her life, without her home, her horses, where nothing remained but red death.
She felt vacant, hollow, as untethered as a free-floating balloon. There was nothing left for her in Vermillion Parish. She must find her own way.
A plan began to piece itself together in Leighselle’s mind. She knew she was not suitable for nursing—she didn’t have what it must take to be a good nurse. There stood a high probability that she might harm her patients, if for no other reason than for desertion. Surely there were laws against that.
Jacques scooched closer and whimpered, then poked his nose into the palm of Leighselle’s hand, his signal for more attention. As she stroked his silky, triangle ear, she considered her future. With a quiet reckoning, it came into soft focus, like fog gradually lifting over the Vermillion River, so that the red dirt banks and bends and ocher shoals grew into something definable.
“I’ll be damned, Jacques, if we’re going to Shreveport. My money is in a bank in New Orleans. By God then, that’s where we shall go.”
*****
Hughes studied the frail woman sitting across from him. “I’m trying to imagine you as a frightened yet determined teenage girl embarking on such a journey. It would take gumption for an adult to undertake what you were considering. You were just a child.”
Opening her parasol, she rose to her feet. “I was a girl with gumption. I just didn’t fully realize it yet. I’m getting a bit stiff, sitting. Let’s take a walk, shall we?”
“Of course. And so you set off for New Orleans.” As they stepped away from the table, Hughes waved at Jameson, indicating they’d be back soon.
It wasn’t pleasant, the leaving, Leighselle recalled. There had been other deaths to contend with first. “By the time I was well enough to leave Vermillion Bay, both Doctor Bronstein and Big Betty had succumbed to the typhoid, too.”
So much death in such a short period of time had left only a few remaining souls who were able to help bury the dead. “Addie-Frank sent for help from the neighboring plantation, but the only help available was a skinny, eight-year-old boy. The graves dug for the doctor and Big Betty were shallow and inadequate, but it was the best we could do.”
As they rounded the hotel, Hughes opened the gate to the patio, ushering Leighselle inside. “I can imagine how terrified you must have been.”
“Terrified, yes, but the strange part,” she recalled, a smile warming her face with the memory, “was that I began to feel stronger and more self-assured than I had ever felt before.”
“We’re molded by our adversities.” Hughes motioned for Jameson and requested coffee service, noticing that he’d appeared at the patio. �
��Was that a long enough walk?”
“Yes, perfect.” She took the seat Hughes pulled out for her. “And if you allow, adversity will mold you into a better, more enlightened version of yourself.” She sipped the cup of black coffee Jameson had poured from the sterling silver service.
“When I left Vermillion Parish behind, all I had were the two letters of introduction from Doctor Bronstein, one for the school in Shreveport, which I had no intention of using, and the other for the banker who held my trust in New Orleans, which I had every intention of using.”
“How did you get to Orleans?” asked Hughes, his curiosity bending him forward.
“I helped myself to the doctor’s buggy and cart horse. First, I went through his desk and bureau. I was penniless until I could get my hands on my trust. I knew the good doctor wouldn’t mind me taking whatever I could find. There was no one left alive for him to give it to. He had almost eight hundred dollars hidden in the back of his shaving toilet.”
“You were a very brave girl,” said Hughes with admiration. “You grew up in a hurry.”
“Yes. In the blink of an eye, I went from being the very spoiled only child who never wanted for anything to having two people and two animals who depended on me. I didn’t have time to be a puddly, teary mess. I had to get us to New Orleans, despite the fact that I had at best only a vague idea of where New Orleans was.”
*****
Early November 1836
Addy-Frank’s thin, gray shawl hung limp around her bony shoulders; her dark brown eyes, sunken and vacant, stared off into the distance. “Just keep on a heading this buggy south, Miss Leighselle. I know I heard folks say N’Awleans be south.”
Five-year-old Birdie lay curled in her mother’s lap like a sleeping kitten, while her mother stroked the child’s soft, light brown cheek with her finger. Addy-Frank had wept for an hour when they left Vermillion Bay. She’d cried until her body was limp and empty of tears from having to leave her twin babies behind in the red dirt grave that held the other Beauclaire slaves.
“Thank you, Addy-Frank, but we can’t go any more south than we’ve already gone or we’ll end up in the Gulf and needing a boat instead of a buggy.” Leighselle drew the reins up short, slowing the horse. “We need to make our way east. We should head east. I’m certain. Or, maybe we should go north first a little way to find a stage road or railroad we can follow, one that goes east. What do you think?”
Leighselle had tried to adopt an air of confidence—she wanted to feel certain about where she was going, but the only thing she felt assured about was leaving Vermillion Parish. The place smelled of death.
“What I think? I think you the white girl and I the black girl and you need to start acting like it and quit asking me what I think. I don’t want to think. All I want to do is go back to the time before that ol’ typhoid took my babies away.” Addy-Frank drew her shawl around her shoulders and turned her chin the other direction.
“Oh,” Leighselle said, stunned. She pulled hard on the driving lines and reined the cart horse to the left, heading east.
*****
January 1, 1840 – Four Years Later
Leighselle called to Addy-Frank, “We have two more. Please attend to their wounds and see to it that they have a hot meal and a bath. These girls look worse off than the first three.” Leighselle’s pulse throbbed in her temples—her head ached as anger percolated just below the surface. “It’s worse every year, these girls coming in here abused and beat up, then dumped on my doorstep. New Year’s Eve should be outlawed.”
“Yes ’sum, Miss Leighselle, but ain’t much left to feed them poor girls. We’s about outa food in the pantry,” said Addy-Frank. She headed to the back of the Sew Beauclaire Shoppe, where girls in need hid out until wounds mended or memories faded. She muttered to herself, “Lost girls showing up with a sob story or a split lip, them working girls from the tavern, ain’t no wonder we ain’t got much left.”
