Always & Forever: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 1) (15 page)

It was unlikely, unreasonable to expect Monsieur DeBlieux to
have found M’sieu as well as Maman. But she had to know, she had to see. Cleo
opened the door onto the gallery and stepped out. The men stood in the yellow
glow of lantern light, the blackness of the swamp all around. Phanor’s papa and
Eulalie’s husband blocked her view of the pirogue.

“…not twenty yards from where we found her,” Monsieur was
saying.

“Wait, Cleo.” Phanor stepped to her side and took her arm.
She brushed him off and pushed between the men to see into the boat. Her knees
gave way and the men grabbed her to keep her from falling into the black water.

It was him. M’sieu Emile. Her Papa.

At the Johnston plantation, Josie lived every hour in dread.
She knew nothing of who died, who lived, and anxiety stole her appetite and her
sleep.

The boats that stopped at the Johnston dock at last reported
Madame Emmeline Tassin still reigned over Toulouse, but they knew nothing of
all the other souls Josie yearned to hear of. She kept her rosary in her pocket
and fingered it constantly.

Mixed with her fear, guilt and remorse weighed Josie down.
She could see now that what Papa had done with Bibi had nothing to do with his
love for her. She had been so hateful to him since Maman’s funeral. What if she
never saw him again? Or Cleo? She had not treated her sister kindly either, and
oh how she missed her. The hours, the days – time nearly stopped for her. She
dressed, arranged her hair, sat at table with the Johnstons, but all the while
her heart and mind were at Toulouse.

On the fourth day under a brilliant sky, Josie and Abigail
sat on the upper gallery, Josie with her embroidery in her lap, the needle
untouched in the last hour. She smelled the barge before she saw it round the
bend and turn in to the dock. Josie assumed it was a load of guano for the
fields until Mr. Johnston appeared on horseback below the gallery.

“Abigail,” he called. “You and Miss Josephine go inside. Go
to your room, fix your hair, whatever. Stay there until supper.”

Abigail didn’t argue, didn’t ask why. “Yes, Father.” With a
hand at her nose, she gathered her sewing and her book. “Come on, Josie.”

Josie lingered as she gathered the embroidery. It didn’t
smell right for guano. The barge nudged the dock, and Josie saw the white
bundles on the deck were not bags of fertilizer. They were long bundles, long
as a man or a woman. They were bodies.

Josie threw her embroidery bag on a chair and rushed through
the house and out the front door. She ran toward the dock fifty yards away, her
skirt flying above her knees.

Albany ran from the dock to meet her and caught her mid-way
from the house. “Josephine!” He blocked her with his body and grabbed her into
his arms. “You don’t need to see this,” he said. “Go back to the house.”

“They’re from Toulouse, aren’t they? They’re my people.”

“Only the slaves, Josephine. Not your people.”

“They are my people.” Elbow John could be on that barge, or
Grammy, or even little Laurie. “I have to see who they are.” She tried to pull
her arms from his grip. “Let go!”

“I won’t, Josie.” He tightened his hands on her. “Be
sensible,” he said. “They’ve been dead four days. You can’t see them.”

Her cousin stood on the barge, staring at them. “Bertrand!”
she shouted.

He shook his head at her. “Go with Albany, Josephine,” he
called.

“Come to the house,” Albany said. “I have news from
Toulouse.”

Josie quit pulling against him and searched his face.
Albany’s pale eyes told her the news wasn’t good. “Who is it? Tell me now,
Albany.”

“Come inside,” Albany insisted, and steered her by the elbow
back to the house.

As they entered, Charles met them at the door, and Albany
took him aside for a quiet word. Albany then led Josie to the parlor and sat
with her on the horsehair settee.

“The news is not good, my dear.” He took her hand, a very
forward gesture, but Josie did not withdraw it.

“They’ve found your father, Josephine. The flood caught
him.”

Josie shook her head. “No. Papa can swim. He’s a good
swimmer. It’s someone else they found.”

“Your grandmother has seen his body.”

Josie’s breath came ragged and harsh. “Charles,” Albany
called, and the butler appeared with a vial of smelling salts. As Albany passed
the vial under Josie’s nose, she jerked her whole body away.

