Love Finds You in New Orleans(70)

“Genevieve Charlotte, I do believe you’ve matured into a strong young woman right before our eyes.” Grand-père kissed Lottie’s forehead. “You are a treasure.”

“Thank you, PaPa,” Lottie whispered. Tonight’s letter to her parents would preserve this time for the rest of her life.

Lottie thought about this morning and Madame Dumas telling her to ask her grandparents about Paul. But she could not spoil this rare moment she had with them. Paul was not going to disappear before tomorrow. She could ask them before his visit. It would provide new information for her to think about while the four of them sweltered in silence.

Anna’s note—that was her priority. Her grandparents decided to walk along the levee after supper. She needed Agnes or Abram to walk with her to the church. Lottie headed to their living quarters. Please be home. Please be home. Please be home. She knocked as she opened the door, already knowing she would find two empty rooms, rooms so small that raising the latch would have stirred Agnes. Sections of the whitewashed plaster peeled away from the four walls, leaving exposed red bricks like sores around the room. A mint-green chenille spread stretched across Lottie’s castoff bed pushed against the far wall. The broken leg had been replaced with small boards nailed together and propped underneath to level the mattress. Opposite the bed was the small cypress armoire Lottie had had as a child. The only other furniture was a cane rocker, and next to it was a basket with quilting squares. Agnes called the other room their “necessary” room, because in it was a small fireplace used for warmth and for cooking, a two-burner stove, and their stand-up tub.

A stone’s throw away, the LeClercs’ home had four times as many rooms as people who lived there. All that space wasted because, as Lottie was told, slaves did not sleep in the same house as their owners. “It’s just not proper,” her grandmother insisted any time Lottie would ask. The answer never changed. One day, still young enough to wear her dresses well above her ankles, Lottie raised her voice and declared, “It’s stupid.” It was another night of no supper. Grand-mère refused to allow her granddaughter to be known as uncultured.

Lottie closed the door to their living quarters and laughed inwardly at the possibility of asking for Agnes and Abram as her wedding presents. With her new husband’s money, she could buy their freedom and they could live in a house she could pay Monsieur Joubert to build. That would make for a lively discussion at Paul’s next visit.

As she walked through the courtyard, it occurred to Lottie that her grandparents’ leaving before Agnes arrived home actually worked out better for her delivering Anna’s note. After returning from their levee stroll, Lottie could casually mention having gone to the church. So, now her prayer was for Agnes and Abram to arrive later, to want what she did not want before. It was times like these when Lottie wondered how man was made in God’s image. Could God really be confused about what He should be praying for?



* * * * *


Lottie had started reading Mansfield Park, which she’d bought the week before with her grandfather, when her grandparents left. They invited her to join them, but she declined, telling them she was anxious to read the novel because she had heard so much about it. It was Gabriel who’d told her Alcee was reading it and he questioned whether she should, so, in truth, Lottie had been told a great deal about it. It just happened to be all from one person.

She didn’t intend to lose herself in the book, but merely to distract herself from incessantly checking for any sign of Agnes. But then she discovered that Fanny, too, was essentially an orphan, cast off by her parents and living as a burden to her relatives. Lottie found herself reluctant to leave Fanny with her heartless aunt. Unlike Lottie, Fanny did not have a version of Agnes, someone who could comfort her. Thank You, God, for my always being able to rely on Agnes. And I really want not to have a different prayer tomorrow, so would You send her home soon?

Agnes and Abram arrived an entire chapter later, and when Lottie spotted them walking through the porte cochère, she gathered her dress well above her ankles and dashed out to meet them.

“Thank goodness you’re home,” she said and threw her arms around Agnes. “You too, Abram,” she added as she released Agnes.

“Why you so happy I home?”

Agnes’s suspicion shot right through those narrowed dark eyes of hers. She detected dishonesty like Henri detected milk, and neither one of them would discontinue their search until they found what they wanted.

“Because I need to go to the church, my grandparents are strolling along the levee, I can’t go alone even though I am perfectly capable of it, so I need you to come with me.”