Love Finds You in New Orleans, LA Page 9

  Having exhausted the list, Gabriel stood to look for Monsieur Cordeviolle. The tailor headed in his direction, but alongside him were the father and son Gabriel wanted to ignore. Watching the three men, Gabriel then realized the one person he had forgotten. His father. Certainly his pockets were deep, but his responsibility to his family with Rosette hardly necessitated a pocket at all.

  Gabriel heard Cordeviolle’s farewells to the two men. Then, walking over, Cordeviolle motioned for Gabriel to sit as he took the other chair.

  “Monsieur Girod, please accept our apologies. This is, you understand, a most unusual situation.”

  “Of course. As I am sure you understand that, depending on the person responsible, I must initiate appreciation or an offer of compensation.”

  Cordeviolle sighed. “The gentleman responsible requested that we not reveal his identity. And he has been our customer for quite some time now.”

  Gabriel’s frustration was tempered by the tailor’s apologetic tone. He respected the man’s unwillingness to be dishonorable. “It is not that I don’t appreciate the gesture, it is that it creates a certain sense of obligation.” He stood and said to Cordeviolle, “Please thank Monsieur LaCroix for his help, and thank you for yours as well.”

  “You are most welcome.” He nodded. “Please, wait here, and I will bring your wardrobe to you.”

  Moments later, he handed the clothes to Gabriel and then, in a voice so low Gabriel hardly heard him, said, “C’est son père tout craché.”

  * * * * *

  Years of practicing restraint enabled Gabriel to delay his reaction to Cordeviolle’s observation until he reached his carriage. In commenting that Gabriel was the spitting image of his father, Jean Noel, the man accomplished both honoring his promise to the father and acknowledging the confusion of the son. And if not to convey the identity Gabriel sought, why would he have mentioned the resemblance? And why would his father choose to do this now?

  This was the first time Gabriel had placed such a costly order. He still didn’t know how his father knew the information, unless the tailor who’d helped him had made the same remark. As hommes de couleur libre themselves, they understood the system of marriages de la main gauche. The tailor knew Jean Noel and Rosette had what some called a “left-handed marriage,” in which neither were bound to the other but in most cases resembled marriage in every way. With the exception that placées willingly, consistently, and generally happily participated in the physical aspect of the marriage. Ironically, the system disfavored the free men of color like himself. The choice between a protector who provided well for her or someone like Gabriel who often struggled to attain or maintain success was not difficult for most women of color. Sometimes, if cast off by their protectors, the former placées would consent to a marriage with a free man of color. Except for his mother, who defied the system by telling Jean Noel that she would no longer need “protection.”

  Gabriel could count on one hand the number of people who knew that his father did not leave willingly. To spare him humiliation, one of Rosette’s concessions was allowing others to believe he no longer desired her. It might have been inevitable, but unlikely. Before Rosette ended their relationship, Jean Noel appeared content, comfortable, when he visited. After it ended, he tried to arrange time with his children and, at the same time, avoid Rosette. He looked like a starving man allowed to attend a banquet but forbidden the food. And now Gabriel understood his father’s pain because it was his pain as well.

  Though he didn’t have much time to spare, he could pass by his father’s law office and still arrive home without delaying Rosette. Gabriel mentally played out the scenario at his father’s office. He would explain that the tailors hadn’t revealed Jean Noel’s identity, but that he had come to the conclusion himself. If they could not spend time together today, they could arrange another. For if there were ever a time he needed his father, it was now.

  He stopped and waited for his insides to stop trying to break through to his outsides. Just as he started to exit the fiacre, his father stepped out of the office then turned and closed the French shutters over the door and long windows. Gabriel paused for a moment, not wanting to call out his father’s name and yet giving him time to finish. Gabriel had started to cross the street and was a few feet behind when he saw his father wave to a woman and a boy about Alcee’s age, who both waved in return as they walked to meet Jean Noel.

