“So no Eucharist?” Denise asked. “No Latin readings? No confession to a priest?”
“Not like you’re used to. But that doesn’t translate to ‘no God.’ God is as present here as He is in the cathedral of Notre-Dame. And always, always, we can pray. In fact, I recommend it. Come.” Francoise took Julianne and Denise by their hands. “It’s time you two had some food, baths, clean sheets, and, if I may say so, new gowns as well.”
Denise sighed in obvious relief. “Saints be praised!”
Julianne could scarcely imagine such heaven. “Out of all the new settlers who are arriving today, why lavish such generosity on us?”
“Ah. Excellent question, and I have three excellent answers for you. First, you came to me. Ask, and it shall be given, knock and the door will be opened to you, yes? Second, I’m a very good judge of character, and I judge you to be special. Not unlike myself this side of twenty years ago. Third, and not at all least, Captain Girard told me to. And when he gives an order, it is meant to be followed.”
“I didn’t realize he commanded anyone but his own company.”
“Oh, don’t let him fool you.” Merriment danced in Francoise’s eyes. “Tough and gruff on the outside, but he has a bigger heart than you realize. Otherwise, why would he have troubled to deliver you to me?”
Why indeed? The man was a riddle, but for now Julianne would be content to leave it unsolved. Bath and bed awaited.
They should not have been Marc-Paul’s concern. And yet he could not talk himself into leaving the LeGranges completely on their own. In truth, Simon he would have happily deposited at the barracks along with everyone else. It was Julianne his conscience would not release. During the voyage, she had busied herself tending the sick women among them—prisoners and paupers and prostitutes—and quieted them with her voice when nothing else could. She proved herself to be every bit as nurturing as Benjamin had claimed his older sister to be. Sometime during the past five months, Marc-Paul had concluded that whatever violence had been pinned on her was a mistake. She no more deserved that wretched fleur-de-lys than he did. And she certainly didn’t deserve Simon LeGrange.
Marc-Paul shot a glance at the man walking beside him down the muddy lane. Benjamin would roll in his grave if he could see who had charge of his sister now. Swallowing his own distaste for LeGrange, Marc-Paul followed the only plan he and Francoise had been able to devise.
“Well, LeGrange, you’re a fortunate man.” He stopped at a lot between town and the cypress swamp, already cleared for building.
“How can you tell?”
“The owner of this lot had everything he needed to build his cabin.” He pointed to the pile of cypress pilings and a separate stack of palmetto branches for thatching the roof. Golden-winged dragonflies perched on the fronds.
“How nice for him.”
“He died before he could finish. Just yesterday, according to Madame St. Jean.”
LeGrange’s eyes narrowed. “He has no family?”
Marc-Paul shook his head. “He was a soldier, recently discharged, who had chosen to stay and settle. It’s humble beginnings, granted, but enough to start with if you’re willing to work. Are you?”
“Is there an alternative?”
Marc-Paul shrugged. “There is always an alternative. Find your own land, procure your own tools, clear the land yourself, cut your lumber, and get started.” Or steal from the company warehouse, or turn to pirating the trade routes between New Orleans, Pensacola, Veracruz, and Havana. How the Company of the Indies expected these new colonists—especially those who were not farmers—to forge an honest living from nothing was beyond his imagination. “Do you have any experience with construction? In this sort of environment?”
“I can build my own house, if that’s what you mean.” LeGrange’s tone hardened. “You’re not volunteering to help me, are you? I seem to recall a certain officer breaking my nose.” He tapped the bump on the bridge of his nose.
“Ah yes. You refer to the day you disarmed a sergeant and attempted to start a riot in Saint-Nicolas Tower.”
LeGrange spread his hands. “Being treated like an animal and forced into exile tends to put me in a foul temper.”
“Monsieur LeGrange, I may have been your opponent at La Rochelle, but here in the wilderness, you have new enemies—and I am not one of them. I suggest you build a sturdy shelter for yourself and your wife as quickly as possible, and set yourself to the business of farming. Your rations have just run out.”
“I’ll build when I feel like it.”
