Ciji Ware (20 page)

Hell! Etienne LaCroix had even turned over one of the young ladies for Julien’s own pleasure and amusement on the day he’d turned eighteen.

Claire Languille.

Julien had found her lovely—and utterly avaricious. He’d soon grown weary of her whining and her petty schemes to separate him from as much of his money as she possibly could. He withdrew his favors and sought relief for his strong libido among the denizens of a brothel on Girod Street.

Adelaide, Julien’s bride of one year, had been aware since her girlhood of the disturbing practice of
plaçage.
It was an unhappy reality in the social fabric and family life of New Orleans. What galled his wife the most, he reckoned, was that these beautiful coffee-skinned young rivals of the white women of Adelaide’s class could rarely be branded prostitutes in the way of their sisters on Girod Street.

It was known that Julien’s own grandfather had sired children with a full-blooded African woman on Reverie Plantation, producing a passel of mulattoes. The female offspring, in turn, had found protectors among his father’s generation of white planters, with the product of these liaisons dubbed
quadroons
—so named because they were one-fourth African. Their rearing had often been identical with that of white girls, some having been schooled in French and in the finer things in life. Others were even sent by their ambitious mothers—who had prudently secreted away the funds—to Paris for “finishing.” Upon their return to New Orleans they were even better able to bargain for advantageous situations with a line of waiting patrons.

Julien had never quite come to terms with the fact that some 45 percent of all members of the black race in New Orleans were now counted among the
gens de couleur libres
—Free People of Color. A class unto themselves, the quadroons and octoroons refused to socialize with other blacks. Some had arrived at such heights as to own cotton and sugar plantations themselves, along with the slaves to run them. Other free blacks had made their mark in literary circles. Some were celebrated musicians, merchants, and even real estate brokers. The less educated assumed the vocations of barber, tailor, carpenter, mason, and upholsterer, or supplied the city with game and fish.

Now that Julien had the perspective of having been abroad a year, he was more aware than ever that Free People of Color now published their own newspapers, attended the Orleans Theater in the second tier, and supported the opera with the same reverence for, and knowledge of, music as the whites in the audiences.

Julien ignored the passersby hurrying along the Rue des Ramparts after their day’s work and reflected upon all he had discovered in the short time he had been back in the Crescent City. He had made it his business to unearth the fact that Martine Fouché, a quadroon herself, had given birth to a child by her white patron behind the walls of that charming cottage. Many such octoroons like little Lisette were likely to be given their freedom in their father’s wills. Eventually thousands moved north, where they—or their children—passed for white, and melted into urban societies whose members were unsuspecting as to the origins of these newcomers.

No, Julien reminded himself. The woman residing in the green shuttered cottage on the opposite side of Rampart Street was no common whore. Martine Fouché was likely to have been reared as gently as his wife Adelaide, and for the same purpose: to attract a white man, preferably rich, who in exchange for sexual favors and her bewitching company, would protect this light-skinned damsel from the storms and hardships of life.

Julien remained rooted on Rampart Street contemplating the tidy cottage and its adjacent sidewalk, or
banquette
,
as the French preferred to call it. Squinting in the fading sun, he suddenly thought he spied a shadow move behind the curtained window and began to speculate as to what Martine Fouché would be like. He wagered that she would be quite a different personality from Adelaide, who had thus far been little interested in exchanging
her
sexual favors for much of anything now that she had achieved the status of wife. To be fair, neither he nor Adelaide had been under any illusion that theirs was more than the classic arranged marriage among white Creole families. Even granting that, their long honeymoon abroad had been an utter disaster.

Yes, Martine Fouché was most likely to be a very different breed than the high-strung Adelaide Marchand LaCroix.

Julien began to theorize as to the nature of the quadroon’s relationship with her elusive patron, Henri Girard. If that fool Girard hadn’t eaten and drunk himself into an early grave, this type of sub rosa liaison might have lasted a lifetime. More often than not, as in the case of his father, Etienne LaCroix, the novelty and passion of these arrangements wore off soon enough. Then these discarded sweethearts—whose chiseled bone structure often resembled that of their white fathers, and whose rich, café au lait complexion reflected the skin tones of their African American mothers—received a bequest sufficient to maintain the former mistress in comfortable style or to set her up in business. Half the hairdressers in New Orleans were former concubines of his father’s contemporaries, and their light-skinned children were routinely given their freedom as part of the “final arrangements.”

But to grant a woman, whose mother was a former slave, if you please, an
entire city block
,
ripe for development, was unheard of!

Julien’s fingers pulled his starched collar away from his neck; sweat was trickling in rivulets down his chest.

Damn this Martine Fouché! Had she practiced some insidious form of
voudou
on poor Henri Girard? What puzzled Julien even more was that Etienne LaCroix—his
own father
—had been a party to this outrageous turn of events! Now, due to Etienne’s severe indisposition, the patriarch would forever be a
silent
partner.

“Well, Mademoiselle Fouché,” Julien said aloud, striding away from the cottage’s narrow front door, “until tomorrow then. And I assure you,
ma cherie
,
you shall not cast any spells on
me
!”

Chapter 9

March 23, 1838

Café, monsieur?” Althea Fouché murmured, “or perhaps
un peu du croissant
?”

“Coffee, please, but nothing else, thank you,” Julien replied. He found himself inordinately surprised at the well-furnished parlor of Mademoiselle Fouché’s tastefully appointed Creole cottage.

He glanced around the room at the whitewashed fireplace with its French enameled ormolu clock taking pride of place on the mantel. A rich sapphire and white Persian carpet graced the cypress-planked floor. Through a set of French doors, Julien glimpsed the inviting chamber beyond and a corner of a bed’s carved mahogany footboard and its white matelassé quilted counterpane. The dwelling’s furnishings were undoubtedly selected by the mistress of the house, but bought and paid for by profits from sugarcane and cotton sold through the Reverie Plantation’s exporting company: LaCroix & Girard.

