Intermission had long been over. She wondered what Paul was doing or thinking. Lottie gasped, bent over the little she could, held her sides, and kept repeating, “I forgot. I forgot. I forgot.” So concerned with assuring herself that Paul would not be alarmed by her being gone, she had forgotten about her grandparents. They would be concerned if she did not appear within a reasonable length of time. Which meant they would look for her, which meant so would Paul. She had to get this information to Father before Paul found her, or else she might as well have stayed in the theatre.
She hurried through one more block but had to breathe again before she could go on. If she had worn long sleeves, she could have wiped her face on them. What did it matter? She picked up her lovely, delicately embroidered skirt and blotted her wet face.
“Don’t I know you?”
She looked up into the eyes of a tall and truly dark man. Lottie was too tired to be frightened, and his eyes were too kind to be someone who wanted to cause her harm. He moved into the light so she could see him, and his face did seem so familiar. The voice—she remembered the voice.
“You were with Gabriel at my grandfather’s office. I’m Charlotte LeClerc.”
“Joseph Joubert. I thought so.” He paused. “You look, if you don’t mind me saying so, a bit ragged. I’m not used to seeing the daughters of wealthy Creole men roaming the streets at night. Is there somewhere I can take you?”
She smiled. “I have information I need to give someone, and I’m afraid I might not get there…so I probably need to start walking again….”
“Do you think I might be able to help?”
“Can you run a few blocks carrying me?”
He looked her over. “Maybe. How many blocks?”
She heard the clattering of carriage wheels and looked behind her. “Oh no. Oh no.” Paul was two short blocks away.
Lottie’s chest tightened. Her breaths came fast and shallow. If she couldn’t talk to Father, four people’s lives would be ripped apart. She was still too far away. Lottie looked at the man gaining on her and the one in front of her.
She grabbed Joseph’s arm. “I’m not going to have time to repeat this, and I’m trusting you because you’re Gabriel’s friend. Find Père François. Tell him somebody has to get to the people tonight. The Mazants. They’re slaves of Paul Bastion. Please. Please. Please.” She wiped her eyes. “They have to be safe. They have no one.”
She knew Paul was close. In a too-loud voice, Joseph said, “It was so very nice to meet you again, Mademoiselle LeClerc. I do hope you get to feeling better. Who knows? Might all be gone by tomorrow.”
“Charlotte? What is going on? Why are you with that man?” Paul demanded.
As Joseph Jobert turned to leave, the gaslamp illuminated his face and chest. The man wore a cravat. A black-and-red cravat.
Charlotte did what any self-respecting Southern girl would do when faced with something for which there is no reasonable or believable reply.
She utterly, completely, and willingly fainted.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
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When she opened her eyes, Paul was holding her, so she knew she had not died…or at least she hoped not. Because if she had died and Paul held her, then she doubted she would be in heaven.
Her head felt as if it went in one direction and her body in another. She saw her grandparents across from her and realized she was in the carriage.
Grand-père leaned over. “Lottie, we are going home.”
Lottie nodded. Joseph. The cravat. When he walked away, she’d heard Agnes’s voice saying, “God always finds a way.” And she had just witnessed it. She remembered thinking how tired she was and how she couldn’t feel her legs and how if she just let this spinning in her head alone, it would stop.
Her gown was ruined. Another rework for the orphan home. She peeked at what was left of her shoes. They could be thrown into the fireplace. Serafina. Did she throw the paper away?
“Lottie, who was that man you were talking to?” Paul said the word man as if he really meant boy but did not want to show the hand of prejudice yet.
“A friend.”
Her grandmother stared out the window. Grand-père stared at Paul.
“Why were you talking to this friend, if you insist on calling him that, blocks away from the opera, unchaperoned? Had you planned to meet him there?”
“Paul, Lottie can face your questions later. Her grandmother and I just want her to rest.”
“As someone who intends to marry her, I think I have the right to question a young woman who ran away from the opera to meet a black man on the street like a—”
“Don’t. I will not allow you to speak to my granddaughter in such a tone or to suggest calling her something so offensive.” Grand-père’s entire body seemed cast in iron.
Lottie heard Paul, but nothing he said was of any importance to her. He lied, he was dishonest, and he used people. She might have to marry him, but she didn’t have to love or like him.
The carriage turned in and stopped in front of the stable. Paul watched Abram and Lottie’s grandfather help her to the ground. Lottie’s legs cooperated, but her chest and sides felt bruised from the corset, and even small breaths were uncomfortable. Paul stood directly in front of her, making it difficult for her to move around him. “Please let me by,” Lottie said.
“I’ll let you by, but first you must remember your obligation to me and my family not to behave in a way that brings shame on all of us. Your actions were reprehensible. I have no idea how I will repair the embarrassing damage you caused to the Bastion name. If your cavorting tonight was your attempt to force my hand in calling off this wedding, you have wasted your time. This wedding will happen.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Lottie wanted to face the worst now.
“Don’t think I do not know about you and that man and what the two of you did on Sundays.” This time her grandparents’ eyes were fixed on her.
