Alcee sidestepped a woman slinging water as she dipped her brush back and forth to scrub her stairs and doorway with red-brick dust. The woman paused as they walked by, her apron, calico dress bodice, and sleeves damp and coated with the red-orange ash. When she turned to wave at them and say, “Bonjour, mes amis,” her dark face glistened, and her smile was wide under her deep-set brown eyes.
They wished her a good day, and after they passed, Alcee said, “No. I think Monsieur Joubert is without a wife. He is far too appreciative of some things Maman does, like serve him his meals and coffee. Were he a husband, I think he would expect her to do those things. Or”—she poked Gabriel’s shoulder—“he is a good actor. Like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not Maman who needs to put red-brick dust on her door to ward off curses. Perhaps you believe in the folktale and have considered sprinkling it on the LeClercs’ doorstep.”
They reached the front of her school, and Alcee—as usual—trailed behind the other students as they made their way to the tall paneled doors of the building. Her response confused Gabriel. From whom would the LeClercs need protection? “I still do not understand your point.”
“Charlotte. I suspect you would like to protect her from Monsieur Bastion’s visits.”
* * * * *
Since Lottie had mentioned nothing about Bastion visiting, Gabriel concluded that she either had chosen not to tell him or she hadn’t known. Gabriel avoided the LeClerc house and, with the exception of seeing her on Sundays, steered clear of Lottie as well. Yet Rosette and Agnes still made time to see one another, so that had to be the source of Alcee’s information. What more did they know that he did not?
Joseph’s including him in the plans for the expansion of the café and their house had provided not only a welcome distraction but an opportunity to explore a field he had not considered before. For years, Gabriel had dreamed of Paris and engineering school, and then, for years, abandoned almost all hope of that possibility. He envisioned a time when he and his father might develop a relationship and eventually the future he had lost would be found again. But that brief experience after leaving the tailors’, seeing Jean Noel with his white wife and son, sowed a seed of doubt of a happy reunion. A seed planted in a reality he could not deny.
Until recently, Gabriel’s life path consisted of one road that led from home to the café and back to home again. He had committed himself to helping Rosette and Alcee, and, when they could travel without him, he would be free to find a path that diverged from theirs. Gabriel didn’t resent Rosette and Alcee. They never demanded or insisted that he pack his ambitions into a storage crate. He had made that choice, just as he now had to choose to close off those forks in the road that led to Lottie and to Jean Noel.
Joseph Joubert, however, was not someone Gabriel would have expected to clear the wilderness and create something worth navigating. When they first met, Gabriel resigned him to a class not much higher than a common laborer. Until Joubert occupied the same seat in the corner of the café for days on end, he had thought of him only as someone hired to complete construction jobs. His constant presence around Rosette irritated him. Why would he think a woman of her beauty and intelligence would be interested in a man with no formal education, no status, no pedigree? And he continued to ask that until Lottie announced her party…when he realized he could substitute her name for his mother’s and ask the same question about himself.
A humbling lesson in judging others, one God must have decided it was time for him to learn. Since then Gabriel spent time with Joseph, not just on the jobs at the café and their home, but at others in the city. Joseph asked for Gabriel’s input, and when his ideas were not workable, he explained why. He brought him into homes, some Gabriel expected they would demolish for firewood, and showed him how to look beyond what was in front of him and imagine what could be. God taught Gabriel to not judge Joseph so Joseph could teach Gabriel how not to judge houses.
One day, he hoped soon, he would share that with Joseph. Today, though, they were laying out the new footprint for the café. Gabriel saw the towering stack of lumber but no workers and figured Joseph would be talking to Rosette. She had already started serving customers, so he helped her with a few tables. But there was still no sign of the builder. During a lull a few minutes later, Gabriel asked when he would be arriving.
“Roll up my sleeves, p’tit. You are much neater than I,” she said. “As for Joseph, when his workers delivered the lumber this morning, one of them gave me this note.”
