“About my being with Gabriel or going to the opera?” Lottie left the uneaten bread on her plate and covered it with her napkin. As she did, she noticed the embroidered LC in the corner. The shaky, uneven first stitchings of a much younger Lottie. The one who wanted to surprise Grand-mère by embroidering her new linen napkins with the initials of their last name. She had sewn only two, one for each of her grandparents, and had tiptoed into the dining room to place one on each of their plates. She waited in her bedroom where she ate, sometimes with Agnes, with the squirming anticipation of a child eager to see her grandmother’s face when she thanked her for the surprise.
Lottie now traced the bumpy, zigzagged ebony stitches and heard in her memory the echo of Grand-mère’s steps as they neared her room. Agnes had left for water, so Lottie sat alone at her small table. When she walked through the door, Grand-mère filled the room with her presence.
“Charlotte, did you sew these?” She held the napkins out to Lottie.
Excited that her grandmother came to thank her, Lottie nodded energetically. “Yes, Grand-mère. I did.”
“Who gave you permission to do such a thing?”
Even now, Lottie remembered that imperious voice. The one that quieted her own. She had shrugged her shoulders, stared at the shamrocks that edged her plate, and twisted the folds of her gingham dress with her hands.
“Look at me when I speak to you.”
She had raised her eyes and wished Agnes would hurry.
“Ne–ver, ne–ver,” Grand-mère said, “presume to take anything that does not belong to you. These damask napkins are quite expensive. Now the set is useless unless I replace these.”
Agnes then stood at the doorway, holding a pitcher of water, and looked from Lottie to her grandmother and back again. “Excuse me, Miz LeClerc,” said Agnes as she stepped behind her into the room.
Lottie remembered Grand-mère’s parting words of, “Do you understand?” and her handing the napkins to Agnes. “Perhaps you can find a use for these.”
Agnes had saved her napkins all these years. How would she have known, today of all days, that this gesture would mean so much?
Lottie took the napkin from her plate and blotted her wet cheeks—tears cried for the little girl who failed to please who was important to her then, and for the young woman who failed to please the person most important to her now.
* * * * *
February 1841
Dear Mama and Papa,
Finally, I no longer live with the dread of the party. It is over. I know I resolved not to act selfishly or unkindly, and I promise I behaved properly.
The night of the party, Justine slept here, so that’s why I didn’t write. But even when I’m not writing on paper, I’m composing a letter in my head to you. I hope not to forget all that I wanted to share.
A week before the date, Grand-mère sent the notes for the party with Abram’s brother, Elijah. The invitations were written on gilt-bordered papers, inserted in the same bordered envelopes, and closed with a small wax seal. He dressed quite nicely and completed the deliveries in two days’ time.
I confess, Grand-mère fluttered around so that I did my best not to be in her way. She gathered mirrors and pins, combs, brushes, and hairpins for the ladies’ dressing room, which was the spare bedroom upstairs. Then Justine’s mother reminded her to include sewing supplies, perfume, and smelling salts. Grandpère suggested she might be in need of the salts herself before the night began. I don’t believe she appreciates his humor as I do. Agnes coughs often when he jokes so as not to incite Grand-mère.
Agnes, Abram, Elijah, and Elijah’s son Samuel spent the better part of the day carrying food from the kitchen into the house. Agnes created a magnificent centerpiece of pineapples, grapes, and trailing vines with soft, lavender-blue flowers. Gumbo, platters of fish, fruit dishes with pears and cherries and plums. Carafes of water and wine. Molded water ices for desserts—that’s all I can remember. I don’t think I ate more than a grape that night, for fear of ruining my white gown or being ill.
I did not expect to feel like a live statue for suitors’ considerations. Much worse, though, I felt more like bait—the small fish Abram uses to catch the larger ones. Thrown into a river of hungry fish. Maybe sharks. Justine says I am too intractable. I think she learned that word at the deportment class she attended without me and she thought that word was more sophisticated than stubborn.
Of all the men who asked to dance with me that night, it seems Paul Bastion might be the man Grand-père and Grandmère have decided upon. He was not as tall or as conversational as any of the other men. But having read The Ladies’ Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners by Miss Eliza Leslie (if he could, our deportment teacher would make Justine and I add it to our gumbo and consume it), I was relieved not to converse and risk my head being a “lumber-room.”