One morning when there weren’t any customers in the parlour and I was in the kitchen scrubbing down the benches, I heard a familiar voice.
‘Well, of course her husband spends all his time on Bourbon Street looking at the girls. She doesn’t know how to control him.’
It was a nasty, droning voice that drained you of energy the moment you heard it. A voice like that belonged to a nasty, droning person: Aunt Elva!
I peered through the round window in the kitchen door and saw her taking a seat at the counter with some other matronly ladies, including Lisette Rombeau. Aunt Elva wiped down the stool with her handkerchief before placing her ‘too good for the ordinary world’ derriere on it. I’d never expected to see people Maman knew in the parlour. It wasn’t close to where Aunt Elva and Lisette Rombeau lived in Metairie. What were they doing here?
‘Service, please!’ Aunt Elva called, turning to look at the kitchen door.
I ducked down, my heart racing. This was a disaster. I was the only waitress scheduled for that morning, and Mr Silvetti was out on an errand. I didn’t even want to imagine the consequences if I went out and served those women. I was proud of myself for doing something to help our situation, but if Maman found out she would be ashamed — and worse, mocked and shunned by the other high-society Creoles. Her weekly ladies’ bridge club was one of the few social pleasures she had left.
‘Service, please!’ Aunt Elva called again. ‘Is anybody even here? What’s taking you so long?’
I heard the sound of a chair scraping. She was coming to investigate. There was nothing to be done but make a run for it.
I grabbed my clothes and fled into the storeroom, out the delivery door and into the laneway. It wasn’t until I reached home that I fully realised what a close call it had been. I couldn’t go back to the ice cream parlour. It was too risky. I quickly changed out of my uniform behind a palm in the courtyard and threw it into a garbage can. When I entered the apartment, I heard voices and found Maman entertaining Babette Pélissier, the only friend who still called on her, with tea and cake. And what a cake it was! The icing was butter cream formed into a bouquet of pink and white roses. Mae must have bought it from the exclusive French patisserie across the street. Of course it was all for Babette: Maman wouldn’t be able to touch it because of her diabetes.
‘Babette has the most wonderful news!’ Maman exclaimed, indicating for me to sit down next to her. ‘Georgine is getting married! To Harvey Boiselle!’
While Babette still called on Maman, I hadn’t heard from her daughter in over a year. Still, it pleased me to think Georgine had stolen one of Eugenie’s beaus. Aunt Elva must be fuming! It was hard to keep the smile from my face despite what had happened at Avery’s. Maman seemed to have forgotten that Aunt Elva had spoken about Harvey Boiselle in relation to her own daughter, otherwise she might have been more circumspect. Maman was forgetful of quite a few things these days. Doctor Monfort said it was the progression of her disease.
‘Your mother has been telling me the most delightful story about the history of the house in Rue Ursulines,’ said Babette, adjusting her fashionable demi-chapeau. ‘I’d forgotten how good she is at relating a story.’
If there was one talent appreciated above all in New Orleans it was the ability to tell a good story. Why, it was as impolite to tell a story badly as it was to not greet an acquaintance on the street. Visitors said the reason it took so long to get things done in New Orleans was because everyone you met had a story they wanted to share with you. In a city of storytellers, Maman was the best, especially when she told tales about the history of the place. The animation in her face and the way she raised and lowered her voice at the right moments made it seem like the scene she was describing was unfolding before your eyes. Perhaps her talent had been handed down from the plantation days, when there was nothing to do during the hot, mosquito-ridden evenings except play cards, read poetry and tell each other stories.
Mae came to refresh the tea. She glanced from the cake to me and winked. Even though she didn’t like me working, I guessed she was pleased that we could make Maman happy with the money I was earning. Then I realised that not only could I not return to the ice cream parlour after I’d run out like that and thrown away my uniform, but I hadn’t picked up my current week’s pay. It was going to be gravy and bread again if I didn’t figure something else out quickly. Curse, Aunt Elva, I thought. She’s got a way of spoiling everything.
