Through the Storm

by Beverly Jenkins

  He’d stayed there helping the freedmen build houses and plant cotton until he’d come home this summer. Sable had been the last person he’d expected to find here, under his mother’s roof.

  After pulling on his wrinkled shirt and coat, Raimond moved soundlessly back over to the bed where Sable slept unawares. Part of him wanted to strip and climb back beneath the sheets so he could be there when she awakened, but the rational side of himself demanded he maintain his distance.

  He couldn’t leave without placing a parting kiss on her cheek. Then he withdrew, left the room, and quietly closed the door behind him.

  Downstairs, he found his mother seated on the porch drinking her morning cafe au lait. She took in his rumpled clothing, but didn’t remark upon it. She said instead, “Good morning, Raimond. Would you care for coffee?”

  “Good morning, Mama. No, I must get back.”

  Before he could say anything else, Archer’s coach pulled up. The sight of his brother increased Raimond’s irritation.

  As Archer stepped onto the porch, he took one look at Raimond’s wrinkled suit and asked with a raised eyebrow, “What dustbin did you sleep in last night, big brother?”

  “I’m going to ignore you, brat—except to say, stay the hell away from my wife.”

  “You have a wife—oh yes, Sable, the wife you seem determined to ignore.”

  Archer went over and kissed his mother’s cheek. He poured himself some coffee.

  Raimond said, “No more shopping.”

  “On the days she wants to go shopping, who’s going to take her?”

  “I will.”

  Archer started to laugh. Seeing the disapproval on his mother’s face, he controlled himself, but he couldn’t keep from commenting, “Raimond, you can’t dress yourself, let alone a beautiful woman. That suit is a sterling example.”

  “Shall I wrinkle you the same way?” Raimond countered. “I’m spoiling for a fight this morning.”

  Philippe was halfway up the walk before anyone noticed. He’d evidently heard Raimond’s threat because he drawled, “If I’d known he’d be here throwing his weight around, I’d have stayed home.”

  Ignoring Raimond’s glare, he went over to his mother and kissed her cheek. “Good morning, Mama. May I have some coffee? What’s big brother raging about now? Good Lord, man, where’d you sleep last night? Look at his suit.”

  Trying to keep a straight face, Juliana poured Philippe coffee.

  Archer volunteered an answer to the first of Phillipe’s questions, “He doesn’t want me to take Sable shopping anymore.”

  “Who’s going to do it? Him?”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Archer pointed out.

  Over his cup, Phillipe asked “I suppose you’re going to forbid me from taking her to the baseball game on Saturday. She enjoys baseball, Raimond. Did you know that?”

  “Dammit, we’ve been married less than a month.”

  “And in those few weeks, you’ve seen her how many times? Mother said Sable arrived back here in a hired hack the morning after the wedding night. What’s wrong with you? I’ve seen you treat tavern girls better.”

  Raimond rubbed his hands over his weary eyes. “It’s very complicated.”

  Archer drawled, “Uh huh. If you don’t want her, say so. The Brats and I will draw straws.”

  “More than likely pistols,” Phillipe countered dryly.

  Raimond’s eyes narrowed, but his brothers ignored him.

  “We missed you at Muriel’s last night,” Philippe observed. “Where were you?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  “You missed your mistress’s birthday party?” Archer asked, surprised. “On behalf of Sable, I say splendid.”

  Raimond looked up to see Sable standing in the doorway. She had on the same jade-green wrapper he’d taken off her last night, and his manhood began to pulse with a strong and familiar beat. He wondered how much she’d heard. “Good morning, Sable.”

  “Raimond.”

  The silence on the porch grew thick.

  Speaking as if they were alone she said, “I heard voices, but I assumed you were gone. You left your watch.”

  She held it out on her palm.

  He took it and placed it in his coat pocket.