He stopped and opened the paper, actually a billhead much like LeCroix’s but with far less embellishment. Under Joseph’s initials in the upper-right corner was printed Design, Build, Remodel. His handwriting was as precise and careful as his plans:
Dearest Rosette,
I trust that William has delivered this safely into your hands, and I beg your forgiveness for not being able to tell you the news in person. But the hour at which I received notice and the necessity for me to depart as soon as possible prevented me from doing so.
Please ask Gabriel to check the bills of lading at both the café and your home to make certain the lumber has arrived as per our orders. In the case of any discrepancies, he has my authority to contact the suppliers and remedy the situation as an agent of J and J Builders. Of course, if he is uncomfortable doing so, I will remedy the situation upon my return. I would hope to start the jobs as soon as possible.
I should be returning within a few days from your receipt of this note. As always, I look forward to our morning coffees and conversation.
Yours truly,
Joseph
Gabriel folded the note, handed it back to his mother, and rolled up her other sleeve. He wanted to speak carefully so as not to make Rosette defensive or unduly worried. But she spoke before he could mentally rehearse what he wanted to say.
“What bothers you?” She tied her pinstriped apron around her waist—probably one of the few women in the city whose aprons complemented her dresses—and waved to Reverend François as he strolled in after his morning Mass.
Gabriel talked while she poured cups of café au lait and he arranged beignets on a plate. “Does this happen often, these notes?” He spoke as if asking her whether she’d enjoyed an opera she’d just attended. And she responded in the same manner.
“No. This is the first one I’ve ever received,” she said as she took the plate from him. “I’m bringing this to Père Antoine. Please ready some calas and beignets.”
Gabriel knew the ebb and flow of customers prevented a serious conversation, though it seemed to be serious only to him. What cause would there be for a builder to leave quickly to attend to a job in another city, one that would mean days away? Perhaps Alcee wanting to believe that Joseph was not married swayed her perception of him around their mother, who herself reacted calmly to what Gabriel considered an obvious cause for suspicion.
Better to know now that Joseph Joubert was a homme de paille, a sham not to be trusted. His father, Jean Noel, had never pretended to deceive, and Gabriel had believed in him. He almost believed in Joubert. At least this was a familiar path and Gabriel already knew where it led and where it had to end.
* * * * *
By the end of the day, Gabriel decided to confront Joseph Joubert before talking to his mother. He lacked any proof about Joseph leaving New Orleans because he had a family elsewhere, and Rosette would not tolerate an empty accusation. Nor should she. And with Alcee there, he especially was not going to open the discussion and chance that she would overhear.
When Alcee arrived at the café and asked Rosette about the construction, Rosette handed her Joseph’s note. His sister shrugged and gave it back to Rosette, saying, “He would not go if he was not needed.” She looked over her shoulder at Gabriel. “Don’t you agree?” she asked, her eyes two dark bullets ready to fire should he not provide the answer she expected.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” he said, nodding for emphasis. Gabriel ne
eded to be civil now, so when they discovered the truth about Joseph later, his mother and sister would remember that he had done nothing to impugn the man’s character.
Alcee rewarded him with a smile as Rosette smoothed her daughter’s hair, tucking in stray pieces and readjusting her ivory combs. “Your hair reminds me of a chocolate-brown velvet gown I once wore to a ball. Sometimes, in the candlelight, it appeared to be sprinkled with gold dust. Like yours does in the sunlight.” She kissed the top of Alcee’s head. “Such a joy to be free of the tignon.”
Gabriel watched his mother and sister and thought of Lottie as a young girl. She carried her eagerness like an offering yet was deprived of anyone with whom she could share it. Lottie had not experienced the generous affection demonstrated between Rosette and Alcee. What she would have given to be the object of her grandmother’s affection.
Chapter Twenty-Five
...........................
Alcee and Rosette were carrying coffee and a plate of éclairs from Vincent’s into the dining room when Gabriel heard the iron knocker fall three times on their door. Only people who didn’t know them well would enter that way, especially since the weather allowed the shutters and windows to be open.