“You misunderstand. Madame St. Jean has agreed to take in your wife. Not you. You may go to the inn only when you are ready to bring her home. Preferably a furnished home. Nothing fancy, only the bare necessities.”
Simon squinted into the sunshine, muttering, before crossing to the cache of tools and sorting through them.
“I trust you have everything you need for the task at hand. Any questions?”
Marc-Paul barely masked his relief when Simon assured him he had none. After nearly a year away, he was more than ready to return to his own home at last. Bidding Simon adieu, he turned to slog through the heat once again.
As he made his way east through the settlement, an egret soared overhead. New Orleans didn’t offer the bird much of a view. Just above the river bend that cradled the town’s southeastern border, land had been cleared of its trees but was not well developed. The public places—the Company of the Indies’ warehouse, the tavern and canteen, the barracks and commissary, and the St. Jean Inn—clustered closest to the river, near the docks and market square. Northwest of them, footpaths meandered between thatched-roof cabins built wherever the colonists pleased. Surrounding the unshaded village, cypress swamps sprawled between ridges that bristled with palmetto, red maple, box elder, southern hackberry, ash, and sycamore trees. Bayous cut like ribbons across the low-lying land, and cattail-striped marshland hugged Lake Pontchartrain. The entire length of the settlement as it paralleled the Mississippi was five hundred feet shy of a full mile. The width, from the riverbank to the swamp forming the northwestern border, was a mere eighteen hundred feet. One day, New Orleans would be a grand city. But today it was no such thing.
Still, it was home. Upon reaching his pine-timbered house minutes later, Marc-Paul headed straight to his bedchamber and rolled up the linen that covered the windows in lieu of glass. The mosquitoes he would deal with later. For now, he needed the breeze to sweep the stale room and the sun to dry the air as it gilded the dust.
With a sigh, he swiped his hat off his head and tossed it on the bed. Opening his satchel, he pulled out his uniform coat—far too warm to wear in Louisiana during summer—and withdrew the Bible that had been pressed into his hands on the voyage by a Swiss peasant. “Read the twenty-third psalm to me,” he had begged Marc-Paul, who had complied. “Keep it,” the peasant said then, and exhaled his final breath. Marc-Paul turned the Protestant Bible over in his hands. Surely if the authorities allowed the Germans to settle here, owning this could be no crime. Not here. Not anymore. Still, he tucked the Bible into the top drawer of his bureau.
Then he stiffened. Looked out the open window for any sign of movement. Seeing none, he scanned the room. Something was wrong. It was quiet. The stillness was too thick; it wasn’t natural.
Deftly, he unfastened the copper buttons on his waistcoat, shrugged it off, and threw it on the bed. With long strides, he searched the rest of his house. From his bedroom to the dining room to the modest salon, he found nothing amiss aside from the unease building in his chest.
“Where are you?” He turned in a circle once more, but no response met his ears.
Marc-Paul strode out the rear of his house. A gust of wind filtered through his linen shirt as he marched through the dappled shade of his ash trees and pounded on the door of his cook’s quarters.
None too quickly, Etienne Labuche opened the door, a broad smile creasing his sunburned face.
“I believe you have something of
mine?”
“What? You think I’d take anything of yours in your absence, after all we’ve been through together? I’m hurt!” Etienne clasped his arthritic hands over his chest. “Wounded!” Blue eyes crinkling at the edges, the Canadian waggled the abbreviated index and middle fingers on his right hand. They had been caught just below their middle knuckles in a steel trap during his voyageur days up north. When Etienne gave up the fur trade to stay in warmer climes in his advancing years, Marc-Paul gained much more than a cook and groundskeeper.
“Come now, old friend.” Marc-Paul raised an eyebrow. “You and I both know there is only one thing I own that could possibly arouse your envy. And that one thing is all I seek now. Hand it over, and no further inquiries will be made.”
Etienne screwed his mouth to one side. “Break me on the wheel, will you? Put me in the stocks?”
“Nothing of the sort. If you’re ready to cooperate.”
Silence filled the gap between them. Etienne broke it with a hearty laugh big enough to be heard on the other side of the river. Half turning, he whistled.
Silence.