  Whatever Gabriel’s father had intended to accomplish by paying for his wardrobe, seeing him with his other son could not have been his intention. At least he hoped not.

  Chapter Thirteen

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  Lottie found a dead mouse on the steps outside, which meant Henri couldn’t be far away. After the first time this happened, she had grown less repulsed, eventually realizing that in his cat brain, he thought he’d delivered a treasure.

  Today, the prize showed up at the steps leading to the gallery. She swatted it with her foot into the flower garden. Henri sauntered from alongside the house, stretched as easily as bread dough, and arranged himself close enough for Lottie to be able to scoop him up. She did and carried him inside, where she could hold him while she rocked in the same chair her grandmother had rocked her father. The faint needlepoint flowers on the seat and back showed the years of use, and the mahogany rails were almost as worn as the arms. Sitting in it, Lottie imagined a gentler version of Grand-mère. A mother cradling her child—her father—and it served to comfort her. Especially during times like these when her sole comfort came from ignoring the future that awaited her.

  Henri turned around twice on her lap then settled into a round, furry patchwork pillow of brown, black, and white. “Where will you deposit your mice when I no longer live here?” He lifted one eyelid and turned his head to the opposite direction, either bored or bothered or both. Lottie looked down at him. “I’ll continue to pet you, even though you are being quite rude. It is possible that I could take you with me. Maybe you should reconsider.”

  “Are you having a conversation with that cat?” Justine closed her parasol as she walked up the steps into the gallery. Startled by Justine’s entrance, Henri leaped from Lottie’s lap, snagging threads in one of the lace cuffs on her sleeve and leaving a collection of hair scattered over her pale yellow dress. He darted around Justine’s plaid skirt, which elicited a yelp from her, and then fled down the stairs. “Why do you want that thing near you?”

  “Well, you did surprise us both,” said Lottie as she brushed the cat hair from her dress and examined the loose threads hanging from the lace. She rummaged through the sewing basket next to the chair, found a pair of scissors, and snipped off the loops that Henri had created in his flight. “There. Good as new,” she said, tossing the scissors back into the basket.

  Before sitting, Justine scrutinized the seat of the chair across from the rocker. “That will only cause the lace to unravel more,” she warned. “And is that one of the new dresses made for you?”

  “Yes, it is one of the ‘Lottie gets a husband’ dresses.” She held out the cotton lawn skirt to show the rosettes spilling down the center of the dress. “I actually like this one. It’s rather simple, like me. With the exception of this.” She pointed to the white lace collar that ruffled around her neck and was joined in the front by another lace rosette. “But since Agnes will be walking with us to class, I imagined Grand-mère thinking this the perfect dress for a promenade.”

  Justine rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t know if you are being serious or silly. I doubt she would consider walking to Monsieur’s house an opportunity to stroll just to be seen. Perhaps on the levee in the evenings…” Her voice trailed off as she tapped her mouth with her forefinger and, as she often did, looked off into some space she supposed the answers hid. The quirk served her well during lessons when she stalled for an answer, making it appear as if she’d forgotten it when she didn’t know it in the first place.

  “If I have it, I might as well wear
it,” Lottie said. Then the more it will wear, and the faster I can donate it. Lottie couldn’t think of the orphanages without thinking of Gabriel. He’d opened her heart to those children, and she would be forever grateful. But she missed him. She missed watching him play kickball with the older boys or jumping rope with the girls, who giggled at his clumsiness. And she missed looking into his eyes and feeling like she would never be cold again.

  “I guess,” Justine answered, without sounding at all convincing. She stood and peered through the open doorway into the main house. “Where is Agnes? We should be leaving.”

  “Wait here. I will find my gloves and Agnes.”

  “Your bonnet. Don’t forget,” Justine cautioned, before smiling.

  Lottie heard Agnes’s voice coming from the foyer, so she headed in that direction. Halfway there, she saw him…standing with his back to the front door, his hat in hand, speaking to Agnes. It being too late to retreat, she continued toward them and willed her voice to sound normal.