“I will see who is here,” said Gabriel. He opened the door and found Nathalie and Serafina—and a fiacre on the street outside the house. The women were too late had they intentions to attend that night’s opera, but too early if their plans were to meet friends after.
“Good evening, Gabriel. Is Madame Girod home?” Nathalie’s question was an unusual request.
“Gabriel.” His mother’s voice coming from behind him was an admonishment. “Have you not invited these ladies into our home?”
“Of course.” He opened the door wide to accommodate their voluminous skirts and attempted not to appear on the outside like the six-year-old child he felt on the inside with his mother’s address. As they entered, he realized they wore bonnets, Nathalie’s with a long feather and Serafina’s, a showy collection of smoky plumes, ribbons, and flowers, in place of their usual tignons. So, appearing in public in the city had not been their intended destination at all.
“Please, be seated,” Rosette said. “If you would like to remove your capes, Alcee will be happy to place them in the cabinet.”
Gabriel watched his sister’s eyes brighten as first Nathalie presented her with a pale brown overcoat trimmed in the blue of her gown and then Serafina handed her a black velvet cape with ermine trim. Alcee rarely exhibited such extreme politeness. He had no doubt that each of the expensive capes would grace her body before hanging in the closet.
“Oh, and I’m sure you will excuse Alcee, as she will retire early tonight to be ready for school in the morning.” Rosette’s pronouncement caused Alcee a few wide-eyed blinks, but from previous veiled statements, she understood that it was her mother’s way of telling her she would not be participating in the conversation. Gabriel suspected the capes might provide some solace as his sister said “Good night” and left for her bedroom.
Either out of the awkwardness of being the sole male in the room or the habit of serving during the day, Gabriel offered to bring in coffee and dessert, forgetting that outside of the home, men would always be the served, not the servers. But there was barely a flicker of surprise from the two young women, and Rosette thanked him as he left the parlor.
This visit to his mother had to be related to Paul Bastion being Serafina’s protector. Why Nathalie accompanied her, Gabriel had no idea, but he was curious about what had happened to precipitate this visit. He carried the gold-and-cream coffee service into the parlor and set it on the ottoman near Rosette, who poured the coffee into cups.
Nathalie was talking when he entered, so Gabriel sat across from the women as if he had been there all along.
“…So after she explained what happened, I suggested she talk to you.” Nathalie stopped to add a teaspoon of brown sugar to her coffee. “Serafina didn’t think it would be appropriate to visit at this hour, but I assured her that Gabriel and I have known each other since he told me mud pies really did taste like chocolate. I didn’t believe him, of course.” Nathalie flicked her eyes in his direction. “But I knew that he would not mind if a friend visited with a friend in need.”
Rosette slowly stirred her coffee. “And this need is?”
Without the ermine cape, the lime-green velvet dress, or the diamond-and-emerald earbobs and matching brooch, Serafina didn’t seem much older than the girl sent to her room. She had looked at Nathalie when she spoke as if Nathalie had been reading a new ordinance passed by the city. But Rosette’s voice seemed to lead her out of a fog. She set her coffee cup on the ottoman and started to speak when the eight o’clock cannon pounded the sky, notifying all in the city, especially slaves, of the beginning of curfew. Serafina smiled and said, “I suppose I could not have asked for a better introduction.”
“If you would prefer privacy, I understand,” said Gabriel, almost forgetting that he had been an uninvited listener.
“In this city, very little is private for long, so I don’t mind if you are here. Anyway, you are familiar with one of the parties involved. It is likely you would know this soon,” she said. “Madame Girod, first let me thank you for this intrusion in your private time. I trust Nathalie, and when she reminded me that talking to you during the day is difficult because of your business, I agreed to come tonight.”
“Sometimes Nathalie’s pluckiness is a gift,” Rosette said. “Had we not already met, this might have been uncomfortable. The first time we spoke, I didn’t ask you this question. But now that you are back, I feel it is an important one. Why haven’t you approached your mother with your concerns?”
