Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (25 page)

She had thought her nerves would settle once she returned to
New Orleans, but she was still nervous. Something was wrong with her female
parts. She’d had two monthlies in five weeks. Each time, her moods had been
mercurial, erratic, irrational. Then she’d feel convalescent, weak and fragile,
until the next letting. When the weather broke, she told herself, she’d feel
better.

Until then she endured the heat, endured this vague dread of
what was to come. She pushed the food around on her plate, perused the Picayune
without taking in the words, and counted the hours through the long days,
waiting.

After breakfast, Father said, “Come out with me this morning,
Deborah Ann.”

She pushed a stray lock of hair from her face. “I think not,
Father.”

Father stepped across the room and stood in the light from
the window, shadowing her embroidery hoop.

“Did something happen to upset you at the homeplace, Deborah Ann? Mr. Thompson, the Nigras?”

She shook her head and summoned a smile for him.

“Some river boat ruffian frighten you, insult you?”

“Not at all, Father. It was a perfectly uneventful trip, Jebediah at my side every moment, as I promised.”

“Nevertheless, I should like you to come out. You can open
your prettiest parasol and ride along with me to the Mint. You like seeing the
ships on the river. And afterwards, I’ll buy you dinner at The Seasons. How’s
that?”

Deborah Ann took no care with her toilet. She put on an old
straw bonnet, not bothering with the stray hair that escaped from the sides.
Mammy thrust the new parasol at her lest she come home with a face full of
freckles.

The hired carriage rolled through the pleasant streets of
the American sector where the houses were large, the gardens lush, and the war
might be a world away. The closer they came to the Union hub on Canal Street,
the more the war intruded. Soldiers everywhere. Defensive works abandoned by
the Confederates when Admiral Farragut took New Orleans. And Negroes. There
must be thousands of them in the city.

Deborah Ann watched them. Negroes on the sidewalk, crossing
the street, even on mules. They didn’t smile. They didn’t bob their heads in
passing. Two Negresses dared look her right in the eye.

At her father’s side in the carriage, she felt safe enough.
It was uncertainty that weighed her down. Nothing was as it should be. No
husband. No letters. And now the whole world seemed to be shifting.

Father called her attention to the wharves roiling with
people as far down the levee as she could see. There was the famous ironclad
the Yankees were so proud of, a graceless, gray hulk of a boat. Flags and
pennants waved in the wind. Deborah Ann tightened her grip on the parasol so it
wouldn’t blow out of her hand. It was, she supposed, a splendid day. But
something was coming, something was going to happen to her. She could feel the
thump of dread beating down on her.

The Mint, an imposing white structure at the corner of
Esplanade and Levee, swarmed with men in the hated blue uniform. They might
well be insects, mere bugs, like termites or ants or wasps the way they flitted
in and out of their hive. They were the cause of all this. They were the reason
the darkies seethed with discontent, the reason old kindnesses were now met
with sullen, resentful eyes.

“Here we are, Deborah Ann,” Father said, extending a hand to
help her from the carriage.

“I shall wait here, Father. Have the driver move us under that
china-berry tree, and I shall be perfectly comfortable until you return.”

Father hesitated. He looked around. Federal officers and
Southern gentlemen peppered the scene. She would be safe, that was apparent.
“Very well. I shall be perhaps an hour, maybe less.”

She watched him walk into the building. His stride was less
certain, less vigorous, than it had been. The war took its due even from old
men.

Under the china tree, it was cool enough. A patch of purple
asters bloomed in a garden nearby, and someone’s red hibiscus drooped with
blooms. The tension in her neck eased as she gazed into the lace of the
overhanging leaves.

Women passed among the uniforms, laden with shopping bags
they’d filled at the French Market around the corner. In this part of town,
many of them were free coloreds,
colour
libre
they called themselves, speaking an abysmal French. Here came one
with a tignon, as if intricate folds could make up for wearing a mere head rag
instead of a proper bonnet.

In idleness, Deborah Ann watched the high-yellow woman
stride toward her, a sleeping child on her shoulder, a shopping bag in the
other hand. Trailing along beside her was another child. They were breeders,
these Negroes, there was no question of that.

