“Where I’m going to go like this? Jus’ soon work and pass the time. Dis child already ain’t stayin’ still. Least if I’m doing, it’s quiet in there.” She pointed to her round belly. “And sometimes a break from everybody is a welcome thing.”
“That, I understand.” Isabelle smiled and clasped Ruthie’s hand. “Now, go lay down.”
“Oh, and Ruthie, make yourself a plate. We have plenty left. And tell your mother to see me when she returns, and I’ll give her the rest,” said Madame Dumas.
Justine rolled her eyes as Ruthie left. “My stars. One day I am going to return home to find that Ruth’s entire family has moved into our home.”
“Mother will be sure to marry you off before then. Right, Mother?”
Madame Dumas gave Justine a wide-eyed nod. “Absolutely.”
“Well, good, then. Best for all of us,” Justine answered, sounding offended. She looked at her mother’s and sister’s grins. “You are not at all amusing.”
Isabelle poured herself coffee and refilled her mother’s cup. “Speaking of marriage, Charlotte, how are things since your debut?”
Lottie opened her mouth to reply, but Justine’s voice erupted. “Haven’t you heard? Paul Bastion is visiting.”
“He’s only been once, Justine.” Lottie wished she had missed the flicker of communication when Isabelle and her mother made eye contact. That silent exchange became a loud warning. She looked back and forth between the two. “What? What do you know?”
“What did I miss?” Justine eyed all three of them.
“Nothing yet,” said Lottie. “I want to know.”
Isabelle stared at her mother, who seemed to blink more than nod her agreement, then turned to Lottie. “Keep in mind that men gossip, probably more than women. They call it an exchange of ideas—”
“Get to the point, Isabelle. Lottie doesn’t want to hear your diatribe about men,” Justine’s mother said in that soft but firm Dumas way.
“François was told that Paul keeps a placée. A young placée. Sixteen, maybe seventeen years old.”
Lottie felt her lungs unwind. “That’s the news? It’s no secret that Creole men are protectors for women.”
She had the briefest moment of time to appreciate the irony of being relieved that her intended had a mistress before Isabelle said, “That’s not all the news. She is with child.”
The coffee cup shivered in Lottie’s hand. “Does he know?”
“Yes. Yes, he does. And it is said that he is proud and happy.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
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Lottie considered the noxious gutters in summer, swollen with rotting animal carcasses, the slop of chamber pots, and the dirt and trash of every passerby the most repugnant aspect of living in the city…until Isabelle revealed what she had heard about Paul Bastion. By comparison, the gutters were troughs of intensely sweet-smelling gardenias and exotic violets.
The plaçage relationship did not shock her, but she had nurtured a degree of hope that he would, like many protectors after marriage, gift his placée pour prendre congé—he would leave the woman and it would be over. How vexing to be told that she would marry a man who had another woman carrying his child. Surely this information had not been shared with her grandparents? Yet another one of those questions to which she really did not want to know the answer. She had expected more from them in selecting a man who would be her husband. That young Creole men had placées who would have children was a given, but to have to compete with a baby as a new bride was humiliating.
Had someone else told her about Paul’s placée and his child, she hoped she could have forced herself to faint at that moment; then words would not be necessary. She appreciated that people who cared about her were the ones who told her what almost everyone in New Orleans must have already known about Paul. Otherwise, why would the Bourgeois twins have passed that remark about him and two women? Of all the gossips! A pair of girls who together didn’t have enough sense to pick out different gowns.
She was relieved to have the orphanage as a reason to leave the Dumas house early. The parlor fireplace did little to appease the cold ripples that danced up and down her back. The women tried to comfort her, but some hurts just had to work themselves out, like knots. Agnes had told her, “You try make ’em go away, pullin’ and tuggin’. Ain’t gonna do you no good. Just make it worst. Just works on ’em little bit at a time.” Madame Dumas hugged Lottie before she left, a hug that pressed her so close, she felt as if she’d grown another body. She rubbed Lottie’s back in circles when they hugged, just like she did with her own daughters. Lottie closed her eyes and drifted for a small moment. This is how my mother would have hugged me.