Love Finds You in New Orleans, LA

by Christa Allan

  Would life not be easier for him to think we were merely friends? All the hope in the world would not change our circumstances. And if he believes that I do not feel the same way about him, then he would be free to make a life for himself.

  I think Agnes knows how I feel about Gabriel; she tried to console me. She told me Jesus has been watching me my whole life and He wasn’t going to stop now. She said I need to trust Him, that just because I am in the dark doesn’t mean He’s not holding a candle. Mama, when Agnes talks to me, it is like a mother talking to a daughter, and I imagine what it would be like if you were here.

  And I so wish you could see my beautiful dress! Grandmère spared no expense and, I must admit, I feel like a princess when I have it on. It is amazing that all those yards of fabric have been transformed into this spectacular gown. Madame Olympe designed the white tulle to be worn over the white silk, and it has two pink lace flounces, each headed with a quilling of black ribbon. In each of the festoons in the lower flounce is a medallion with black ribbon quillings and pink lace, black ribbon, and tulle. The right side of the bodice crosses over the left side just around my shoulders and dips low in the back. The sleeves are four puffs of silk and tulle, separated by rows of braided black and pink ribbons, ending at my wrists with frills of white lace.

  Papa, I am certain that flounces and medallions and quillings are as interesting to you as my listening to Agnes talk about how to make a gumbo. Though she did tell me I needed to listen to her because I wouldn’t know if the cook left something out. I said I’d just send the cook to her first!

  Saturday evening Justine and I are to attend the opera with her older sister and her husband. Lucia di Lammermoor is now playing, and I have heard that it is an outstanding production. Grand-père is quite pleased that I am attending the theatre with my friend, as he says I need to enjoy my youth.

  As always…my love and affection,

  Genevieve Charlotte

  * * * * *

  “Wake up, child.” Agnes patted Lottie’s shoulder as she lay sprawled across her bed. “What you doing sleeping when you suppose to be readying yourself for the opera?”

  “I’m awake. I’m awake,” Lottie said, but her eyes remained closed and she didn’t move.

  Agnes attempted again, and again Lottie replied that she was awake, only this time her voice was edged with irritation.

  “That’s a mighty fine way of showing you awake. Maybe you don’t need no opera. You putting on your own show right here.” Agnes pulled the curtains open so that the afternoon sun streamed through the gray, dark room and found its way straight to Lottie’s face.

  “I’m tired,” Lottie moaned and rolled onto her back with her hands over her eyes.

  Agnes retrieved the dress Lottie had removed before resting and brought it to the armoire. “Agnes tired too, seeing as you all over the mattress I done already beat flat this morning.” She placed the dress on a hook and withdrew a cranberry-striped silk with alternating stripes of plain cranberry and a lighter shade of woven flowers. “I got this new dress your grandmother want you to wear, and you better stand up now so’s I can help. More hooks and eyes down the back of this dress than sense.”

  Lottie uncovered her eyes and squinted as Agnes drew near with the dress. “Are you sure I shouldn’t wear one less fancy?” She pushed herself out of the bed, stepped into her petticoats, and held her arms up so Agnes could slip the dress over her head. The slight vee in the front of the dress was matched by one in the back, and the basque waist formed a point in the front.

  “You think Agnes would forget such a thing? I tell you what she like to forget is all these hooks back here,” she grumbled. “Miz LeClerc say she want you to be seen by some them young bucks gonna be at your party. At least that’s what she tole your grandfather.”

  “I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted by that. Maybe she wants them to see me tonight so they won’t be too disappointed by what they see next week.” Lottie distrusted her grandmother’s calculated moves—the ones that, on the surface, appeared to be in Lottie’s best interest but inevitably served hers as well. Like the time Grand-mère enrolled Lottie in art class when she was eight years old, explaining that she wanted to see Lottie develop her artistic potential. Months later, when Grand-mère no longer had to leave home for her card meetings and held them at her home instead, it seemed Lottie reached the limit of her art skills and no longer needed to attend class. Once those puzzle pieces fell into place, the rest followed the same pattern.