  “Gabriel, so good to see you.” She smiled as evidence and clasped her hands so as not to wring them dry in front of him. But the smile he returned barely turned up his lips. Lottie felt the awkwardness of having intruded, like the way she had when, much younger, she’d slid open the parlor door and witnessed her grandparents kissing. No one could truly pretend it didn’t happen, and yet that was exactly what they did.

  “He just now leaving. I told him you and Miz Justine had a lesson,” said Agnes as she patted Gabriel’s arm.

  Whatever caused him to be so solemn and to find Agnes here, it had to be important. Lottie didn’t want him to leave without what she suspected was the solace he sought. “Yes, but we have time. Please, finish. We can wait in the gallery.” She nodded in Gabriel’s direction. “Please give your mother and sister my regards.” Lottie glanced at him and wondered how “handsome” and “anguished” could coexist in his face.

  “Lottie, I appreciate your kindness, but Agnes and I are finished,” said Gabriel.

  What Lottie wanted to say was, “We chased one another with slimy frogs, hid from Agnes in the stable, and dared one another to eat a raw oyster. What happened?” Instead, she replied, “Thank you.”

  * * * * *

  “If my mother insists on these lessons being in the afternoon, then either Monsieur Gautier will have to come to one of our houses or someone will have to drive us in a carriage,” Justine said, holding her gloved hand over her nose. “A parasol and a bonnet have no value when it is chilled outside.”

  Agnes and Lottie, walking behind Justine, shared a small shrug. “I have a heavier, longer cloak—would you like to wear it? I would be comfortable in yours.” Lottie started to untie the ribbons of her dark blue quilt-patterned cloak, but Justine looked over her shoulder with an expression that caused Lottie to check her hem for mud splatters.

  “You’re supposed to be promenading, remember? My faded brown mantelet over your dress would be most unappealing. People would think your grandmother raised a ragamuffin.” She covered her nose with her hand again and continued walking.

  Lottie started to speak, but Agnes shook her head, leaned toward her, and said quietly, “We almost there. Ain’t no point discussing now.”

  She didn’t know what the point was until Agnes, as Justine walked through Monsieur’s door, said, “Sometimes it’s hard for people to see somebody get what they want. Especially when the person who got it don’t want it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

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  “Ladies, with Mademoiselle LeClerc’s party so soon, we should review behaviors appropriate to genteel society. We would not want you to disgrace your families.” Monsieur Gautier stared thoughtfully at the ceiling then returned his gaze to Lottie and Justine perched on the settee. “Or your deportment teacher.”

  The list of bad habits certain to forever doom them as models of rectitude included never admiring themselves in a glass, laughing immoderately, placing their hand upon anyone ever, taking snuff from or giving it to a stranger, winking, or crossing their legs. Lottie, fearing she would demonstrate another unladylike habit by nodding off to sleep while he spoke, waited for him to take a breath before she said, “Monsieur, perhaps it might be more to our benefit to simply relate what we can do, since the list of undesirables is so lengthy.”

  Monsieur rose from his murky-yellow upholstered armchair, clasped his hands in front of him, and pierced Lottie with his stare. “Mademoiselle, you have just illustrated an unpleasant aspect of gentility in conversation, which is that sarcasm is most unbecoming to a lady.”

  Justine affected a cough behind her hands and whispered to Lottie, “You are doomed to silence.” Justine’s response, and their mutual amusement of both the rules of deportment and their teacher, dissolved the previous tension between them. Lottie reached over and squeezed her friend’s hand, a gesture that signaled all was well.

  “In closing, regarding your conversations, of utmost importance are modesty, simplicity, and avoiding the appearance of possessing wisdom if one has none.”

  Lottie brushed an invisible thread from her skirt to avoid eye contact with her teacher.

  “Now, I need for you to stand for our next lesson.” Monsieur readied to instruct them in the proper lifting of a skirt when on the street, to avoid, he said, “the foul mud that would soil your gowns.”