Lottie waited for him to tell her.
“Teaching slaves to read and write. We can drag all those smart slaves to the post and chop off their fingers, and you and that man can spend time in jail. So think about that when you want to walk away from me.”
“My name is Gabriel. Gabriel Girod.” He stepped around Paul and stood next to Lottie. She did not know how or why Gabriel materialized, but she decided not to question her good fortune. “Do, please, report us. Will you drag the good Sisters to the post? The ones who have no recollection of anything you would be talking about?”
Paul sputtered.
“And”—Gabriel looked down at Lottie—“don’t ever speak to or about Charlotte that way.”
“Do you think I’m afraid of you?” Paul laughed.
Gabriel held Lottie’s arm and helped her balance. Lottie knew her swaying was more from the fact that Gabriel held her than from whatever the fall may have rearranged in her head.
“No, no, I don’t,” said Gabriel.
Paul scoffed.
“But I have very protective friends who manage to be exactly where I might need them, even in the middle of the night.”
* * * * *
Agnes insisted that Lottie settle on the reclining couch Abram carried into the parlor. “I knows you already fainted, but you gonna put yourself in that couch right now.”
Since Gabriel continued to hold on to her and she had no intention of moving away from him, Lottie allowed herself to be steered in that direction. Agnes shooed him away. “You go on. I don’t want you standing here whilst I’m taking off Miz Lottie’s shoes.”
“I would not think of being so improper, Agnes,” Gabriel answered as if she had offended him. He squeezed Lottie’s hand. “I’m glad you’re home,” he said before he walked away.
Agnes unlaced Lottie’s silk boots, warning her not to move. “You can’t be showing those ankles. You just let Agnes take off these good-for-nothing shoes.”
Lottie smiled, amused by Agnes’s concern for her
modesty after her adventures. Now that she wasn’t standing, Lottie felt the stinging burn in the soles of her feet, like walking barefooted on cobblestones during the heat of August.
“I don’t know if these gonna ever look the same.” Agnes held them up, examining them the way she did eggplant at the French Market. “I be right back with some fresh coffee.”
“Could you bring some cakes too?” Lottie’s stomach was having its own adventure, and she hoped food might quiet it.
Resting against the back of the couch relieved some of the pressure of the corset, but so did the disappearance of Paul and knowing he would arrive home with his slaves absent, wondering why the buyer had taken the whole family. By the time he realized what really happened, they would be safely away. The man in the cravat, Joseph Joubert—she wanted to tell Gabriel, but he seemed to have disappeared.
“Should we send Abram for Dr. Clapp?” Lottie couldn’t determine if Grand-père, sitting across from her, directed the question to Grandmère or to her.
“I’m much better. Just tired, really. I don’t need Dr. Clapp.” Lottie felt uncomfortable about the way they looked at her. She watched Abram light more candles around the room and thought of the brightness of the gaslamps tonight in the opera house. The opera house. Of course. Her grandparents had not questioned her in front of Paul, but no doubt they waited for her to provide some explanation. But did they know Paul’s real intention? Surely not. Her grandfather despised the gambling halls, the people they attracted, and the despair they caused families. And if he did know, then the LeClercs’ finances must be far worse than she thought.
Agnes returned with the coffee service, Rosette behind her carrying a small plate of petits fours and pralines. When Gabriel walked in with a coverlet and placed it over her, Lottie wondered who else in this room owed explanations. Then Rosette, Gabriel, Agnes, and Abram joined her grandparents, and she knew something truly dire must have happened. The fear that had subsided seeped back into her bones, especially because the faces surrounding her were solemn, not smiling.
“What happened?” Lottie waved away the cup of coffee Rosette passed her and sat up straight on the couch. “PaPa?”
He looked at her grandmother. She nodded. “Lottie, your grandmother and I did not expect tonight to end as it did. Whatever you were doing that caused you to leave the opera, I trust you had a reason. We can discuss that later, assuming you want to do so. What we need to talk to you about must be said tonight, before too much more time passes.”
“I don’t understand. Why is everyone else here?”
“Your grandmother and I have spoken little of your father and mother. One reason, the one we have always given you, is that to speak of them is painful. And that is no less true because of the other reason, which will help explain why Rosette and Gabriel and Agnes and Abram are here.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the chair arms and his hands clasped.
“You need to hear your parents’ story,” he said. “Not long after your father met your mother, he came to talk to me. You are very much like him in that regard. You know quite soon what you are passionate about, and you are not easily swayed.”
Agnes nodded. “That sure true.” Abram leaned close and whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry. You go on.”
Lottie resisted the urge to glance in Gabriel’s direction, though she suspected what her grandfather just said had much to do with his presence there.
“Charles loved your mother. She was a beautiful young woman, and though you might have inherited your father’s eyes, everything else about you is to your mother’s credit. But what he loved about her went beyond what most people saw. She was intelligent, an educated woman still eager to learn, charming, compassionate. When I hear ‘joie de la vie,’ I picture Mignon and her obvious joy for life. And Charles was an important part of that joy. I, we”—he paused to look at Grandmère, who had not taken her eyes from his face since he began—“both knew how they felt about each another.”