“Martine will join us in a moment,” her mother informed him demurely. “We had word, of course, that your ship had docked this week, but she was not expecting your call at quite such an early hour, monsieur. You must forgive my daughter while she prepares her toilette.”

Julien immediately realized that he had just been reprimanded, oh so gently, for his intrusion. Oddly, he felt properly chastised, rather than outraged by Althea Fouché’s impertinence.

“The coffee is excellent, Madame Fouché,” he said as a peace offering to ameliorate the imposition of such an early appearance.

“Why, thank you,” Althea replied coolly, not relinquishing her hold on the situation.

Julien heard the rustle of skirts sweeping across the carpet and once again shifted his glance to the French doors leading to the nearby bedchamber. A slender young woman dressed in a gown made of stiff black bombazine nipped in tightly at her minuscule waist advanced into the room. Her straight blue-black hair was pulled severely to the nape of her swanlike neck and fastened without a ringlet in sight.

Why, she’s dressed in mourning. Imagine! Just like any fine Creole lady whose life companion had passed away.

Julien noted that Martine’s face was a perfect oval, except for the graceful narrowing of her chin. Arched brows, as inky a shade of blue-black as her hair, framed wide-set amber eyes that were the same color as the coffee he was currently sipping from a thin porcelain cup.

The young woman looked to be twenty-six or twenty-seven. She had slightly flaring nostrils and a generous mouth—both subtle reminders of her African origins. And like her sister quadroons, her high cheekbones, shell-like ears, and delicate bone structure could be credited to her French and Spanish ancestry.

Even so, Julien was only vaguely aware of these lovely features, for what had captured his unwavering attention was Martine Fouché’s glorious golden skin and her lustrous hair. The woman who stood but a few feet from his chair eyed him with cool, confident grace.

“Monsieur,” she murmured, “welcome home to New Orleans. May I convey my condolences for the ill health of your father?”

“We share other sorrows, I have come to learn,” he said, rising to his feet deferentially, a move that he found most startling for a man who had come to this house intending to rattle sabers and take no prisoners on the subject of the Canal Street lands.

“Ah… you refer to poor Henri,” Martine said softly. She motioned vaguely that he should resume his seat as she took one of her own on the stiff, Empire-style silk settee. “He was, perhaps, suffering far more discomfort than anyone suspected, including my mother and me.”

“But he was not so indisposed as to have neglected his duty to you, mademoiselle,” he said pointedly. “My men of business inform me that my father and Monsieur Girard have gifted you with a plot of land on Canal Street within view of the river.”

“That is so, monsieur,” Martine concurred, accepting a delicate porcelain cup of coffee from her mother’s hand. “It was, of course, exceedingly generous of them.”

“Exceedingly.”

Julien watched her bring the lip of the cup to her own, marveling at her bright, even teeth.

“You are distressed by this gift to me, monsieur?” Martine inquired softly.

“I have no quarrel, mademoiselle, about Monsieur Girard having provided for your future, as well he should have,” Julien began. He wondered, suddenly, where his hostesses had sequestered Henri’s ten-year-old child, Lisette.

“My mother and I are relieved, then, that you concur with your father and Monsieur Henri’s bequest to me,” Martine replied, meeting Julien’s gaze steadily. “We, like you, I suspect, would wish to avoid any unpleasantness over such matters.”

“But of course,” Julien hurriedly assured his hostess. “Life is full of
tristesse
as it is, wouldn’t you agree? My father’s helpless condition—not being able either to speak or to move a toe or finger—attests to this,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“But yes… that is certainly true,” Martine said, nodding her graceful head.

Julien gently set his coffee cup on the table next to his chair and held Martine’s unwavering gaze.

“I would like to suggest to you a way in which we both could
feel
fully satisfied that our interests were considered.”

“And that is…?” Martine asked quietly. Julien sensed immediately a change in the timbre of her voice, a kind of watchful wariness. She was clearly a pragmatist,
une femme de couleur libre,
who knew certainly that despite her elevated status as a nonslave, her fate rested ultimately on the goodwill and fair-mindedness of white people. Even so, Julien had to admire the way in which she appeared unafraid to stand her ground.

“I do not think my father and Monsieur Girard were aware how very much I had counted on founding my own small business within our larger enterprise of LaCroix and Girard,” he noted carefully, “nor that the Canal Street property had figured prominently in that plan.”

“I would know nothing of such matters, monsieur,” Martine murmured.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Julien agreed gently. “Therefore, I would like to offer to exchange the property on Canal Street for land or money that would perhaps be of equal or greater value in Faubourg Marigny,” he proposed, studying Martine’s expression. “I have thought to expand our sugarcane and cotton export business on Canal.”

“I see.” Martine nodded. She cast a glance in her mother’s direction. Althea Fouché merely cocked her head and remained silent. “Well, monsieur,” she said, smiling faintly, “that is a very generous suggestion, and if you would be so kind as to permit me, I shall think on it for a while.” Her smile broadened, allowing him another glimpse of her beautiful, even teeth. Julien suddenly felt his heart swell at the sheer loveliness he saw shimmering before him. “Perhaps you will return, and we can speak of it again,” Martine suggested with an enigmatic smile.

Mademoiselle Fouché was by far the most entrancing, most seductive, most alluring woman he had ever laid eyes on, including the famed professional courtesans he had sought out in Paris. The day he had said his vows to Adelaide in front of God and half of New Orleans assembled in Saint Louis Cathedral, he had sworn that his whoring, rabble-rousing days were at an end. He did not dislike his second cousin twice removed. He had enjoyed her company when they were children.