Ruth's Journey: The Authorized Novel of Mammy From Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind

by Donald McCaig

  While Solange would have welcomed advice on how that desirable outcome might be realized, she didn’t press the banker. As she strolled the broad, tree-lined, sand street in the pale November sunshine, Solange’s relief that her precious letter of credit was protected in Mr. Haversham’s sturdy iron safe was mixed with the apprehension a mother feels when her toddler is out of her sight.

  * * *

  Savannah’s French communities were two, not one. The French “émigrés” who’d come to Georgia after the 1789 French Revolution brought wealth with them, while most “refugees” were paupers who’d fled Saint-Domingue with little more than the clothes on their backs.

  In December exiles and refugees got news which was no less distressing for being expected. The news flew from the docks to the lonely settler’s lean-to in the deep shadows of Georgia pines as fast as the fastest horse could deliver it. Saint-Domingue was lost! Henceforth the Pearl of the Antilles was a Black Pearl! Despite determined French resistance and terrible losses, the insurgents broke through the ring forts protecting Cap-Français and forced General Rochambeau to surrender. French officers and soldiers who could cram aboard rotting transports sailed only to become British prisoners of war; the wounded and sick left behind on the quay suffered for days before they were drowned. Triumphant insurgents renamed their nation Haiti.

  That blow to French pride proved a blessing for one refugee family when Savannah’s second richest Frenchman, Pierre Robillard, showed his patriotism by hiring one of the defeated army’s gallant officers, Captain Fornier, as his clerk. Although Augustin’s salary wasn’t large, severe household economies and what remained of Mister Minnis’s loan would keep the Forniers until Solange’s letter of credit turned into cash.

  Pierre Robillard had established himself in Georgia as an importer of French wines and those silks, voiles, and perfumes whose possession distinguished the newly rich Low Country gentlewoman from the rough-handed rustic her pioneer mother had been.

  Pierre’s richer, younger cousin, Philippe Robillard, spoke the Edisto and Muscogee Indian languages and assisted the Georgia legislature during Indian land negotiations—an honor Philippe mentioned too often. The cousins Robillard dominated Savannah’s social season, and invitations to their annual ball were much sought after.

  Georgia natives admired French urbanity but thought the new citizens too urbane, a little too French. The French lady’s shape, so clearly discernible beneath the shimmering fabric of her diaphanous gown, may have been unexceptionable in Paris or Cap-Français, but in Georgia, where backcountry travelers sometimes encountered hostile Indians and the Great Awakening had prompted many to reexamine their (and others’) sinful natures, those garments’ beguiling fragility seemed foolhardy and immoral.

  Despite these mild adversions, Georgians were sympathetic to the refugees’ plight, and relief subscriptions were distributed by St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

  Low Country planters had vigorous, if differing opinions about the Saint-Domingue rebellion. Some claimed the slaves had been treated too harshly, others that they hadn’t been disciplined enough. Although every white Savannahian saluted Mr. Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death,” regarding Saint-Domingue, they believed the Jacobin passion for liberty had overreached by a country mile. Savannahians viewed the French Negroes with suspicion. Mightn’t they be contaminated by rebellion? Their flamboyant dress was provocative, and some French Negroes emulated white men, even flaunting watch fobs and chains! That spring, when news came of cruel massacres of whites who hadn’t escaped Saint-Domingue, many Masses were offered for their souls, and, for a time, French Negroes only appeared in their sober Sunday clothing.

  Solange Fornier missed the sea. She missed Saint-Malo’s promenade, where salt rime damped her cheeks and her nostrils widened to seaweed’s astringent tang. Saint-Malo’s cobbled streets had known the footfalls of Romans, medieval monks, and bold corsairs. Savannah was so young, not much older than the revolution of which Americans were so inordinately proud. A few offered faint praise for General Lafayette, but of the French fleet that had denied reinforcements to the besieged British at Yorktown and the French troops who’d stormed the British redoubts, Savannahians apparently knew nothing. “You were our allies, weren’t you, when we freed our nation from the British yoke?”