‘Ruby,’ Maman said that evening, when we were sitting together reading and listening to Chopin on the record player after dinner, ‘you are looking more and more like your father every day.’
‘Maman, that is not a compliment!’ I cried, putting my book down.
‘Pray, why not?’ she asked, looking indignant. ‘He was the handsomest man in town and you’re the prettiest girl.’
‘Because he left us and got himself killed by a mosquito. Being the handsomest man in town isn’t much use if you aren’t there for your wife and daughter.’
‘Now that’s no way to talk about your papa,’ said Maman, taking off her mother-of-pearl spectacles. ‘Your father was a passionate man and passion is a fine trait, even if it does get you into trouble sometimes.’
Despite the fact that my father had practically deserted us, Maman never said a bad word against him. She had some strange points of view about the world, and being loyal to your husband, even if he was a cad, was one of them. She wasn’t capable of seeing things any other way.
She pressed her lips together and frowned. ‘It’s true the de Villerays perhaps had more passion than most. But my branch of the Dreux family had none, and that made them weak. Both my parents were dead before they were forty and produced no heirs except me. Passion gives you the will to live. I think that’s why I was so charmed by your father: he had a zest for living. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep up with his late nights and his festivities and his ideas —’
‘Just as well you didn’t, Maman,’ I interrupted. ‘Or you’d have gone on that foolish trip to Brazil and died with him.’
She sighed and changed the subject. ‘Anyways, did I ever tell you about Nicolas Didier, a Creole aristocrat distantly related to the de Villeray family? Now there was a man who had some passion.’
Normally, listening to one of Maman’s stories was my favourite way to pass time. But my mind was troubled and I only half paid attention to her tale about a French man and a beautiful quadroon woman back in the days when there were few white women in the colony. Maman spoke about the grand balls where mothers of mixed-blood women brought their daughters to meet prospective protectors in a system known as plaçage. The coloured women were given their own houses, and any offspring born of the union were formally educated. It was an arrangement that lasted until a suitably aristocratic wife was sent to the colony by the man’s family for an official and legally recognised marriage. Maman described the ball gowns and the women ‘with skin like butterscotch’ in elaborate detail, but all I could think about was money. How was I going to earn it now that I no longer had a job at the ice cream parlour? Then something occurred to me.
‘What an extraordinary story,’ I said when Maman had finished. ‘Why don’t you write it down? You’d be a fine writer, and I bet a publisher would sign you up right away. You could be as famous as Margaret Mitchell.’
Maman lowered her eyes, flattered, then looked at me with a stern expression. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense, Ruby. I couldn’t write a book and I wouldn’t want to anyway. I’ve got you to take care of.’
‘Why don’t you approve of women working?’ I asked. ‘Sometimes they just have to. Many of the students at Tulane University are young women now.’
Maman smoothed her skirt. ‘Oh, I understand that some women find themselves in a position where they have to work. But, Ruby, a lady — a real lady — never works outside the home. Those girls going to university might make fine careers for themselves, but in the end they’re going to come home to a dark and empty house.�
� My dismay must have shown on my face because her eyebrows rose in alarm. ‘Ruby, honey, promise me that you’ll never work. I’ve given my all to raise you to be a proper lady and to make a good marriage. After your papa’s death, it was all I had to live for. Promise me you’ll never do anything to ruin that. A woman’s first priority is her husband and children. A gentleman won’t marry a woman he doesn’t think is committed to him and the home first.’
Later, as I lay in my bed, I heard Maman coughing and Mae going to her room to take her some hot water with lemon. Doctor Monfort had warned that the diabetes could affect Maman’s breathing. If the coughing persisted, she would need more medicines and for that we’d need money. Uncle Rex hadn’t been to see us in a while. Aunt Elva was keeping him away, I suspected. How were we going to afford those medicines if I didn’t work?
Maman had some lofty ideas but no practical sense and, as much as I loved her, it frustrated me. I thought about my father. It seemed to me that a woman could do better for herself than to tie her fate to the whims of a male member of the species. But Maman would never understand that, and as much as I hated sneaking around, that was what I was going to have to do.