In Deborah Ann’s despondency, recognition came gradually.
When she fully realized who the woman was, she and the children were within
mere feet of the carriage. Deborah Ann’s breathing ceased. Her entire awareness
was focused on the child walking at his mother’s side.

Dark silky hair with the suggestion of curl, brown eyes the
color of tea. The brow, the tilt of the head. Marcel’s child.

The world contracted to a circle around the elegant plaçée
from the hat shop. Marcel had two children with this woman. Two sons.

A cold sweat broke out all over her body. A thunderous
buzzing filled her ears. She hardly knew what she did, dismounting from the
carriage. With shaky steps, she followed the woman and children as they weaved
through the soldiers and businessmen.

The plaçée turned onto Elysian Fields. There were fewer
people on this street, and this was not a neighborhood people like Deborah Ann
frequented. She hung back. The little boy kicked at a paving shell, then ran
after it and kicked it again, leaving his mother behind.

A mule-pulled wagon rattled toward them. “Charles Armand,”
the plaçée called after the child. “Watch the wagon.”

Deborah Ann had thought she might name her own child
Charles, after her Grandfather Presswood. This child was Charles. Marcel’s boy,
Charles Armand.

The woman unlatched a gate and went into the side passageway
leading to the back of her home. Typically, the house had three doors across
the front, but its roof was higher than most. Disconnected thoughts flitted
through Deborah Ann’s head. Perhaps it had an attic large enough to stand in.
Perhaps a banana tree grew in the courtyard.

She stood on the corner, staring, her parasol tilted so that
the sun shone full on her face. It was a mere creole cottage. Marcel hadn’t
bought the woman a proper house, nothing like what he would build for her when
she asked him for her own home in the new district, away from all these colored
peoples.

Only as she began to turn away did the most salient detail
penetrate her senses. A vigorous vine trailed across the doorways, shading and
scenting the front of the cottage. Sweet jasmine. Deborah Ann’s knees gave way
and she swooned in a heap of hoops and petticoats.

When she opened her eyes, she was on the sidewalk, the woman
bending over her.

“Come inside out of the sun, mademoiselle,” the woman said.
“Let me get you some barley water.”

The plaçée’s face was smooth as
cream, only a hint of a darker tone in her complexion. Her eyes were almond
shaped and deep brown, her nose narrow, her lips full.

The little boy stood beside his mother, his hand on her
shoulder. Charles Armand. Riveted, Deborah Ann stared at the boy, his eyes big
and concerned. Marcel’s child.

“Mademoiselle?”

Deborah Ann shifted her gaze to the boy’s mother. This woman
had no right to bear her husband a son. No right to produce a child whose eyes
and chin were the image of her husband’s. Hatred flamed through Deborah Ann,
conflagrating the very air around her.

The plaçée recoiled as if she could actually feel the heat
on her skin.

“Maman?”

Deborah Ann saw understanding awaken in the woman’s dark
eyes.

She shrank away. “You’re the one,” the woman whispered.

Deborah Ann, her jaw clenched, her heart hard as stone,
impaled her rival with a malignant eye. “I am his
wife
.”

The woman stood up and backed away, the boy clinging to her
skirt.

“Mrs. Chamard?” A soldier, a Yankee, pounded up the road
toward her. “Your father’s worried sick about you, ma’am.”

He bent over and as easily as if she were a child, picked her
up from the ground. “I’ll get you back to the carriage, ma’am. Don’t fret.”

Deborah Ann might have been a rag doll, unresisting in the
man’s arms. Whether he lifted her or dragged her, he simply had no importance.
Her eyes were on Charles Armand. Marcel’s first child should have been hers.

Mr. Presswood raced home with Deborah Ann. Her skin was
clammy and her gaze vacant. Scared him half to death, she did. Immediately on
reaching home, he had Deborah Ann put to bed.

While Mammy undressed her and bathed her face and hands, Mr.
Presswood sent for Dr. Braun. After closeting himself with Deborah Ann for a
quarter of an hour, the doctor joined Mr. Presswood in the study.

“Is she . . . with child?” Mr. Presswood had asked.

Dr. Braun shook his gray head. “Apparently not, Lionel. She
seems a little run down. Beefsteak and eggs will take care of that. But I agree
with your earlier assessment. She is not quite herself. Not our bright-eyed
girl.”