“Vesuvius!” Marc-Paul shouted, and in the next moment, a small, dense bundle of fawn-colored fur came barreling out the door on four short legs, tongue lolling out one side of its mouth, curly tail rotating back and forth.
Laughing, Marc-Paul bent down and scooped up his ridiculous pug, jerking his head to the side just before Vesuvius released an enthusiastic sneeze.
“Be gone with him now!” Etienne’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve had about enough of his snoring to last me until your next voyage. Quite a greedy little bedfellow too, isn’t he? How he manages to spread himself exactly where my legs rightfully belong, well—it almost takes the charm off him.”
“Almost, eh?” Marc-Paul chuckled as he set the canine back on the ground.
Etienne shrugged. “Well? Did you have a good visit to the Old Country?”
The smile slipped from his face. “I did what I went there to do, and now I’m home.”
“Then all is well!”
Looking from Vesuvius’s wide-open grin to the clear blue sky above, Marc-Paul was tempted to believe him. But all was never well in New Orleans. It was why he had gone to Paris, and it was why he had come back. As challenging as it was, he would not abandon his post.
Chapter Six
Freshly bathed and dressed in apricot silk, Julianne paused in the corridor to wait for Denise. Heat pressed down on them like damp wool, though the day waned. From the dining room down the hall, masculine voices competed to be heard, their words garbled by the food in their mouths.
“You must eat, Denise, no matter the company.”
Denise hung back, wearing a look of disdain and a flowing robe volante, which modestly draped her condition. “I miss Paris,” she muttered.
“Of course. But we do not miss Salpêtrière, do we?” Smiling, Julianne inhaled the scents of the dinner that awaited. “Come now. You must regain your strength.” Her stomach groaned in anticipation as she escorted Denise into the dining hall.
Flies buzzed between the platters of food on two long wooden tables. Two dozen men filled the benches, their arms reaching and elbows poking while they grabbed what they pleased. Upon noticing Julianne and Denise, however, they halted their conversations and ogled.
“Well, what do we have here?” A burly man in buckskin gaiters wiped his hands on the red sash about his middle. “Looks like its trapping season in New Orleans!” He slapped his hand on the table.
“Oh no.” The man next to him laughed. “Didn’t you hear? This shipment of girls isn’t for us. They came already hitched. Only I don’t see any husbands here. Did the gents make you widows on the voyage?”
“If it’s wives you seek, these ain’t the type.” At the end of one table, a man mopped the perspiration from his bald dome. “If rumor be true, these girls be no salt o’ the earth. They be convicts. Look at their hair! Shorn like sheep.”
The mark on Julianne’s shoulder itched beneath her borrowed gown. She could not be arrested for being branded, but she could most certainly be judged by public opinion on the length of her hair and rumor alone. No matter. She and Denise would eat quickly and leave just as soon.
“Prostitutes, most like. Tavern’s that way, girls!” The bald man pointed through the window toward the distant sound of rollicking laughter and slurred song.
“We are no such thing! How dare you!” Denise spat. Julianne’s face burned.
“It’s a rough place, New Orleans is. The people are rough to go with it.” He scraped the last of his food onto his spoon and scooped it into his mouth. “You’ll fit right in, I’m sure.”
Men whooped and pounded their cups on the table in glee, wine sloshing between the cracks in the boards, until Francoise St. Jean burst into the room, clucking like a mother hen. “All right, you’ve had quite enough! Out with you now! See Laurent to settle your bill and away you go!” She shooed three of the loudest diners away. Turning to Julianne and Denise, she added, “Please enjoy the food. You’ll see we make our bread with cornmeal since wheat flour is so rare. The porridge is called sagamité, and it’s made from boiled, husked corn and bean flour. We learned to make it from our native friends, and I do hope you grow to like it. It’s quite a staple here.” She swished from the room.
A wail erupted from one of the tables, followed by a fatherly scolding. Julianne turned to see a small boy press chubby fists to his eyes. Opposite him, a weary-looking gentleman sopped spilled water from the table while holding a fussy baby on his lap.
“I didn’t mean to, Papa!” the child blubbered. “I was helping!”
“Oui, Jacques, you are always helping! Sometimes I could do without quite so much help from you.”
