Authors: Jill Marie Landis
“She’s an architect.” He still couldn’t believe it.
“Just like your daddy. She been working on plans for this place for a long time now and promised to show them to me tomorrow. Mr. Colin, she’s spent years dreamin’ of putting
Belle Fleuve
back together again and—”
“She’s got no right.”
“But she’s got the heart. Never seen anything like the way her eyes light up when she talks of fixin’ up the place.”
“She can go fix up her own place.”
“The Keenes sold Captain’s Landing years ago. It never saw half the trials this place has seen; no Union soldiers running through the house tearin’ it all up or diggin’ up the gardens looking for buried
loot.” Eugenie paused long enough to shake her head. “Not an ounce of respect for what wasn’t theirs.” She went to collect the broom and swept up the shards of vase.
“Too bad Gil Keene isn’t around to rein in his headstrong daughter,” Colin mumbled.
Anyone with an ounce of sensitivity would realize it made him sick to see his home in such a shambles, especially when there was nothing he could do about it.
The Delany wealth had been tied up in slaves and cane, and now both were gone. Even if he had funds, Colin doubted he’d know how to run a sugar plantation on his own. The accounting had been up to his father. Managing the plantation had fallen to their foreman, a man named Bolton.
Now there was no sugar to harvest, no money to hire field hands with. Sooner or later the tax collectors’ leniency would reach its limit and this place would be on the auction block.
Eugenie finished sweeping and picked up Colin’s luncheon tray. He’d largely ignored his noon meal. Now, oddly enough, the aroma of the steaming stew she’d brought in for dinner was actually tempting. Anger must have piqued his appetite; he was hungry for the first time in a long while.
“You might as well push that dinner tray closer,” he bid her. “I think I’ll give it a try.”
He glanced at the bottle of laudanum that she moved just out of reach. He knew she was less than thrilled about giving it to him. His ankle ached, an echo of pain that conjured memories of the day he was injured. Memories he’d just as soon forget.
The laudanum helped with that too, but it also left him feeling weak and drained and dependent. He wanted some now but he needed a clear head if he was going to deal with Kate Keene. Eugenie was on the woman’s side. He had no one to depend on but himself.
“Remind Miss Keene I want her gone by tomorrow noon.”
Eugenie mumbled something, but he couldn’t make out the words.
“I mean it, Eugenie. I want her out of here.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll surely tell her.” The woman avoided his eyes as she balanced the noon tray, crossed the room, and reached for the door handle.
“Eugenie.”
She paused and met his stare. “Yes, Mr. Colin?”
“There’s not to be any work done to the house. If Miss Keene balks about leaving, you tell her that.”
Eugenie shrugged. “I’ll try, but I ‘spects you just might have to get up and tell her yourself.”
M
r. Colin still wants you to leave
.
An hour after dawn the next day, Kate sat at a small, crudely made table in the corner of what was once the formal dining room on the main floor of
Belle Fleuve
, absently running her fingertip around the chipped edge of a Limoges teacup. The delicate china was one of the few pieces of Marie Delany’s extensive china collection to survive the war. How many pieces of the set were gracing Yankee tables up North?
Her gaze traveled around the dining room, cavernous and empty except for a rickety table made of sawhorses and a slab of wood, and her pallet, which was set up in the far corner where she had spent the night. The dining room was in far better condition than any of the other rooms — there were no rat holes in the walls and only a few leaks around the windowsills.
That morning, Eugenie had not only delivered to Kate a breakfast of poached eggs, a mound of grits, and a pot full of thick, black chicory, but she had also said Colin had reissued the demand that she leave.
“But don’t you pay him any mind,” Eugenie said. “And don’t take it personal. That’s just the pain and laudanum talking.”
“How much does he take?”
“Too much if you ask me.”
One more worry
. Kate didn’t wish Colin pain, and as long as he stayed in a haze he couldn’t back up his threats to throw her out, but she didn’t want him taking so much laudanum. She wasn’t going anywhere until she had him cleaned up and settled in the house again. Surely moving in would lift his spirit.