Josie seemed to gulp air rather than to breathe it. She
stared at the carpet on the floor as she hugged her arms tight and swayed. As
if from far away, she heard the tinny chime of the clock on the mantelpiece.

Mrs. Johnston took Albany’s place on the settee and stroked
Josie’s back. “Your mother gone, and now this. God has sent you a terrible
burden, child.”

Josie’s hands covered her face and she leant over her knees.
She’d never see him again.

Albany murmured, “I’ll see to the burials, Mother. Excuse
me.”

Mrs. Johnston stood up and touched Josie’s shoulder. “Come,
my dear. You must go to bed. I’ll order you some tea, and Abigail and I will
sit with you.”

Josie allowed herself to be led up the staircase. Susanne
undressed her and Mrs. Johnston tucked her into bed. Josie didn’t speak,
neither did Abigail or Mrs. Johnston.

Josie kept picturing Papa on the dock at Toulouse, waving to
her in the rain. And she hadn’t even waved back to him.

A letter came from Grand-mère informing Josie that Bibi had
died in the flood, and Josie grieved anew to have lost the woman who had
mothered her far more than Maman ever had. Through the sticky heat of sleepless
nights, Josie prayed fervent appeals to the Virgin to intercede for Papa’s and
Bibi’s souls. Her faith shaken, she tried to add humility to the list of
requests from the Blessed Mother, but for Him to have taken Maman, Bibi, and
Papa from her -- it was impossible not to be angry with God.

She ached to be home, but the Johnstons wouldn’t hear of
Josie leaving them before the land was unburdened. Even when they had word that
most of the Toulouse fields were bared to the sun again, they tried to delay
her.

“It won’t be pleasant at Toulouse, Miss Josephine,” Albany
said. The household were gathered for morning coffee. “Some of it is still
underwater, and the ground around the house will be deep mud. You’ll be
housebound for weeks if you go home now.”

In this place, among near strangers, Josie had struggled to
subdue her grief during the long numbing days. Here she could not express her
feelings, could not yield to the weeping or even the long silences her grief
demanded. She had to go home. She had to be with those who shared her
heartbreak, with Cleo and Grand-mére and Thibault. They needed her, and she
needed them.

Josie shook her head vehemently. “I must go home. Whatever
the difficulties. I appeal to you, Mr. Johnston,” she said to Abigail’s father.
“You surely know how difficult it is to do nothing, to be idle, when there is
so much to be done at home.”

Mr. Johnston raised an eyebrow at his wife, waiting for her
lead. Albany began to protest, “It simply won’t be -- .”

“Safe? I’m sure I will be as safe as my grandmother or
anyone else on Toulouse.” Josie stood up. “Will you please put the flag up on
the dock to let the next boat know to stop here? I’ll be ready in half an
hour.”

Bertrand Chamard had not participated in this discussion,
but now Josie’s assertion seemed to have settled the matter, he claimed a
kinsman’s familiarity. “You need not go alone, Josephine. I will escort you.”

“I’ll help you pack,” Abigail said. Even in Josie’s preoccupied
state these last days, she had not missed the signs of her friend’s jealousy.
With Josie gone, Abigail would have Monsieur Chamard to herself. Poor Abigail.
Bertrand, she thought, found Abigail’s company tedious.

Early in the afternoon, a steam boat docked and took Josie
and Chamard aboard. Albany touched his hand to his hat and Abigail waved as the
boat fought against the current and found its channel.

On the way upstream, Josie and Bertrand stood on the upper
deck in the sun. The breeze cooled them, and Bertrand leaned on the railing
next to her. He was kind, too, as kind as Phanor. Might he always be near, she
prayed.

He spoke very little, leaving Josie to her thoughts. All
these long days, in spite of her troubled soul, Josie had been alert to his
presence, and now she memorized the look of his hands on the railing. They were
tanned and broad, and his right hand carried a scar across the middle knuckle.
Abigail said there had been a duel in Paris, that he’d fought a man in the
Tuileries. Was it over a woman? she wondered.

Bertrand’s musing cut in on her own. “The land ,” Bertrand
said, “the land abides. You still have your land, Josie, and that is no small
thing.”

A memory of riding across Toulouse with Papa on his big
horse came to her. Papa had loved the land. He didn’t concern himself with
running the plantation, but the woods and fields and bayous were dear to him.
Josie gripped the railing. Oh God. Toulouse without Papa and Bibi.