  Sable ignored the knowing grins on the faces of Archer and Philippe, and instead told her husband softly, “Oh, and Raimond, tell your mistress I apologize for causing you to miss her birthday party last evening. I’ll try not to let it happen again…”

  She turned and walked back inside, mesmerizing him with the sultry sway of her hips.

  Her sarcasm was not lost on anyone on the porch, nor was her challenge.

  Archer tossed out, “I think she just declared war.”

  Still afire with the memory of their lovemaking, Raimond said, “I think you may be right.”

  That afternoon, after leaving the Freedmen’s Bureau for the day, Raimond knocked lightly at Muriel’s door. She opened it with an unreadable look on her face, then stepped back so he could enter.

  “I owe you an apology for last night, so here I am. I apologize.”

  Muriel was as darkly beautiful as she was tall. She and Raimond had begun their liaison before the war. She was intelligent, well read, and often put up with him when no one else would.

  “How angry are you?” he asked

  “Not very much, truthfully.”

  He was certain she read the surprise on his face. “Truly?”

  “Truly,” she said, showing him into the small flat he’d been leasing for her for nearly four years. “I was a bit put out when you didn’t arrive, but I’m a realist, Rai.”

  He took a seat. “Which means?”

  “Do you realize we’ve not made love since you came back from the war?”

  It was the truth and Raimond felt almost guilty about it.

  “No need for guilt,” she said, correctly reading him. “We had some good times together, you and I.”

  Due to the demands of soldiering and the upheavals of war, he’d been able to see her only twice since 1863. When he’d returned home for good last month, the spark had not been there. At first he’d blamed it on the natural progression of things—it was simply time for him to move on—but now he had to admit there’d been more involved. Bittersweet memories of the Sable he’d met at the camp had left a lasting impression that made him immune to all other women.

  There was silence for a moment before Muriel said, “I hear she is very beautiful.”

  Raimond knew better than to pretend he didn’t know who she meant. He owed her the truth. “Yes, she is.”

  “I’ve lost you to her, haven’t I?”

  “Part of me wants to deny it.”

  “But you cannot.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  She went and stood by the window. “I’ve met a man who wants to take me to Port-au-Prince. I told him yes.”

  “When will you leave?”

  “In five days.”

  “Where shall I forward your settlement?”

  She shook her head. “That isn’t necessary. You’ve been more than generous over the years, and I’ve accumulated a sizable nest egg.” She paused for a moment, then said, “Rai?”

  He looked into her eyes. “Yes?”

  “Promise me you will be as generous and loving with her as you’ve been to me.”

  He was not surprised by her words. She’d always possessed a kind heart. “I promise.”

  “Good. Now, get out of my house before I start to bawl.”

  With a bittersweet smile, Raimond LeVeq stood, bowed, and exited.

  Chapter 11

  That evening, Drake and Beau came to dine with Juliana and Sable. Everyone had just sat down at the gleaming table when Raimond walked in. “Good evening.”

  A surprised Juliana said, “Good evening to you too. Have you come to join us?”

  “I thought I might.”

  Sable too was surprised by his unprecedented appearance. He’d nev
er dined with them before. She moved her chair to make room for a place beside her. Juliana fetched him a plate from the new china cabinet.

  Sable was unsure how to act with him so near. The tender and passionate man in her bedroom seemed to bear little resemblance to the formal, unapproachable man she encountered elsewhere. She decided she would simply follow his lead.

  Over the course of the meal, they discussed the ongoing restoration of the house and its furnishings, and Juliana’s desire to hire a new staff of servants. “I’ve been doing my own cooking since ’63, and truthfully, I’m tired of it,” she confessed.

  “Mama, I hear Little Reba’s back in the city,” Drake said.

  “Maxi’s niece is here?” Juliana exclaimed. “Is she employed?”

  “I’m not certain, but I can find out.”

  “Oh, do, that would be an answer to my prayers.”

  “Who’s Little Reba?” Sable asked.