  About ten “Jesus, help me” later, Agnes finished hooking the back opening of the dress and directed Lottie to the mirror. She heard Agnes’s gasp at the same time she saw a woman she barely recognized in the mirror.

  Lottie spoke as if the woman in front of her would answer. “I was born before my mother was twenty. Do you think she might have looked like…like this?” She held the sides of the skirt and twisted from side to side. Lottie would not have been surprised if the reflection in the mirror had moved too.

  Straightening the linens on Lottie’s bed, Agnes answered so quietly, Lottie almost couldn’t hear her. “Oh, yes, I think she mighta looked just like that. Just like you.”

  * * * * *

  When Lottie entered the parlor to tell her grandparents that she was leaving, they greeted her with the same stunned silence as Agnes.

  “Have I worn too many pearls? I asked Agnes to weave the pearl strands in with my curls, but they are easily removed.”

  “No. Do not change anything.” Grand-père closed his book and smiled. “Turn around slowly so we can see all of it.”

  “With my corset and the weight of this gown, I could not move quickly if I wanted to,” said Lottie. When she turned back to face them, Grand-mère was holding her embroidery hoop and sewing. Her grandfather rose, walked over to her, and kissed her on both cheeks. “You, ma cher, are a beautiful young woman.”

  When he spoke, Lottie detected the faraway look in his eyes that came when he told her stories of her father. “Marie,” he said, his voice sounding as if in warning, “aren’t you going to tell our granddaughter how lovely she looks tonight?”

  Her grandmother looked up, smiled the same smile she bestowed on Monsieur Fonte next door, who believed the Americans to be nice people, and said, “Of course, my dear husband. Lottie, that gown suits you well.” Her hoop and needle were poised to connect again, except that she seemed to be waiting for permission to resume.

  “I am going to escort Charlotte to the cab,” he said, extending his arm for Lottie to hold.

  “Good night, Grand-mère.” Lottie wanted to ask why she showed so little reaction to a dress whose fabric and design she’d selected. Didn’t Agnes say Grand-mère hoped I attracted attention? Perhaps her reaction reflected her disappointment. She was fortunate that her grandfather provided sufficient attention for both of them.

  Grand-mère had resumed her sewing. “Good night, Charlotte. Enjoy the opera.” At least she looked up from her stitching long enough to convey her message.

  As they walked to meet Justine, Lottie wished she could lay her head on her grandfather’s shoulder. She missed the coarse linen of his frock coat that bore the faintest smell of cigar smoke and ink. It was such a comforting place to be. Older now, she missed those times with him, so she appreciated even this small chance to be with him.

  “Do you think the dress did not turn out the way Grand-mère expected?” They were almost to the carriage, and Lottie hoped for some understanding of her grandmother’s reaction.

  He clutched her hand and shook his head. “P’tit, listen to me. I do not know what your grandmother expected. But this I do know. When you came into the parlor, you looked at us with your father’s eyes. But, for that, it was as if Mignon had walked into the room, you so resemble your mother.”

  * * * * *

  Whoever designed the four-person carriages either knew nothing about women’s fashions or did not care or never intended for more than two women to share one.
Day dresses and visiting dresses easily measured four or five feet across, what with all the petticoats or wire cages worn as underpinnings. Evening dresses for operas and balls were often wider, with their swathes and swags of embellished silks and brocades. Travel often required patience and compromise and a sense of humor.

  Fortunately, Lottie and Justine had all three qualities. They sat facing Isabelle, Justine’s sister, and her husband, François Honore, who married four years ago and now had three children. François told Madame Dumas, his mother-in-law, at dinner one Sunday afternoon that if he merely looked at Isabelle across the Place d’Armes, she would be carrying another child within weeks. Justine said that after they and the children left, her exhausted mother had said that maybe the only way to solve that baby problem was for one of them to poke the other’s eyes out. Tonight François’s parents entertained Raimond, Marceline, and Rosalie.