  Solange’s “yessss” was remarkably like a hisss.

  France had bankrupted herself supporting these ungrateful backwoodsmen, and, because of that, the spendthrift King Louis had been beheaded. But that was then. Unlike some refugees, Solange wasted no energy regretting that French help for ungrateful Americans hadn’t been directed to its own rebellious colonies: Saint-Domingue in particular.

  Solange exchanged her last two gold louis with Mr. Haversham. Though convinced that the Banque de France’s confirmation would arrive any day—“We must be patient, madame”—he could not, in his position of trust, advance money against it. Surely the charming madame would understand his position. He deplored the turbulent Atlantic. Several vessels, including a British mail packet, had failed to arrive when expected and were feared lost. Solange’s confirmation would not have been aboard a British vessel. Absolutely not! Non!

  When Solange accompanied Cook and Ruth to the torchlit market building, she was overwhelmed by the number and force of so many blacks chattering away in their heathen tongues. Speak English! she wanted to shout. Or, if you must, speak French! Servants had no right to have conversations their masters couldn’t understand.

  And the market women deferred to Ruth, a deference that annoyed Solange. White admiration for Ruth flattered the child’s owner as he who admires a Thoroughbred compliments the horse’s owner. But the market women’s strange deference conferred no benefits on Solange; the owner felt invisible!

  Solange spoke English, but Augustin wouldn’t learn the language and dismissed American ways. After his workday, he lingered with other bitter refugees in a drinking house where French was spoken, Napoleon’s campaigns dissected, and the First Consul’s failure to save Saint-Domingue deplored endlessly. Solange nicknamed her husband’s new friends “Les Amis du France.”

  Although Augustin had never set a sugarcane cutting nor, indeed, ever seen cane planted, he expertly debated colonial agriculture as if his brief visit to la Sucarie du Jardin had produced bumper crops.

  Augustin insisted the new Haitian government would recompense him for the sucarie. (“They stole it from us, did they not? They must pay”) and to that end initiated a correspondence with the French consul in New Orleans.

  Although Ruth’s English was the English of the market and servants’ quarters, the child was soon chattering away. While Augustin attended Pierre Robillard’s customers and gloried in Napoleon’s victories, Solange and Ruth explored the new world. Many mornings, just as cook fires discharged their first pungent smoke, Solange and Ruth strolled Savannah’s fine French squares, discovering which elegant homes belonged to which prominent families. (Ruth, who could go anywhere and ask anything, was a fine spy.) The French woman and her Negro maid visited neighborhoods where artificers worked, animals were sold, and lumber and bricks warehoused. The rude Irishman and his brother had acquired an oxcart and an emaciated, rib-sprung ox and set up as draymen. Though the Irishman invariably tipped his hat, Solange as invariably snubbed him.

  Solange and Ruth often concluded their amble at the riverfront, below the deserted promenade on the cluttered, hectic docks, where Gaelic, Ibo, and Creole dialects loaded cotton bales and indigo barrels onto big and little ships and unloaded fine goods and furnishings off them.

  Without Ruth, Solange might have been mistaken for one of the painted Cyprians soliciting dockworkers and sailors. Although some of these creatures tried to strike up an acquaintance, Solange spurned them.

  Later, when there were more white faces about, the pair dallied at a small café for coffee and biscuits slathered with tupelo hon
ey while Ruth chattered with everybody and anybody.

  When they returned home, breakfast dishes and the lingering smell of tabac were her husband’s remnants. Solange changed from her walking garb and dressed the child for Mass. One time she’d attended the 6:30 Mass, which served Savannah’s draymen, stevedores, and laundrywomen. That Irishman approached without so much as a by-your-leave wondering how she was “faring” in the “New World” and had the effrontery to introduce “my brother Andrew O’Hara and Martha, my missus.” Despite Solange’s frosty silence, the man would presume on their brief shipboard acquaintance. Thereafter Mrs. Fornier and her maid attended the 10:30. If the 6:30 was the Irish Mass, the 10:30 was the Society. Solange didn’t repeat O’Hara’s mistake, nodding politely if and only if another nodded, and, in the vestibule after the service, she attended to her missal or rosary while familiars greeted each other with the ebullient chirps Savannah ladies preferred. When fine ladies remarked favorably, Ruth responded with a curtsy and “Thank you, mistress,” while Solange smiled distantly.