  He moved his chair to the side then stood before Lottie and Justine, holding the legs of his trousers out as if he were wearing a skirt. Lottie forced herself to not look at Justine for fear that they would both be banished from class for eternity.

  “You must hold the folds of your gown with your right hand.” Monsieur looked up to make certain they followed directions. “Now, with the same hand, you draw the skirt to the right.” That demonstration presented a problem since his trousers could not be drawn at all without risking his knees giving way.

  “Oh, Mademoiselle Charlotte, we must not seem as if we will be pulling our skirt off. Gently, draw.” He said the word “draw” for as long as it took him to carefully sweep his imaginary skirt to the right. “Again.” He motioned for Lottie to practice her technique. “Very good. Now, ladies, we must never, ever show more than just a little peep of an ankle, yes?” His peep sounded remarkably realistic, which caused another concentrated effort on Lottie’s part to suppress laughter.

  “And we must never, ever do this.” Using both hands, he pretended to raise his skirt on both sides. “Lifting skirts on the streets in such a way is vulgar.” He placed his hands on his cheeks. “You would be labeled demimondes, or at least on your way to such a life.”

  As they readied to leave, Monsieur informed them that only Justine would return for a lesson the next week. Relieved but also surprised, Lottie asked why her grandmother had not scheduled another class. “I am not in the habit of questioning my clients, mademoiselle.”

  While Grand-mère had a reputation for annoying instructors with her demands, she did not make frivolous decisions. With all the details of the party occupying her, she must have neglected to mention the missed class to Lottie.

  Buttoning her gloves, Justine said, “Maybe gentility is only important before the marriage, not after it.”

  “I will see you this week for our pianoforte lesson,” Justine said as they stood in front of her house. “And, Lottie…” She looked down for a moment before she spoke. “I am sorry for my petty remark earlier. As your party draws near, I think I’m realizing I am also nearer to losing my friend.”

  Lottie drew back. Justine’s words stung no less than a hand slapped across her face. So occupied with dreading what the future held with a man who wasn’t Gabriel, she had not considered the changes in her friendship with Justine. Living close to her, spending time with her family, their lessons together…it would all be different after the wedding. “I—I hadn’t thought about what would change between us. Not because it didn’t matter. I expected…I don’t know…”

  “That your husband would move
into your grandparents’ house and we would all play together,” Justine said softly.

  Lottie nodded like a contrite child.

  “Me too,” Justine said. “Me too.”

  * * * * *

  On her way upstairs, Lottie asked Agnes why Gabriel had stopped by to talk. “Is he feeling well?” Lottie hoped her voice sounded the same as when she asked what was being served for dinner.

  In the storeroom, checking the inventory of spices and flour, Agnes replied, “He’s fine,” and continued to open and shut the lids of boxes and barrels.

  “He didn’t look fine,” Lottie countered.

  Agnes shooed her away from the door, locked it, and placed the key in her pocket. “On lave son linge sale en famille,” she said, adding, “I’m going to set the dishes on the table.”

  “Wait,” Lottie said. “What does that mean?”

  “It mean,” Agnes said, “wash your dirty clothes in your own family.” She walked into the china pantry and Lottie walked up the stairs.

  Lottie sat with a volume of poetry near the tall windows in her bedroom. They had been opened just enough for her to smell and hear the rain that started moments before she and Agnes arrived home. It was a friendly rain, the kind that fell as soft as an apology. But the slight wind carried the mist through the window, so she closed the book of William Blake’s poetry, a gift from Grand-père on her sixteenth birthday. When young enough to still sit near him, her head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her, he would read to her. She loved his rendition of “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, in the forests of the night…” and never forgot how he explained the tiger that, at first, frightened her. “Some people see the ferocious tiger as evil, but it was a creature made by the same God who created the gentle lamb. Remember, God is always smarter than any man. So God created everything for a reason.”