  “Charlotte, that dress is as stunning as you are,” said Isabelle with a no-nonsense voice that echoed her mother’s. Even her questions sounded as if they were definitive statements. Isabelle’s face glistened, and she fanned herself with such intensity that her hair, parted in the middle and loosely gathered into a bun, billowed around her face with each sweep.

  “How very kind of you,” Lottie replied and held her skirt down, hoping François did not mind being trapped by her tempest of red silk. “You look pretty as well.”

  “Thank—”

  “The two of you remind me of deportment class,” Justine interrupted, “and, quite frankly, you are boring us. Right, François?”

  “Justine, François has been peering out the window since Charlotte joined us. I think he was bored before we started talking.”

  François, whose round face made him look younger than his wife, clasped his hands around his walking stick and said, “I suggest instead of talking about ourselves, we discuss the opera.”

  Isabelle snapped her fan closed, and for a moment, Lottie anticipated that she would swat her husband on the head with it. And she may have, had the carriage not bounced everyone inches off the seat when the back wheels pushed through one of the many deep holes in the street. In February, the ruts stayed mostly dry. But when the rains started every April, the road became sludge that seemed to suck in the wheels of every carriage that passed.

  “It’s a love story. Everyone dies at the end.” Isabelle shrugged. “If we sat in the theatre and stared at an empty stage for hours, I would consider it an entertaining and peaceful night.”

  “First, you revealed the ending, and Lottie is not familiar with Lucia di Lammermoor.” Justine held up her lace-gloved hand to count for her sister. “Second, you are so unromantic, I do not know…well, never mind. Third, I do not remember everyone dying at the end. François, would you please tell Lottie enough so that she can follow?”

  Opera must have been François’s forte, because he spoke with the relaxed authority of someone familiar with its stories. “Lucia secretly marries the man she loves, an enemy to their family. When she later refuses to marry a man her family deems she should, her brother suspects what has happened. He forges a note from the secret husband, saying that he intends to marry another. Just as she signs the other marriage contract, the secret husband returns and, not understanding what has happened, leaves in a rage. Lucia goes mad and kills her new husband on their wedding night. In her state, she believes she is still married to her first love, deliriously believes she’s gone to heaven, and dies. Awaiting his duel with her brother, the first love witnesses her lifeless body carried past him and hears that she called for him with her last dying breaths. He stabs himself to join her in heaven.”

  Why, of all operas, would Justine invite me to this one? The parallels between hers and Lucia’s life caused Lottie discomfort even as François explained the story. But as she waited to alight from the carriage, she admonished herself for calling her friend’s motives into question. Don’t be foolish, Lottie. Justine is not seeing the play with your heart. Appreciate this opportunity to spend time with your friend.

  Following François and Isabelle, she and Justine made their way to the Theatre d’Orleans. Two arched openings on each side were flanked by tall Roman columns, making the opera house as imposing as it was elegant. Lottie had started telling Justine the story of Agnes praying her gown closed when Justine grabbed her elbow and discreetly pointed to several young men and women gathered near the door. “Look, Gabriel’s here.”

  And if hearing that paralyzed Lottie, what she heard next made her want to run. “Who is that woman he just walked into the theatre with?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  ...........................

  The interior of the Theatre d’Orleans contributed to the experience of the opera. Its sparkling ceiling, elevated floor—which, when covered, served as a ballroom floor as well—and imposing candlelit sconces lured even the jaded. At each side were special partitioned boxes, with another two tiers and a gallery above. The elegant ladies, many carrying nosegays, and gentlemen strolled through, as eager to be seen as to see.

  The pit, or the “untamed,” as Grand-mère called the men and women who stood to watch the performance, erupted with laughter and shoving as the spectators jostled for position before the opera started. A box too close meant the rancid odor of tobacco and too few cleanings of body or clothes wafting indiscriminately, along with the raucous noise, to the more refined patrons.