Rumpled and disheveled, she shook out the skirt of her lavender traveling suit and ran a hand through her hair, determined to walk through the house and make notes. Essential repairs simply had to be done whether or not Colin agreed to an entire reconstruction. Surely he wouldn’t fault her for making a few minor repairs to keep the roof and sills from leaking and shore up the gallery stairs to the second story.
Built in French Colonial style,
Belle Fleuve
was constructed with wide wrap-around porches called galleries. There were no interior halls for the six rooms on each floor, three across and two deep. To walk the length of each floor one had to pass through the rooms or along the outside galleries. Downstairs, wide double-pocket doors separated two large sitting rooms. Fireplaces were on both ends of the house open to the second-floor rooms as well.
Countless broken windowpanes nurtured dry rot where rain had seeped in and ruined the wood and glaze. Sections of crown molding patterned in a Greek key style were missing. Smoke stains from a clogged fireplace flue marred what were once stunning pale-blue and gold ceiling murals. Wall coverings Marie Delany had personally chosen for their rose and medallion designs hung in tatters. Priceless draperies and furnishings were long gone.
Kate sighed. It was a near-daunting task — almost as challenging as Colin. She grew more and more heartsick as she carefully negotiated the worn stairs to the second floor. Jalousies, long shutters that closed to block out the sun, hung askew on their hinges. Her footsteps rang hollow as she traversed empty bedrooms where an old daybed, its frame broken, and two small bureaus were the only pieces of furniture left.
Kate entered the master bedroom, imagining the way it looked
when Marie and Patrick Delany lived and loved there. Gone were their crimson and gold Aubusson rug, the mahogany tester bed, the handkerchief linen spread. Gone were the portraits of the Baudier ancestors who had claimed this land along the Mississippi. Gone was the sound of laughter that once rang in rooms now silent and cold.
After making a few more notations, Kate went through a door in a bedroom that hid a narrow staircase to a small attic beneath the wide hip roof. Small windows at each end of the roof near the chimneys let in enough light for her to make her way, crouched, beneath the low ceiling.
Once her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw a few possessions littered across the floor, items with which the ransacking Yankees hadn’t bothered. A domed trunk lay open, tossed on its side, its contents spilling out. As Kate stared at the open trunk and the papers scattered around it, a breeze blew in through one of the cracked windows.
A creak in the floorboards sent a shiver down her spine. She glanced behind her and scoffed at herself when she noticed a worn rocking horse gently moving back and forth. Its leather reins were broken. Most of its felt saddle was torn or missing. All that was left of its horsehair mane and tail was stubble.
She walked across the attic and stilled the rocking horse with a touch of her hand and looked around. A spindled child’s bed remained intact but its mattress was filled with holes — a home to mice. Other boxes and trunks were opened and emptied. They’d never know what treasures and family possessions had been taken. Her gaze returned to the contents of the trunk where a collection of daguerreotypes and photographs was scattered among papers.
Ignoring the dust and cobwebs, Kate sank to the floor. Her skirt billowed up around her as she knelt and gathered older carte-de-visite images, tintypes, daguerreotypes, and Delany family memorabilia. She dropped them into her lap, then lifted a certificate of some kind and turned it toward the light. It was the official notice of Patrick Delany’s death, with the Confederate seal
attached. She rubbed dust off the seal with her fingertip. The piece of dusty yellowed paper seemed so little to show for such a kind and intelligent man’s life.
Next she picked up a small formal portrait of Patrick Delany, made when he appeared to be in his thirties. His hair was neatly parted, his light Irish eyes near translucent in the likeness. Like her, he wore spectacles. “It’s no sin to be farsighted,” Patrick had told her upon overhearing Amelie declare it a shame that Kate had to wear glasses and ruin her looks. He would never know how grateful she’d been for his kindness. Nor could she thank him for taking the time to teach a young girl the rudiments of architecture. His inspiration was the foundation for her dreams, and now that she was here at
Belle Fleuve
surrounded by so many reminders, she missed him even more.