Maman’s cough was worse in the morning. I called Doctor Monfort, but he wasn’t able to make a house call until later in the evening, so he told me to come to his office in Jefferson Parish and he’d give me some medicine to soothe Maman’s respiratory tract.
When I stepped off the bus, I marvelled at how much Jefferson Parish was changing. It used to be a sleepy community with chickens and cows wandering about, but now there were housing developments and roads springing up everywhere. Factories, shops, hotels and even casinos stood where before there’d only been pastures.
As I was leaving Doctor Monfort’s office with the medicine, I bumped into Uncle Rex on South Carrollton Avenue. My uncle, usually so precisely dressed, was unshaven and wearing a creased jacket with his tie askew. I wondered if he and Aunt Elva had argued and she’d thrown him out for the night. But that didn’t feel right: Aunt Elva would never do anything that would ‘get the neighbours talking’.
‘Hello,’ I said, stopping in front of him.
He looked at me kind of funny, then his eyes opened wide as if he’d suddenly recognised me. ‘Ruby! What brings you to this part of town?’
‘Doctor Monfort has his office near here. Maman was sick last night with her breathing and I had to come and pick up some medicine.’
I was hoping he’d offer to pay for the medicine, but he didn’t, and I was at a loss about how to approach the subject because he’d always put the money in the jar on the mantelpiece without making a big song and dance of it. Had Aunt Elva truly gotten to him about not giving us anything? If that was the case, we were in trouble, because the medicine had cost ten dollars and I’d had to get it on credit. I was trying to help myself, but Aunt Elva kept thwarting me at every turn. I couldn’t win for losing.
Uncle Rex and I talked about the weather and how it was finally starting to turn cold. Then, out of politeness, I asked about Eugenie, even though she wasn’t an ounce nicer than her mother and I didn’t really care how she was doing. ‘I can’t believe it’s almost a year since we made our debut. How is she?’
Uncle Rex shifted uneasily on his feet and didn’t reply.
I hadn’t had any offers of marriage, but that was to be expected. I was surprised that Eugenie mightn’t have either. Aunt Elva had made out that Pierre Leboeuf was very taken with her, and even though Eugenie wasn’t the most attractive of girls she did have a sizeable dowry.
‘There are plenty of men who would love to have a pretty girl like you for a wife,’ Uncle Rex said, not jovially as he usually would have but with a tone of desperation. ‘Don’t restrict yourself to the Creole community, even if your mother tells you to. There are plenty of fine men out there — you just have to find the right one.’
He tipped his hat and hurried off. It was the strangest conversation I’d ever had with him.
I went straight home to give the medicine to Maman, then I sat on the gallery for a while, mulling over our money problems. Everyone was telling me that a man was my ticket out of genteel poverty, but if I married, I hoped it would be for love not money. For me, work was the obvious solution. Why then did things have to be so darn complicated? Taking control of one’s destiny seemed like a fine characteristic to me, but in Creole society a woman working was akin to walking the slippery road to hell. I had to work but I had to hide it, and that made most of the jobs I could apply for out of the question.
Mae brought me a cup of tea, and I sipped it while watching people going about their business on Royal Street. A young woman holding a flag on a stick caught my eye. A group of tourists — smartly dressed in twin-sets, tweed suits and two-toned saddle shoes — was following her. Tour groups were a common sight in the French Quarter, but something about this guide caught my attention. Then I recognised her: she was the architecture student I’d spoken to outside Tulane University. Out of curiosity, I went downstairs and joined the group.
‘This is an excellent example of a Creole cottage, built in 1793,’ she said, pointing to a building behind her. ‘Note the steeply pitched roof and the dormer windows, and the tall shuttered doors designed to increase the airflow or keep out the heat.’
Next she led the group to look at the matching red-brick Pontalba Buildings on either side of Jackson Square, and explained that they’d been commissioned by Micaela Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba, an aristocrat and a real estate developer.