  Three tiers of boxes formed a horseshoe facing the stage. The social hierarchy of the city played itself out in the location of the boxes. Placées sat in the third tier so their protectors, in the first or second tiers with their families, could stop by to visit during intermissions. Of course, well-placed screens maintained discretion, though no one needed to explain the traffic of men up and down the steps.

  The aroma of freshly made coffee greeted patrons as they walked through the lobby, where many would, between acts, find themselves seeking refreshments of coffee, champagne, lemonade, and assorted sweets like pralines and fudge. Once seated in the Dumas family box on the second level near the front, Lottie fixed her eyes on the stage so as not to risk seeing Gabriel. It was likely that he would have been on the same level, though she didn’t dare look up for fear that he would be seated above them. She was able to track the young men who hovered around the back of the boxes of some of the most eligible young women in the city. Seeing them prowl, Lottie felt relieved that at least her grandparents weren’t subjecting her to that embarrassment.

  The intensity of the play, the nagging suspicion of Justine’s having invited her on this particular night, and not only seeing Gabriel but seeing him escorting a strikingly attractive woman extracted more of an emotional toll than Lottie had reserves to endure. Just as she did with Grand-mère, she herded her feelings into a tomb so she could promptly bury them. Keeping them alive proved pointless. Like Isabelle’s toddlers, they bobbled around causing chaos and demanding attention. When feelings resurrected themselves, she simply held another funeral. And that’s what she needed to do now with everything about Gabriel. They were so fresh, even the slightest wind could unearth them.

  As soon as intermission started, Lottie stood. Between the tension of the play and the lingering image of Gabriel, she needed to move. A bit of walking outside would be refreshing. “Excuse me. I will be back shortly,” she said, starting to leave the box.

  “Wait one moment. I’ll go with you.” Justine swiped her sister’s fan from her lap, lifted the cluster of curls perched on her left shoulder, and fanned her neck.

  “If you are going into the cool air, why are you delaying Lottie by doing that?” Isabelle pointed to her fan.

  “Because”—Justine handed her the fan—“I’m not going outside.” She stood and swished her skirt forward to pass between Isabelle and François. “And please don’t speak to me like I am one of your children.”

  Isabelle’s mouth opened, but François spoke. “Be sure to return when you hear the chimes.”

  Justine
pinched Lottie’s elbow. “Stop trotting toward the entrance. You are not a horse. Remember, you are supposed to be seen.”

  “I don’t want to be seen by Gabriel, so I would rather be outside, since he will probably be in the lobby.”

  Lottie snaked her way through an abundance of silks and velvets, cloying perfumes, and ungentlemanly stares to stand for a few moments outside the theatre, grateful for the cool air and for Gabriel not being outside. How many times before had they been to the theatre, knowing each other would be there and never seeing one another? Tonight, of all nights.

  The four-note chime sounded, signaling the end of the intermission. Lottie joined the others returning to their seats. And, just as she did that day at the girls’ home, Lottie sensed Gabriel’s presence before she saw him.

  She summoned a smile, demanded it to perform, and started her own play. “Gabriel, what a surprise to see you here.”

  Dressed in his usual impeccable style, his coat outlining the spread of his shoulders, he broke his solemn expression with polite upturned lips. “And you,” he said, his words so tender that Lottie stared at the floor until they passed through her. “I would like you to meet Nathalie Chaigneau. Nathalie, this is Charlotte LeClerc.”

  Again Lottie smiled, though this time it was made more difficult by the introduction to the captivating Mademoiselle Chaigneau of the patrician nose, the playful brown eyes, and the effortless grace. She wore an evening gown of the latest style in jacquard woven silk, deeply pointed at her small waist and with a neckline that grazed the better part of decency. No one would mistake the provocative swing of the skirt. Reserved, yet flirtatious.