Love Finds You in New Orleans(27)

“I know, Agnes. I know.” Lottie hugged her knees to her chest. “I only wish you had the choice.”

As a child first learning to read, Lottie had sat next to Agnes, opened her books, and read out loud. When she stumbled on a word, she’d look up at Agnes who, every time, would pat her hand and whisper, “You just go on. We pick it up next time.” No one seemed to mind, the two of them side by side in the gallery or outside in the courtyard, shaded by one of the lemon trees. No one, that is, until Madame Narcisse visited and reminded Grand-mère about the year-long imprisonment for anyone caught teaching a slave to read or write. Lottie wasn’t allowed to read with Agnes after that. She told her grandparents she would go to jail, but she wanted to share her books with Agnes. Grand-père laughed and said, “Ah, my p’tit, you are so small, you would slip right through the bars.” It was only when he gently explained the risk for Agnes that Lottie promised to never do it again. She had cried, thinking of Agnes being flogged at the public whipping post or losing part of a finger or a toe.

“Miss Lottie.” Agnes now lowered her voice. “We learning to read. Maybe writing come later. But we so bad wanted to read the Bible for ourselves. That’s why Gabriel spend so much time here and us there. Every chance we gets, we learn more.” She stepped to the side of Lottie’s bed and pulled a folded square of paper out of her apron pocket. Agnes opened it with such attention that Lottie imagined the words might slip off the paper were she not so careful. “We got this from Proverbs.” She pointed to the word on the top line and smiled. “I carry ’em with me so’s I can practice. And don’t you worry. We always been careful.

“First, when Gabriel start tearing them pages out of the Bible, I waited for something powerful to rain down.” Agnes refolded her treasure and returned it to her pocket. “But he told me Jesus would rather us tear up the Bible so we can read than just let that book sit there with all those blessings locked inside.”

So, Lottie thought, Gabriel has been doing all along what I volunteered to do at the orphanage.





Chapter Eleven

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Agnes and Abram left for the French Market to prepare for the LeClercs’ return, and Lottie finished the breakfast of coffee and fruit that Agnes had brought her before they left. Moving the tray off her lap and onto the bed, Lottie mashed and fluffed the mound of pillows behind her. Somewhere between deciding what to do for the rest of the morning and the thumping from downstairs, she drifted off to sleep.

Thinking they had returned with the hot calas she had given them the money to buy, Lottie slid out of bed and decided to risk Agnes’s wrath and venture downstairs in her bare feet and nightgown. In the time she’d need to grab a calas or two, she figured she could be back in her bedroom before Agnes ever finished her tirade. But as she stepped out, it was her grandparents’ voices she heard over the shuffle of bags. Lottie almost called to them but realized they would have expected her to be dressed for the day, not for bedtime. Her stomach rumbled in disappointment, and she had started to back into her room when she heard her grandfather mention her name.

“I do not think this is the proper time to have this conversation, as Lottie could hear us.”

The soft clinks as cups met saucers and chair legs bumping along the carpet as they moved from the table meant they had settled in the dining room. Lottie perched on the floor in the small alcove outside her room and hoped Agnes and Abram were taking their time at the market.

“If she were here, we would have seen her by now. Agnes and Abram are gone, so she is either with them at the French Market or she stayed with Justine another night,” her grandmother said.

“As I tried to explain to you earlier, there are more considerations than making sure of the marriage arrangements. We cannot ignore them, and I am concerned. More so than you, I fear.”

“I am not unaware.” Grand-mère’s words sounded like whips whistling through the air. “But we are in a situation ourselves. We were fortunate the Bastions happened to be at the event this weekend and that they decided to stay another day so we could talk.”

Bastion. That is the man Grand-père spoke to after church.

“No, my sweet. That was not fortune. That was planning. I invited Emile after receiving word from Judge Rost that he and his wife would be welcomed as our guests. I thought it would work in our favor to spend time with the Bastions in a more comfortable social setting before we went any further.”

“Oh, then…” She paused. “You were correct.”