Kate wiped away tears and picked up another photograph. She had one very much like it packed away somewhere in her suite at the St. Charles. In it, all of the Delanys were seated together. Amelie was dressed in a fussy, frilly gown with yards of lace and crinolines. The fabric was lemon yellow, Kate recalled, a vibrant shade that was a lovely contrast to Amelie’s near blue-black hair, which was plaited into braids and tied into loops on each side — a style long out of fashion.
Marie Baudier Delany sat proudly between her stunning children. The photographer had captured the youthful features and childlike qualities of the woman who was mother to two nearly grown offspring. Colin stood straight and proud, taller than his father. A touch of conceit was in his smile and, indeed, he was handsome with his jet-black hair and dark eyes. How could he not know it?
She touched Colin’s image with her fingertip. His expression was so unlike the bitter man in the
garçonnière
. This Colin smiled with a debonair, carefree air. Now the joy in that smile had been replaced by a scowl. The only similarity was the intensity of his dark eyes.
The flowery scroll on the back of the picture dated it 1861. The Delanys, formally portrayed for the last time, had been completely unaware that their way of life was poised on the brink of disaster.
Kate lowered the photograph to her lap and sat in the middle of the attic, surrounded by dust and shadows. She imagined herself hovering unseen in the background, a witness to their unfolding lives, attuned to their routine and exchanges but not really one of them. Her adoptive parents had distanced themselves from her by their age and interests. As happy as Kate was to visit
Belle Fleuve
, her parents were just as happy to let her.
So it was that she became a fixture here for days and sometimes weeks, pretending she and Amelie were sisters. She had only the vaguest memories of her real sisters. They’d been separated from each other when Kate was only six. Lovie and Megan were the oldest. Sarah, the youngest, had ended up at the orphanage too. An adorable little blonde, Sarah was adopted months before the Keenes finally chose Kate.
So out of loneliness Kate had indeed pretended Amelie was her sister and dreamed of ways to get Colin to notice her. But studying the Delany family portrait now and seeing the four of them together, Kate realized the truth for what it was: she might have been a fixture in their home, but she was not a member of the family. After her exchange with Colin yesterday, the futility of her fantasies made them seem bleak and ridiculous.
Kate felt sure things would be different if Amelie were here. Despite the dire circumstances, their laughter would ring out and she would have an ally.
She sighed and gathered the photographs into a pile and set them aside. She picked up a cobalt cloisonné baby rattle, turned it over in her hand, and gave it a shake. A half dozen carved wooden animals were also on the floor, remnants of a Noah’s ark set, all missing their mates. She dusted off the animals and lined them up; one donkey, one lion, one elephant, one giraffe. They looked so lonely she scooped them up and set them back in the trunk, and
as she did, she tried to dismiss the urge to go to Colin and see for herself how he was this morning.
Best to keep my wits about me
. She couldn’t let him deter her from her task or forbid her from helping again.
She closed the trunk and tucked some of the photographs behind her notepaper before she descended the stairs to the second floor. The sun was shining, a gentle breeze coming in off the river as she walked through an open door onto the upper gallery. She tested the floor before she stepped out. It wouldn’t do to have come this far and drop through a hole in the rotted wood.
She sat down on the top step and turned to a new sheet of paper. Jotting down all the supplies as well as foodstuffs she wanted, Kate checked the list three times and then remembered to add coffee. When she was finally satisfied with the list, she penned two letters, one to her accountant, Dan Rosen, and another to the owner of the warehouse where her mother’s furniture had been stored. Nola had given Kate all of her townhouse castoffs, pieces that could be put to good use here at
Belle Fleuve
.
An hour later, Kate met with Eugenie’s husband, Simon. His grandfather had been a carpenter who had helped build the original house. Of solid build with short dark hair shot with gray, Simon had hands that were thick and calloused from a lifetime of labor. He rounded up a half dozen able-bodied men in need of work, some trained in carpentry, others willing to do anything. Kate assured them they would be paid fairly.
When the men walked away, Simon lingered, his expression cloudy.
“What is it?” Kate asked.
He cleared his throat and tapped his straw hat against his baggy pant leg.
“Mr. Colin said he ain’t got any money, ‘cept for what he saved from his army pay.”