‘Baroness de Pontalba was known as a shrewd and vivacious woman with an excellent head for business,’ the girl told us. ‘These two buildings were the most ambitious of their kind at that time in America, and the Paris-influenced cast-iron grillework came to define the aesthetic of the buildings in the French Quarter from then on, giving the area its uniquely feminine character.’
The story of Baroness de Pontalba was one of Maman’s favourites to tell. A Spanish Creole born in the late 1700s, she was placed into an arranged marriage with her French cousin Célestin, who plotted with his father to get their hands on her fortune, which the Baroness’s mother had been astute enough to protect when her daughter moved to Paris. Frustrated by their efforts to break her down, Célestin’s father shot the Baroness four times before committing suicide. She survived, and obtained a legal separation from her husband so that she could return to New Orleans to develop property there. Although Maman was fascinated by the savvy Creole aristocrat, she didn’t relate her independence to our lives at all. Maman would think that being described as a ‘shrewd and vivacious woman with an excellent head for business’ was an insult. But I admired Baroness de Pontalba. She had verve — and that’s what I needed too.
The girl finished her tour by thanking the group, then added, ‘In the 1930s, the city wanted to demolish the French Quarter and replace it with modern housing, but a small group of citizens saw the historic value of the area and fought that decision. I’m proud to say that my mother was one of those preservationists and I’m delighted to have been able to show you around the area today.’
The tourists gave her a round of applause and slipped money into her hand before dispersing. It looked like she’d made more in tips alone than I had in a day at the ice cream parlour.
‘Do you do this every day?’ I asked the girl, fascinated by what I’d seen.
‘No, only a couple of times a week to help with my college tuition,’ she replied, putting the money into her purse.
‘It seems like a good job,’ I said. ‘You’re making good money for an hour’s work.’
She smiled sheepishly. ‘I do all right, but my friend Sally, who does the ghost tours, makes more than me. The haunted tours draw bigger crowds.’
‘Really?’ I replied, my mind ticking over. Perhaps I could be a guide? I didn’t know much about architecture, but I did know a lot about the history of New Orleans, thanks to Maman.
‘She’s doing one early this evening i
f you’re interested,’ the girl said. ‘It starts outside the Cabildo at six o’clock.’
I waited for Sally outside the museum on Jackson Square. In the fading light the place was eerie and I recalled Maman’s stories about rebellious slaves being hanged in the square as a warning to others. What an atmospheric place for a ghost tour! I was surprised then when a mousy-looking girl in a V-neck sweater and cigarette pants arrived, sold tickets to the dozen or so people who had gathered for the tour, and led us directly to Saint Louis Cathedral without mentioning the square itself.
She showed us an alley that was supposed to be haunted by Père Antoine, once the pastor of the church. ‘But he’s a very benign ghost,’ she said in a high-pitched, strained voice. ‘He came to the city in 1774 as part of the Spanish Inquisition, but never got into the spirit of things.’
She continued from building to building around the Quarter, telling us stories in a mediocre way. This girl is awful, I thought. If her Northern accent didn’t give her away, you could tell by the flat way she told stories that she wasn’t from New Orleans.
When she came to the intersection of Royal and St Ann streets, she rattled off the story of ‘Julie’s Ghost’ in the same monotone she’d used for all her other stories. Julie had been an exotic octoroon whose protector had given her a beautiful home with servants and fine jewellery, but it wasn’t enough for her. After her protector’s wife died and Julie was pregnant with his child, she pestered him to make her his legal wife. One freezing and damp December night, when her protector grew tired of her begging, he joked that if she stayed on the roof naked until the dawn, he would marry her. Knowing her love of comfort, her protector never expected Julie to take his dare seriously and he spent the evening playing cards and drinking with friends in the parlour. When he retired in the early hours of the morning, he couldn’t find Julie anywhere. Terrified, he climbed to the roof and found her frozen and naked corpse. The protector was shattered and, driven to drink, died the following year.
Southern Ruby Page 5