Mr. Presswood handed the doctor a glass of brandy. “The war,
I suppose. It wears on us all.”

“She might benefit from a course of laudanum. For a day or
two only.”

“No!” Mr. Presswood set his glass down so hard the brandy
sloshed onto the table.

“She is not Malvina, Lionel. She
has not her mother’s proclivity for melancholy.”

“No. I cannot risk it. And you don’t know how she’s been,
Gustav. Irritable. Weepy.” Mr. Presswood wiped his mouth with a trembling hand.
“I console myself she is more my daughter than her mother’s. But she is a
woman.”

Dr. Braun finished his brandy. “She’s a strong girl, old
friend. I shouldn’t worry. If she’s not up and stirring by tomorrow noon time,
I’ll be surprised.”

Deborah Ann was not up and stirring by noontime the next
day, nor the next. She didn’t complain of headache or any other kind of discomfort.
She simply preferred to lie in the bed. She didn’t read. She didn’t embroider.
She would eat only a little of the treats Mammy tempted her with.

Mr. Presswood stopped Mammy in the hallway outside Deborah
Ann’s door. “What do you think, Mammy?”

“Child acts like she had the life punched out of her, don’t
she? But she not telling me nothing, neither, Mr. Presswood.”

Mr. Presswood sat down to write his son-in-law. With his
contacts, he should be able to get a message through to the Lafourche. True,
there was risk involved, but he daily risked everything he had in his
surreptitious dealings. Marcel, too, would be at risk if he came to Deborah
Ann’s side, but his wife needed him.

Captain McKee grabbed a biscuit and a rasher of bacon off
his landlady’s table and headed out the door. Finn had hollered hallelujah when
Major Farrow decided he didn’t need to spend every minute baby-sitting the
Signal boys in camp. “That’s what sergeants are for,” Hursh had said, and
assigned Finn to the same boarding house he stayed in. Better bed, better
bacon, better biscuits.

His horse stabled a block over, Finn strode the quarter mile
to headquarters. The night before, he had lingered at the Custom House till ten
waiting for news from Virginia, but there’d been no more mail boats. He took
the stairs three at a time, thinking Miss Chamard wouldn’t be in this early. He
was wrong. There she sat, composed, prettier even than yesterday, tapping a
pencil on the desk.

“Miss Chamard!”

“Good morning, Captain.”

He grabbed a chair and moved close enough to smell the flowery stuff she wore. He wanted to scoop her up and rain
kisses over her face, but he wasn’t raised in a barn. He sat across from her,
the desk between them.

“You’re here early, Mademoiselle.” He loved the way
mademoiselle rolled off his tongue. It suited her, too, exotic, foreign.
French. Or French Creole. He hadn’t worked all that out yet.

A smile touched her lips and lit her eyes, those mystery
eyes, gray and soft and penetrating. “As are you, Captain.”

Finn glanced at the quiet telegraph keys. “No news?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even a train update?”

“Mr. Wallace is down the hall. He said not a single message
all night.”

Finn grunted in disgust. “The line’s cut somewhere. Damned
Rebs.”

Nicolette smiled broadly. “Future generations will no doubt
think Damned Rebs to be one word, Captain. I never hear one without the other.”

“Same with Damned Yanks,” Finn countered. He eyed her
curiously.

“What is it, Captain?”

“I have a cousin, Colin. Joined the Confederacy. I wondered
if you have family on both sides?”

Hell, he’d made her uncomfortable. He could see her
swallowing, and she’d turned her head from him. Him and his damned mouth.

“I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have asked.”

She raised her head and leveled her gaze on him. She was
going to forgive him, again.

“It is a natural question, Captain. I have three brothers.
Two are now in New York, one a journalist writing for the abolitionist cause,
the other a physician. My eldest brother, however, does indeed wear Confederate
gray.”

“A split family. It breaks everybody’s heart.”

“Yes, sir. It does.”

“I have only sisters, I think I told you,” Finn said. He
stroked his mustache “Though my cousin Colin is like a brother.”

Nicolette nodded, her gaze on him.

He drew a breath. “You’d like my sisters. Especially Mags, the middle one. She loves music like you do. Her
piano playing may be a little raggedy, but she’s enthusiastic, and she sings
loud.”