  “The niece of one of Mama’s very good friends, Maxi,” Beau explained. “Little Reba moved to Michigan before the war to live with her aunt, who is the cook for Raimond’s best friend Galeno Vachon.”

  “And like her Aunt Maxi, Reba’s calling is cooking,” Juliana added. “If Reba agrees to come and work for me, I’ll never have to eat my own food again.”

  Talk then shifted to Raimond’s work with the Freedmen’s Bureau.

  “It isn’t going well,” he stated. “For every good agent, there are three who have only the interests of the former masters in mind. They couldn’t care less about the job they’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Aren’t there laws governing the bureaus?” Juliana asked.

  “Yes, but they vary from state to state, so there’s no set rule for how the agents are to proceed. In some places, such as here in Louisiana, there are superintendents who are doing their best to help the freedman. In other places, agents have been accused of striking and kicking refugees, and letting planters run off their new Black employees when pay day comes. According to many reports, embezzlement is rampant.”

  Drake asked, “What is this I hear about Reverend Benjamin Randolph signing on as an agent? I met him during the war when he was the chaplain for the Twenty-seventh USCT.”

  Raimond replied, “He’s trying to get a post, but not many Blacks are being asked to come on board. You’d think they’d hire him immediately. The man’s well educated, an Oberlin graduate. He even said he’d work for free as long as they place him where he can help best.”

  It didn’t make much sense to Sable that the Freedmen’s Bureau refused to hire a man like the Reverend Randolph. The talents of educated Blacks from the north and south were invaluable in aiding the former slaves. Freedmen schools were opening all over the South, in billiard parlors, warehouses, and abandoned boxcars, and many educated Blacks were needed as teachers.

  Sable also knew that the involvement of free Blacks served to defuse the ofttimes heated debate being waged over whether free Blacks should ally themselves with the freedmen. Some of the free elite in places like New Orleans, Mobile, and Charleston were refusing to send their children to the freedmen schools and were publicly disassociating themselves from both the freedmen and their causes. According to what she’d learned from the city’s aid workers, the New Orleans L’Union, a thrice weekly newspaper published by the free Black brothers Louis-Charles and Jean-Baptiste Roundanez, once reflected these same sentiments. When the newspaper was founded in 1862, its editorials, published in French, advocated granting suffrage and civil rights to property-owning free Blacks only. They saw no benefit in being linked to the masses of uneducated Blacks out in the countryside.

  Sable understood their thinking even if she did not agree with it. Before the war, free Blacks owned nearly fifteen million dollars’ worth of property in New Orleans alone. Many were slave owners, a fact she found startling. Some had been landowners for generations and been educated in Spain and France. When war broke out, the freeing of the slaves affected their incomes and traditions too. Some free Blacks fought for the Confederacy and supported it financially. Bernard Soulie, a wealthy business associate of Juliana, had personally loaned the Confederacy ten thousand dollars.

  Since the end of the war, the elitist stance supported by men like the Roundanez brothers had changed dramatically, mainly because the country was refusing to differentiate between the Blacks. The fates of the free and recently freed were entwined whether folks liked it or not, and neither side would be able to enjoy the rights promised by the Constitution without the help and support of the other. The abolitionist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson called liberty a “slow fruit,” and Sable had to agree.

  After dinner, Raimond surprised Sable again by asking her if she’d like to take a stroll outside with him. Still uncertain of his mood, she searched his eyes, trying to glean his intent before admitting, “I’d enjoy that.”

  He helped her rise and the two excused themselves from Juliana, Drake, and Beau. They walked out to the moonlit grounds behind the house and over to the small gazebo that had been erected by some of Drake’s workers only a few days ago.

  Raimond peered up at the beams of the open air structure. “I’m glad Drake built Mama a new one. The old one was falling apart.”

  “How long had it been standing?”

  “My stepfather built it for her during their first year together. I remember them spending many an evening out here after dinner.”