The boat docked, and hot humid air defeated the river’s breeze.
The captain indicated he would wait for Bertrand; Josie and her cousin
disembarked to a deserted levee. She listened to the stillness. No one came to
meet the boat, no birds sang.

The tree trunks shone yellow where the flood had scoured the
bark away, but they stood stalwart flanking the lane from the river to the
house. The house itself was sunlit at the other end of the shaded drive, but
the open shutters framed dark and silent windows.

The slaves had laid planks the length of the oak alley, and
Bertrand held Josie’s arm as they squished the planks into the muck on their
way to the house. Instead of the mid-summer scent of roses and magnolias, Josie
smelled wet earth, moss, and decay.

Cleo opened the door to them. Josie stepped forward, arms
raised. She had so wanted to be with Cleo, to embrace her, but Cleo’s impassive
face stopped her. Cleo had lost weight, and any hint of mischief or joy about
her was erased.

“Hello, Mademoiselle Josephine,” was all she said. She took
Bertrand’s hat and sent Laurie to call Madame Emmeline.

When Grand-mère Emmeline entered the room, her step was so
frail and slow that Josie moved toward her, but a gesture from Grand-mère held
her back.

“Josephine,” Grand-mère said. A mere acknowledgment.
“Monsieur Chamard. I am grateful to you for bringing my granddaughter home.”

“I am glad to see you well, Madame. I wish I might console
you for your loss.”

“Will you not sit down, Monsieur?”

“If you will accept my thousand apologies, Madame Tassin, I
may not keep the boat waiting. I go on to Baton Rouge, and the captain stopped
here for a moment only in order that I might deliver Josephine to you safely.”

“We are in your debt, Monsieur.”

“Please, we are cousins. I am Bertrand to you, and I hope
you will allow me to call you Madame Emmeline.”

Madame used her public smile and tilted her head to one
side. “Of course.”

He picked up his hat from the table where Cleo had set it.
“Josephine, now you are home, I hope your mind will be at ease.
Au revoir
,
ladies.”

Now Josie was here, she wondered how she would bear the
overwhelming aura of grief in this house when her spirit was already so
burdened. She followed Bertrand to the gallery, unwilling to see him go.
“Bertrand . . .” she said. He seemed the only spark of life in the house.

“Time will heal,” he told her kindly. He glanced briefly
back toward the shadowed parlor, then bent and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
“Till we meet again,
chérie
.”

Toulouse was a house of lonely souls. Emmeline, Cleo, and
Josephine walked through their days like ghosts, crossing paths without
noticing one another. Josie and Cleo lived in the same house, slept in the same
room, but in their grief, neither had the spirit to reach out to the other.
They were as subdued as Grand-mère, and with so much between them, they had
nothing to say.

Tendrils of vapor rose as the sun beat down on saturated
ground. Whatever didn’t flourish in the replenished soil rotted and stank.
Standing water turned fetid. Hordes of flies flitted from filth to luke-warm
dinners and water jugs.

Dr. Benet worried the cholera would strike after the flood.
The people were weakened by stress and overwork, and whatever directly caused
the disease, the doctor feared the conditions were ripe for it. He moved in to
the
garçonnière
and waited.

Old Ursaline, the midwife, was the first one stricken. Dr.
Benet examined her in the dark little cabin, then returned to report to Madame
and Josie.

“It’s the cholera. I’m sure of it.”

Josie put a hand to her eyes. The newspaper had printed
accounts of the Asian cholera, new to this continent in the last half-decade,
and she knew how lethal it was. Dear God, not more deaths.

Dr. Benet left them to prepare his defenses against the
coming onslaught. Josie retired to her room with another of her headaches where
she found Cleo changing into the dress she saved for her dirtiest chores.

“You still wearing that old thing?” Josie said, indifference
flattening her voice.

“It’s going to be messy, Dr. Benet says, nursing this
cholera.”

Josie turned to her, alarmed. “You’re going down there?”

“They’re my people.” Cleo finished fastening the threadbare
dress and looked under her cot for her oldest shoes.

Josie sat on her bed. “They’re my people, too,” she said
softly.

Cleo sat next to Josie and looked at her. “I suppose they
are, in a way.”