  After the 10:30, gentlefolk boarded carriages for the quarter mile to Bay Street. Solange and Ruth walked and upon arrival promenaded quietly among their social betters. Were it not for the racial strictures, Solange might have been Ruth’s governess, instructing her and noting this subject of interest and that.

  Those ladies Solange ignored in turn ignored her in favor of last night’s scandals and the all-too-delicious anticipation of scandals to come. They were particularly interested in matters that magnified their virtues.

  After their promenade, Savannahians drove home, where supper and a nap fortified them for evening soirées.

  Solange and Ruth went home and stayed there. Solange would not abandon herself to anxiety. (What would they do if the Banque de France failed her? What if her precious document drowned in the turbulent Atlantic?) Although she never priced Ruth, Solange knew the girl would bring more than Augustin could earn in months. Dull anxiety thudded against an anxiety backdrop. So­lange was waiting for her life to happen.

  She lost patience with the sensitive novelists who had been such good company in Cap-Français. To improve her English, she read Mr. Wordsworth aloud until she hit upon “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart,” which reduced Solange and Ruth to giggling.

  One overcast April afternoon when no ships made port and the day promised more hours than she could bear, Solange visited her husband’s place of business.

  Most Bay Street establishments were brick, but some ramshackle one- and two-story board houses had survived the city’s fires and hurricanes. On one weathered veranda, a gray-haired ancient in frock coat and revolutionary three-cornered hat nodded at every passerby.

  L’Ancien Régime, Monsieur Robillard’s emporium, was tucked between a chandlery and an apothecary. When she’d passed the place, Solange had always offered a cheery wave in case someone inside were looking, but she’d never crossed the doorstep.

  On this occasion, Solange wore the dull clothing appropriate to a clerk’s wife, modified by Escarlette hauteur.

  Ruth could wait outside. Solange was in no mood for complicated explanations, which, as a clerk’s wife, she would be obliged to provide.

  She paused to admire L’Ancien Régime’s window: jacquard silks were draped over a gilt chair; the gold head of the cane propped against the chair was retracted an inch, revealing a bright lethal sword. Shapely crocks of emollients, unguents, and potions surrounded bottles of Veuve Cliquot against a broad fan of red, white, and blue bunting.

  A bell jingled when Solange stepped into the dim interior, where a voice inquired if Madame had come for the new perfumes, which had been unpacked only yesterday and were, she was assured, the same scents favored by Empress Josephine when she and her ladies promenaded in the Tuileries.

  At an altar of minuscule glass bottles, Solange presented her inner wrist to the clerk, who deposited a precious drop thereon. “The scent is inconspicuous, but, like the tuberose for which it is named, it blooms late.”

  When Solange raised her wrist to her nose, it was the florescence of a May morning.

  The clerk was tall, balding, and wore a ruffled linen shirt and navy blue cravat. Also, he was black; more precisely, he was gray-black, as if his blackness had been bleached by too much sun. His French was the French Solange’s Parisian cousins spoke when they condescended to visit delightfully quaint Saint-Malo. Solange introduced herself.

  He bowed deeply. “Master Augustin has been keeping you from your admirers. I am Nehemiah, madame, your humble and most obedient servant.” His second bow was deeper and more presumptuous than his first.

  “My husband . . .”

  “Captain Fornier attends Master Robillard, madame. They read the newspapers. All the newspapers.” His head shake admired this unlikely accomplishment.

  The man guided her down narrow passages between fabric trees, gold and white furniture, and artfully arranged cases of wine, to a door he opened without knocking. “Madame Fornier has this day, April the fourteenth, honored us with her gracious presence.”

  Solange was issued into a narrow room, whose high ceiling was somewhere above the billowing cigar smoke.

  How dare this Negro take charge of her! In icy tones, in English, Solange dismissed him.