He sipped his coffee. It pleased Lottie to hear how much her parents loved one another and answered the question she had about the success of their arranged marriage. But surely everyone had not gathered to hear that.
“Yet, still knowing all that, we didn’t want your father to marry Mignon. We—”
“Do you mean he wasn’t the man her family selected? Or he was and you did not want him to be?” Lottie wondered if Mignon’s parents might have felt the same.
She, not her grandfather, suddenly became the center of attention. “I’m confused,” she said. She glanced around the room and felt even more so, seeing their expressions.
“You won’t be in a moment,” he said.
Lottie heard that hitch in his voice. The kind that went along with the difficult things that had to be said. She could not imagine what he was about to share, and the fact that it caused that reaction in him made her less anxious to hear it.
“The reason we didn’t want him to marry her was because… because she was first his placée.”
His words must have sucked all the air out of the room, Lottie thought as she struggled to breathe. She latched onto the front of the sofa, the words “his placée” expanding until they filled the room. Everyone was quiet long enough for rage to replace the shock of her grandfather’s revelation.
She eyed her grandparents and hoped they saw the depth of her anger, the pool of revulsion that filled her stomach. No one in the room reacted as she did. Not even Gabriel. They know. They all know. The enormity of their betrayal ripped apart everything that she thought held them together—trust, loyalty, caring, affection, love.
“Lottie.” Gabriel reached for her, and she leaned away from him.
“For eighteen years, I have trusted you, lived with you, loved you. And for eighteen years, you have been traitors. You withheld information from me that changes who I am. Changes the course of my life. You forbade me to pursue what I loved, and you demanded that I love what you pursued. You were marrying me to that man knowing I wasn’t white.” Lottie spoke as if each fragile word had to be carefully placed on the table dividing them. She wanted to fling them at everyone who hurt her, but then they’d just crash and get lost in the broken confusion.
Her grandfather removed his cravat and paced behind where he and Grand-mère sat. “Paul didn’t know at first. I am ashamed to admit that we thought your children would pass. If they didn’t, then we would have the money to bring you all home. Then, after I heard about his gambling debt and confronted him, he threatened to tell you the truth before we had a chance to.”
“Paul knew? How did he find out?”
“From Serafina,” Gabriel said, his voice low.
Lottie stood, no longer caring that she screamed. “What kind of people are you? Who gave you the right?”
“Your mother.” The answer and that it came from her grandmother stunned her. She held onto the arm of the couch as she sat. “At first, we were relieved by her wishes for you. It made everything easier for us.” She looked at Grand-père. “Most of all for me. I blamed your mother for what happened. I didn’t want you to be like her. As time went on, it became increasingly more difficult as you grew and so much resembled her. Finally, I realized that Charles would have rather been happy for a short time with your mother than miserable for the rest of his life without her. But I know that doesn’t make up for the way I treated you. For how I distanced myself from you.”
Grand-père sat next to Grand-mère and held her hand as she continued. “I loved your father so much, and I lost him. If I allowed myself to love you with the same passion I loved him, I didn’t know if I would survive if something happened to you. I don’t expect you to forgive me now for what I have done. But I hope we can find a way to love one another.”
“My mother? You’re blaming this on my mother?”
“No, Lottie, not blaming. They were respecting your mother’s wishes and mine,” said Rosette. “They wanted to tell you, but it wasn’t time.”
Lottie turned to Agn
es and Abram. “Am I going to hear your names too?”
“No, Miz Lottie,” Abram said. “Your grandparents asked us here cuz we raised Charles too.” He didn’t try to wipe his tears. “We knew Mignon. We loved both them. And we love you.”
Lottie directed her attention back to Rosette. “So how can you know this came from my mother?”
“Because your father died in my house, in your mother’s arms. And once she knew you were safe, she died the next day. In my arms.” She walked over and sat next to Lottie. “I promise to tell you everything, but first this….” She handed Lottie papers that had been folded in three. “She wrote that to you hours before she died. All she told me was I would know when it was time to give it to you, and she made me promise that no one else would read it.”
Lottie turned the papers over, and on one of the sections read her name, Genevieve Charlotte. In a handwriting she had never seen. Her mother’s.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
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To my dearest Genevieve Charlotte,
I am certain, my p’tit, that you feel desperately alone at this moment. But, oh, my sweet, please know that even in God’s heaven, your father and I are with you as if we sat next to you now. As we have been every day. Watching your life unfold without us. Waiting for this day.
If you are reading this, then everyone who loves you—your grandparents, Rosette, Agnes and Abram—have all respected my wishes. What more could a mother want than to know how deeply her child is loved? For why else would these people, the ones whose arms have held you for all the times your father and I could not, have been so sacrificially committed to honoring the request I made? How many times must they have wanted to tell you what you did not know and yet they did not. Never forget how they loved you, and I pray you live in such a way that makes their sacrifice worthwhile.
Love Finds You in New Orleans, LA Page 25