Grateful for the distraction, Julianne scooped up a fresh stack of napkins from the sideboard along the wall and took them to the haggard little family. Denise righted the overturned pewter pitcher, and Julianne soaked up the remaining puddles and rivulets quivering between plates and cups. “May we join your dinner party?” She offered the father a sympathetic smile. “You see, I need lots of help.”
The little boy gaped at her for a moment before sliding over on the bench to make room. As Julianne seated herself, Denise sat next to the father, whose sun-tanned complexion matched his son’s. With a few words, the women introduced themselves.
“I am Monsieur Caillot, and if you have just arrived from France, I am rejoiced to see you both.”
Denise arched an eyebrow. “Why, pray tell?” She helped herself to roast duck, sorrel salad, cornbread, and a tentative helping of sagamité, then passed the serving dishes to Julianne.
“I’m taking my family back to France on the ship that brought you here. My wife is ill and resting in our room upstairs. But even if she has not recovered by the time the ship sails, we’ll be on it.”
“New Orleans doesn’t suit?” Julianne asked.
“Louisiana doesn’t suit. The Company of the Indies brought me and my family out to cultivate tobacco on one of the concessions farther north along the Mississippi River.” Monsieur Caillot shifted his baby to his other arm. “The Company wants tobacco to be a major cash crop. But after three years of trying to make it profitable, I’m further in debt than I’ve ever been. It’s time to go home. Whatever has brought you here, I hope you have a better time of it than we did.”
“I wish your wife a speedy recovery then, and a safe passage for all of you.” Julianne tamped down the thought that she and Denise—indeed, all the colonists just arrived—had no alternative but to stay, no matter how difficult Louisiana might prove to be.
Beside her, Jacques squirmed, clearly bored. At about four years of age, by her estimate, his little legs swung freely as they dangled from the bench. And by the grunt and glower of the diner on his other side, she guessed his kicking feet had found a mark.
“Now, Jacques,” she said quickly, “I need some help. I will need to use my napkin while I eat, I’m sure, but I only l
ike napkins that are shaped like triangles. This one is a square. Do you know how to fold it so it becomes a triangle?”
Jacques’s eyes lit up. Lips pursed in concentration, he took her napkin and quietly worked at his folding while Monsieur Caillot stared absently at the baby whimpering on his lap.
“You haven’t touched your own food, monsieur.” Denise nodded at his untouched plate. “And I have had my fill. Allow me?” She reached for the baby, and after only a moment’s hesitation, he transferred the infant into her arms. She shoved her plate and cup beyond the baby’s reach. The spoon, however, the baby snatched from the table and thrust into her mouth. Nose running, she belted out her discontent, and Julianne caught sight of two tiny pearls pressing up beneath the surface of her lower gums.
“Shh, Agnes, Agnes,” Caillot crooned as he pried the spoon from her dimpled hand. “I know she isn’t hungry. She has already eaten as much as her little belly can hold.”
“She’s miserable, isn’t she? Trying to cut her first teeth.” Julianne twisted the corner of a napkin, dipped it into her fresh cup of water, and squeezed out the excess. “Here. This will feel better in her wee mouth than that spoon.” She offered Agnes the napkin, and the baby took to sucking it right away.
Denise stared at Julianne in wonder. “Why, that was almost magical!”
“Mothers have a special touch. How many children do you have, Madame LeGrange?”
Julianne pushed Jacques’s sweat-dampened hair off his brow. “None yet. Someday, God willing.”
“You certainly seem to understand Jacques,” Monsieur Caillot said.
Julianne laughed. “I raised my little brother. I was eight years old when he was born. Coming up with small diversions for him became quite second nature.” How vividly she could recall Benjamin’s arms around her neck as she lay him down to rest. When he awakened in the night with frightening dreams, he only called for their father a few times before learning it was Julianne who answered. When he skinned his knees, she dried his tears. When he found a marvel of nature—a frog, a bird’s egg, a perfectly round stone—Julianne was the one who joined in the wonder of it. When he was old enough to realize their father blamed him for their mother’s death, Julianne had labored to assure him it was not his fault but the doctor’s.
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