“Miss Leighselle,” said Birdie, “they a gentleman knocking at the front door. He wearing a torn topcoat. Spec he needs it mended.” Birdie, small for her age, had silky black curls that hung in long, thick spirals down her back. Her fine exotic features were pulled into a serious frown. “Why someone wants to do business on a holiday? Miss Leighselle? Want me to show him in?”
“No, Birdie, my hands are full this morning. Tell him we’re closed in observance of the New Year,” said Leighselle from the kitchen as she sorted and washed apples.
“Closed?” shouted Addy-Frank from down the hallway. “Miss Leighselle, we ain’t never closed. We need the money. You say the rent be due soon and—”
“Calm yourself, Addy-Frank, it’s all right.” Leighselle sighed with frustration. “You’re correct. We need the money. Show him into the parlor, Birdie.”
The customer stepped into the front room, removing his topcoat and hat, handing the garment to Birdie. “Top three buttons are missing and lapel is torn.” He turned, a sardonic smile spreading across his face, and stared at Leighselle, who stood in the kitchen doorway.
Leighselle drew in a quick breath of surprise. “You. What are you doing here? You must leave at once. Take your coat and leave.”
“I saw the sign above your door, ‘Sew Beauclaire.’ I couldn’t help but notice the name. Your business, I assume?” Seamus Flanders strolled into the kitchen, his hard blue eyes scanning the room.
Leighselle backed away, a cold fear washing over her. “I said to leave.”
“I went back to Vermillion Bay. Everything was gone, even your house. The entire parish, vaporized.” Seamus folded his hands across his chest, staring at her. “I had gone back for you, to take you to Texas, to make you my wife. My ranch settled, a home built for us, money in the bank. Everything was ready.”
Leighselle continued backing away, feeling the color draining from her face, the heat from her body.
“I was told that everyone died except for a few slaves. I guess I was told wrong.” His smile was cold.
“Yes. Now all that’s left are unwelcome memories and ghosts.” She leaned further away as Seamus inched closer, a wave of panic shooting through her. “You must leave or I’ll scream.”
“Scream? Then what? Frighten the pretty little child that answered the door? Summon to your aid your darkie and drunken whores? I’ll be happy to put them all in their place.”
Seamus reached for Leighselle’s hand but she swatted it away. She groped behind her back, trying to feel for the paring knife she had left lying on the counter beside the bowl of apples.
“I dreamed of this—of you being alive, of me finding you. I saw the graves of your mother and father, but not one with your name on it. I knew in my heart you weren’t dead.”
“You don’t have a heart,” she spat out the words, her fear congealing and hardening into righteous anger.
“I told you on that day, Leighselle, that you belonged to me, that you’d always be mine.” With rough hands he seized both of her wrists and pulled her toward him. “Remember that day? I think about it all the time.”
“I’m not yours. You—you took something that didn’t belong to you. You’re an evil person who attacked an innocent child.” The horrible memory sickened her.
“Thank God I came to ’Orleans for the New Year. Thank God that I tore my coat. Thank God someone pointed me in the direction of a good seamstress shop.” He gripped her wrists tighter. “Thank God I found you and you’re still alive. Maybe now I’ve got enough reasons to start believing in God.”
Leighselle struggled against him, trying to free her wrists from his grip. Turning her head left and right, she fought to resist his sloppy kisses. Whiskey and cheap cigars flavored his breath, his clothes looking and smelling as if he had slept in them.
She managed to pull one hand free and reached behind for the knife. The heavy bowl of apples tipped off onto the floor and clanged like a bell as it hit, the red fruit rolling out like shiny children’s marbles across the black and white checkered tile floor
. The loud noise caught Seamus off guard long enough for Leighselle to slip out of his grasp and run past him.
“You all right, Miss Leighselle? I heard a noise.” Addy-Frank walked into the kitchen and saw the bowl of apples strewn across the floor. “What happened here?” She looked from Seamus to Leighselle.
Birdie walked into the kitchen behind her mother and began picking up the spilled fruit. “I wash them off, Miss Leighselle. It’s all right.”
“I was clumsy and knocked them to the floor, Addy-Frank.” She kept her voice calm. No need to alarm anyone. “Do you have our customer’s mending finished?”
“Almost. Just need to put a few more stitches in. Be just a minute.” The small man with copper hair and russet freckles seemed unimposing until she looked into his eyes; then she shivered. She gave him a hard stare before walking back to her sewing room.
Seamus raised his eyebrows, his silvery blue eyes darkening. He nodded toward Birdie. “You sure are a pretty little girl. What’s your name?”
“Birdie,” she said, fidgeting on her feet, the apples now back in the bowl.
“My, if you don’t favor Miss Beauclaire. Y’all look enough alike to be sisters.” Seamus studied the child a moment longer. “How old are you?”
“She’s not my sister, she’s Addy-Frank’s daughter, and she’s none of your business,” said Leighselle, stepping between him and Birdie. “Now take your coat and leave.”
Addy-Frank walked in with Seamus’s coat and handed it to him. “You all fixed up now. That be five cents, please.”
Seamus ignored her. “Don’t you agree there’s a strong family resemblance to the Beauclaires?” He turned to Addy-Frank. “You belonged to Leighselle’s father. I remember you as one of their house slaves.”
“Enough with the questions,” Leighselle said. “Leave now. Never set foot on my threshold again or you’ll be sorry.”
“Save your threats. But understand this. I’ll be back.” Seamus grabbed his coat as he marched toward the door. Before leaving, he tossed a twenty-dollar gold piece onto the counter. “Keep the change.”