Lottie recovered from the onset of her throat disturbance, smiled at Gabriel, and, before her grandmother could speak, said, “I would be happy to help Grand-mère by doing that.”
She walked to the table with Gabriel, leaving Justine, whose mouth had formed a perfect circle, and her grandmother, whose lips had formed a perfect line between her nose and her chin.
“It was kind of you to protect me from my grandmother,” she whispered as they walked away.
“I knew she would not be rude to me as she would to you. And how else could I thank you for standing up for Agnes?” He grinned.
Lottie blushed, thinking of an answer to the question.
* * * * *
After their dinner, Lottie rose to carry the china to the butler’s pantry, where she and Grand-mère would hand wash and dry the table settings. When she had grown old enough to join her grandparents for meals, Lottie was deemed old enough to participate in cleaning the dishes too. The two women carried the Sevres china plates and serving pieces themselves because Grand-mère didn’t entrust the pieces to the house servants. What confused Lottie about the ritual was that the slaves were allowed to carry the dishes to the table. Agnes had told her, “No worrying about that. I’m glad Miz LeClerc don’t want me touching them plates, if they that temperamental. Beside, they probably cost more than me.”
As Lottie reached for her grandfather’s plate, Grand-mère said, “Charlotte, I will take care of the china. Your grandfather and I have decided that the two of you have matters to discuss.” She looked at her husband. “Isn’t this so, Louis?”
It wasn’t truly a question.
Louis LeClerc stood, straightened the front of his frock coat, and motioned toward the library. “Come, Lottie, we will talk before I return to work.”
Lottie’s confusion left her motionless for a moment. Usually her grandfather rested for a while after their large midday meal, avoiding the sweltering sun, and then he would go back to his office. Since his heart problems, sometimes he even napped on one of the daybeds that was pulled out to the gallery at the end of dinner. So for him to spend that time engaged in a conversation with Lottie meant that her grandmother had found time before they ate to inform him of the morning’s events. And since Grand-mère had already carried the serving dishes into the pantry, her part in the conversation was already over.
Lottie brushed her fingertips down the front of her dress in case piecrust crumbs had landed there. “Yes, PaPa,” she responded, as if there would be another answer.
Not that she didn’t expect repercussions.
Grandmother was quite predictable when it came to doling out consequences. Quite often, the more severe the offense, the longer Grand-mère waited before she dispensed the penalty. The time Lottie hid in the carriage house just to see if she was missed, she’d begged her grandmother to administer swift punishment, but Grand-mère had waited until the next morning to inform Lottie that she would spend the night sleeping in the one empty stall in the stable. Her grandfather must not have agreed with the decision, because when a disapproving, mumbling Agnes escorted Lottie across the courtyard, they were accompanied by the crescendo of her grandparents’ voices from their upstairs bedroom. Lottie remembered hearing Grand-mère mention her mother’s name, but the rest sounded like a cartful of bells that had been thrown down the stairs. Agnes and Abram took turns checking on her that night. Agnes had given her a warm praline that not only melted on her tongue like snow crystals of brown sugar but sweetened the air a bit too. That next morning, Lottie awoke to a pair of arms scooping her off the hay and the soft tickle of her grandfather’s beard as he kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “Je t’aime ma petite fille jolie” when he tucked her into the cool soap-scented sheets on her bed. Nothing Grand-mère could ever do would erase the memory of his voice telling her he loved his pretty little girl.
By now, Lottie understood that the delay between action and reaction was an element of the punishment. It typically did not involve her grandfather, which made this meeting all the more unusual. But at least I can spend some time with him. Lately, he left for work earlier and arrived home later. He recently told Lottie, when she asked why he was gone so often, “I thought at one time I owned the business. Now, I’m afraid the business owns me.” She didn’t know if his shoulders sagged from sadness or exhaustion or both, as she watched him walk to his carriage that morning.
Instead of sitting in his desk chair, Louis LeClerc moved the mahogany chairs flanking the tall bookcases against the wall to face one another. He looked at the chairs, then at Lottie, back at the chairs again, and said, “This would not be comfortable for either one of us, would it?” He laughed when Lottie shook her head. “Of course it wouldn’t,” he agreed and moved the chairs back to their original spaces. He reached for his granddaughter’s arm, linked his around it, and patted her hand. “To the parlor we go.”