  As if she hadn’t spoken, Nehemiah lingered, to say in the same language, “Mistress Fornier, she like that tuberose. ’Deed she do.”

  “That’ll be all, Nehemiah.” Augustin found his tongue.

  Pierre Robillard came to his feet, ruddy face beaming. “So good of you to grace us with your presence . . . so good.” In the old-­fashioned manner, he kissed Solange’s hand.

  The office almost had room for two disreputable armchairs, the proprietor’s overflowing desk, unpacked cases, and a newspaper rack like one might expect to find in a café or coffeehouse. Intercepting her glance, Robillard chuckled. “Some men act, others think they could have done better than those who act. Though I am fascinated by mankind’s wicked ways, I am too fastidious to intervene. But”—he paused dramatically—“I forget my manners.” He tsked at himself. “Won’t you take a chair? I understand why Captain Fornier hides you from us, but I shan’t forgive him.”

  Robillard’s excellent French explained his articulate servant but didn’t entirely restore Solange’s sense of order. She sank into his deep, too plush, too worn-out armchair.

  When she declined a restorative, Monsieur Robillard said Nehemiah could brew tea, which she accepted, and Augustin left to set in motion.

  Robillard fluttered his hands, mock ruefully. “Oh my, won’t Madame berate me for this!”

  “For this, monsieur?”

  “’Tis true. ’Tis true. Madame greatly overestimates my concupiscence. Madame has convinced herself no beautiful woman’s virtue is safe with me. And, madame, you would tempt a saint.”

  These alarming words, uttered from such beaming complacency, made Solange smile. “I understand your wife’s concern, sir.”

  “You do?”

  “Were I not a wedded woman . . .”

  He sighed. “Alas, so many women are. Or they are maids with fathers devoted to the Code Duello, or their brothers can shoot the pip out of a playing card, or those ladies have lovers, or are contemplating the wimple and habit; in Savannah society, madame, the aspiring rake is utterly hobbled and nobbled. The perfidious British understand these matters so much better than we French. Fais ce que tu voudras—Do what you will—and that sort of thing.”

  “Shouldn’t my husband be in the room?” Solange said, feeling not the slightest concern.

  Robillard took her hand. His palm was damp and earnest. “Oh, my dear, I am quite harmless. Though,” he added ruefully, “my Louisa doesn’t think so.” He clapped his hands. “That’s quite enough of me. In his absence—for he rejects every compliment—let me tell you how f
ortunate I am Captain Fornier has entered my service.”

  He then offered the appraisal of her husband Solange had so hoped to create. Augustin was “Napoleon’s brave captain,” a “Hero of the Saint-Domingue Rebellion,” and “a true gentleman”—­Solange’s smile faltered—“wise in the ways of the world.” Monsieur Robillard noted that he himself had had the very great honor of serving under the Emperor when he was merely Lieutenant Bonaparte many, many years ago. “We saw no fighting, alas.” His eyebrows climbed his forehead. “There was no fighting anywhere. Can you imagine?”

  Speaking as an émigré whose long residence in the city entitled him to some opinions, Robillard averred that Captain Fornier’s military reputation would profit him in Savannah society. “Until I came to America, I’d never dreamed there were so many colonels and majors—even generals.” Robillard beamed. “Myself? I was never more than a simple soldat. Your brave Captain Fornier, madame, thank you for letting me borrow him.”

  Solange knew he would have kissed her hand again had it been slightly easier to bend so far.

  At L’Ancien Régime, Augustin served Savannah’s numerous colonels, captains, and majors. Who better to choose French wines than a French officer? And, as Solange might imagine, many American ladies were too delicate to be waited on by a Negro. Still, Nehemiah had his uses. “He checks our invoices, unpacks, and arranges goods. Aren’t his displays artful? Why,” the proprietor added, “Nehemiah knows our merchandise better than I do, though I shan’t let him in on our secret!” He pressed a cautionary finger against his nose and winked. “Captain Fornier and Nehemiah have made Pierre Robillard supernumerary in his own establishment!”