  “I get the impression they loved each other very much.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  Considering all the difficulties she and Raimond seemed to be having, Sable did not expect she’d ever know a love so strong. “Why did you ask me out here?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe to tell you that my mistress and I have parted, or maybe just to have you near. I don’t know.”

  He was standing with his back to her, silhouetted against the moonlight and looking as if he were standing on the deck of one of his ships.

  “Have you really parted from her?” Sable asked.

  “Yes. I haven’t shared her bed since I returned home. It seems I’ve developed a craving for moons and sunbursts.”

  Although Sable found the news thrilling she did wonder what it all meant in terms of their marriage. “Does this mean you’ve changed your opinion of me?”

  “No, I still don’t trust you, but you’re like a siren. The more I try and stay away, the more I want you in my arms.”

  He turned and looked at her. Even in the dark she sensed his conflicted feelings and overwhelming desire. He told her, “Come, I’ll walk you back to the house.”

  Sable spent the next day as she did most days lately, combing the city for orphans in need of rescuing. The city authorities estimated that at least twenty thousand freedmen would be added to the local population by year’s end, many of them children. She found them on the steps of churches, in doorways, rooting through the refuse behind restaurants and hotels, and wandering aimlessly. A few had been separated from their families, and Sable’s heart always filled with joy when they were reunited with their relatives. Others, truly orphaned, had no one to feed them, love them, or protect them from the city’s lawless elements. There was no one to keep them from the clutches of disreputable planters who were using the new statutes forbidding unemployment to force them into reenslavement.

  The children she rescued from the streets were usually given over to the care of the Sisters of the Holy Family, a Black Catholic order in the 700 block of Orleans Street. According to the story the sisters told Sable, Catholic convents were once closed to free Blacks, but in 1842 a free woman of color named Henriette Delille, with help from a White woman named Marie Jean Aliquot, managed to get an order sanctioned and affiliated. Delille and Aliquot were soon joined by two other free women who’d also dreamed of serving God by being nuns, Juliette Gaudin and Josephine Charles. Using a building donated by a Delille relative, the nuns opened a school, a church, and an orphanage.

  An
other New Orleans charity helping destitute children was the Institution Catholique des Orphelins Indigents. Money for its establishment had been donated by Madame Marie-Justine Couvenant. She’d come to Louisiana as a slave, but died a very wealthy woman in 1837. In her will she authorized money for a school for children of color, but White protests prevented her wishes from being implemented. It took the financial muscle of free Black philanthropists like Aristide Mary and other powerful members of the community to finally get the will probated. In 1847, ten years after her death, Madame Couvenant’s dream became a reality.

  The charity workers had lovingly dubbed Sable Madame D’Orphelins for her tireless work on behalf of the orphans. Shop owners were now holding on to the children they found, keeping them put until she could retrieve them on her rounds. They also alerted her to any who might have come begging in their stores but run off. Freedmen stopped her on the streets to ask after missing children, and she scoured the Black newspapers, especially the local La Tribune, for notices posted by parents looking for lost little ones.

  Sable’s own experiences made her highly sensitive to the children who had no one. She continued to carry Mahti and her brother Rhine in her heart, but thanked the Old Queens every morning for the loving members of the house of LeVeq.

  She didn’t know whom to thank for Raimond, however. Knowing he no longer kept a mistress made her smile. Even as Sable and her driver prowled the streets in their search for children in need, her last passionate encounter with her husband still played vividly in her mind. She’d thought nothing could surpass the pleasure she’d experienced on their wedding night, but she’d been proven wrong. Just thinking about how scandalously she’d enjoyed herself made her desire rise. His touch left her so enthralled and throbbing, she wished to be a real queen so she could demand he make love to her whenever she commanded. Raimond was not the type of man to be commanded, however, and she doubted she would be attracted to him if he were. Still, he awakened a need within her that yearned to be satisfied by him and him alone.