“My mother is with her third protector. Not only does she send me away, telling me that I must learn to handle problems on my own, but she keeps me away so her protector does not see that she has an older daughter.” Serafina looked away for a moment then continued. “I hope you understand my situation. My grandmother and I were quite close. When she died, I felt I lost a friend.”
Hearing Serafina’s story, Gabriel thought of Lottie. How having an attentive, concerned grandmother would delight her. Without Agnes, Lottie, like Serafina, would have no one. That Lottie had grown to be a compassionate and generous woman was almost incomprehensible… and another man being the beneficiary of that was infuriating.
“Paul’s father, Emile, is interested in a prime parcel of land along the river. It has not ever been for sale, though he heard rumors that the owners may soon be interested. The owners met the Bastions at a party they both attended, and it was mentioned that their granddaughter would be making her debut, though late. You could probably surmise the rest. The land has now become the dowry, and when Paul marries Charlotte LeClerc, the land will be theirs.”
Rosette turned to Gabriel. He understood that to react on his feelings would be an irreversible disaster.
Concern shadowed his mother’s face. “This may sound harsh, Serafina, but did you not understand what it means to be a placée? It’s one of the first lessons we learn. That the men who purchase houses, furniture, clothes, jewels, or provide maids and cooks will never be fully ours. All that is ever fully ours is our children. Eventually, your protector will court another woman, and you will be available for balls, the opera, late nights only. He will marry a white woman. Like he was always meant to do from the first night you met him.”
“Except he is only marrying her for the land to be in the family.”
Rosette shook her head in disbelief. “P’tit, have you not heard what I have tried to tell you? These marriages are hardly ever about anything but negotiation. Love is rarely an issue. Why do you think a man always goes back to his placée?”
“He told me he plans to leave her after the wedding. I would think she would want to know that.”
“No, I don’t think she would. But I do think he would say what he needs to say to make sure he has a warm house on Rue Ursulines,” Gabri
el said.
“Gabriel,” Rosette said, “perhaps it is time for you to leave this conversation.”
Gabriel walked away, hearing Serafina’s hiccupping sobs, as Nathalie said, “She truly needs your advice, Madame Girod. She has discovered she is with child.”
* * * * *
The next morning Gabriel smelled fresh coffee and found a filled urn in the dining room. He leaned against the sideboard, warmed his hands around the cup, and stared at the cherry dining table where the shutters sifted the sun that, over time, had faded the once-gleaming wood.
New furniture had not made its way into the Girod house for years, although a few pieces of late had materialized from Tante Virgine’s house—a walnut sewing cabinet, a cypress armoire, a wire safe for the back porch…. Virgine, his mother said, gave things away just to have an excuse to wear an elegant day dress and shop on Canal Street. Sometimes, items whose names she couldn’t pronounce and, therefore, would not be able to impress others with found a home with the Girods. Like the cut-leaf silver centerpiece on the table, an epergne with a center vase and two trays that held flowers and fruit, or the two mirrored girandoles, ornate, branched sconces with pendants and festoons of cut crystal, that Gabriel now looked at in their dining room.
Tying her black-and-cream-toile tignon as she walked into the room, Rosette asked him to pour a cup for her before they left for the café. As Gabriel handed it to her, he said, “I want to apologize for what I said last night. I should not have said something so cruel.”
“True. But then, I’m not sure why you stayed in the first place. Though it appeared Nathalie appreciated it, by the frequent glances in your direction.” She put her cup on the table and tucked in the loose ends of the tignon. “Let’s go. I let Alcee sleep, and Virgine is coming by to entertain her.”
“I heard what Nathalie said, about Serafina being with child. Does Bastion know?” Gabriel ignored the remark about Nathalie. Rosette used to say she was “trouble waiting to happen,” so he didn’t think his mother was suggesting that he pursue the intention of those glances.
Love Finds You in New Orleans, LA Page 16