Ruth’s Journey Read online

  The last of the new mansion’s workmen had departed four days ago, ejected by anxious servants brandishing brooms, mops, and dusters. Pierre, Louisa, and their daughter, Clara, had spent only two nights in their new home.

  Louisa was fiercely proud of it, while Pierre wondered (silently) if daring young English architects were as daring where young English architects weren’t rare.

  In Savannah’s traditional homes (Savannah Boxes), adjacent drawing and withdrawing rooms could be opened into a continuous space for dancing. In the Robillard house, those rooms were separated by a central hall and staircase, where the musicians could be heard but not seen. As a consequence, the guests had self-­segregated. Dancers, teetotalers, and old folks claimed the formal drawing room, while the young, those with weaker social credentials, and the hard drinkers congregated in the withdrawing room, whose pink valances and painted cupids were meant to please gentlewomen drinking afternoon tea. Despite her architect’s strongest objections, in honor of the season, Louisa outlined the bow window with holly and hung mistletoe in the valances. This violation had so offended the young Englishman that he and his patron had quarreled and he’d stomped out, shouting, “It is no longer my work. I am not responsible!”

  Louisa had presumed the Englishman’s presence would ornament his creation, and that as his patron, his cachet would adhere to her. Consequently and uncharacteristically, Louisa swiftly backtracked; servants removed the offending greenery and Nehemiah was dispatched after the Englishman.

  Alas, Nehemiah returned without his quarry. “He ain’t want come, missus. Man be drunk and sayin’ things.”

  “Things?”

  “He sayin’ you and Master Robillard, you am ‘Philistines.’” Nehemiah puzzled, “Philistines like them in the Bible?”

  Absent her Brilliant! Unconventional! Imaginative! architect, Louisa had the holiday greenery reinstalled and told her friends she’d let the puppy go.

  The gala was as gala without him. Candles sparkling in sconces and chandeliers were amplified by wall and pier mirrors, and their flames danced the crystal rim of the punch bowl. The punch had begun the evening mild enough for a Baptist, but after many Merry Gentlemen had emptied their flasks into it, it had become heretical.

  The O’Hara brothers’ draying business had prospered, and they’d purchased a mercantile specializing in low-priced harness, shoddy equipage, last year’s hay and dirty oats. “’Tis a profitable wee place,” James O’Hara told any who’d listen.

  Earlier, O’Hara had reminded Captain Fornier they’d arrived on the same boat, implying they’d had equal opportunities in the New World and now look at them. O’Hara had his thumbs in his galluses.

  Augustin answered him in French.

  Grinning, in Gaelic, O’Hara cursed the captain for a fool.

  When the newfangled cotillion dance was announced, O’Hara and others abandoned the punch bowl for their partners.

  “A French dance.” Augustin refilled his cup.

  Philippe said, “Unlike Americans, we French always treated the Indians fairly.”

  “We planters were always kind to our Negroes! How dearly French pay for misguided idealism.”

  Whatever this sentiment meant, Philippe and Augustin clicked glasses in its honor.

  The musicians wore their masters’ best cast-off finery. They grinned prodigiously, and the small woolen cap set beside them could accept any small coins white folks might bestow.

  Nehemiah exited the withdrawing room, tray piled precariously with dirty glasses. To Ruth, he said, “There’s more, child. Fetch many as you can without breakin’ none.”

  Ruth folded her arms. “I ain’t no servant.”

  “Child, you got too little to know how little you got.”

  In the larger drawing room, cotillion squares had formed, and the more courageous Savannahians—with laughter and ­apologies—executed unfamiliar steps.

  Pierre Robillard introduced a younger man. “Ah, Mrs. Fornier. This is my friend Wesley Evans, who, as you might guess from his too sober attire, is a Yankee, come to us from Connecticut. Wesley was Mr. Eli Whitney’s indispensable factotum. Wesley and I are to be partners—factors—in the cotton trade, an undertaking he understands better than I. Still, I shall try to understand. I shall give it my very best. I worry that my new venture will add burdens to Captain Fornier’s shoulders. Where is the good fellow? He’s not dancing?”

  “He and your clever cousin Philippe are solving the Indian Problem.”

  Pierre’s smile broadened. “Like a squeaking axle, that work needs lubrication.”

  Louisa materialized beside her husband. “Ah, the delightful Mrs. Fornier and her so lovely maid. Count Montelone has mentioned her.”

  That gentleman was across the room, obscured by dancers leaving the floor. “So good of you to join us tonight, Mrs. For­nier. Christmas is such a special time, don’t you think? My dear Pierre”—she took his arm firmly—“was afraid our new home wouldn’t be ready, but we toiled day and night.”

  “Nehemiah . . .” Pierre began.

  His wife patted his mouth. “Not another word about your Negro, dear. You do spoil him. I’ve requested the next dance be a minuet. Unlike some architects who shall remain nameless, Pierre and I cherish the ‘tried and true.’”

  Their host fluttered fingers over his shoulder as his wife towed him off.

  The Yankee grinned at Solange. “Madame Robillard is sérieuse.”

  “Madame is dangereuse.” Solange was surprised to mean what she said.

  “Shall we quiver in fear? Must we raise fortifications?”

  Solange offered her arm. “Actually, Mr. Yankee, I’d rather dance.”

  Evans was rangy, prematurely bald, and, as Solange soon learned, twenty-eight years old. He’d come to the Low Country with Whitney, whose cotton gin was making short-staple cotton profitable, seeking an exclusive manufacturing license.

  “Unfortunately Cyrus’s invention,” the Yankee confided, “is clever but too simple. No halfway decent mechanic can see one operate without understanding how to replicate it. Building a gin requires no special tools, and there are no expensive ‘special’ mechanisms. I’m afraid my friend’s cotton gin will make other men much richer than its inventor.”

  “You’d like to be one of those rich men?”

  “Madame, I already am. Do you know these steps?”

  “Sir, I am French. Or was French. I haven’t decided what I am now.”

  “It is easy to be an American. Easiest thing there is.”

  “Yes, but . . .” She grimaced. She said, “Mrs. Sevier is energetic tonight.”

  In James O’Hara’s arms, that lady’s “dancing” might be described as “being flung about.”

  “I suspect Mr. O’Hara is more familiar with reels.”

  Solange and Wesley executed the steps to their entire satisfaction. When the music stopped, Wesley bowed and asked, “May I fetch you some punch?”

  “Sir, you are sufficient intoxication. I fear for my virtue.”

  When he grinned, his face lit up. “I cannot promise I won’t try it.”

  “Sir! I am a married woman.”

  He led her off the floor. “I am bitterly disappointed. Now, who is this beautiful child?”

  “Ruth, show Master Evans your manners.”

  Her curtsy was perfunctory. “Mistress, that nasty Count eye­ballin’ me.”

  “What’s the harm?”

  “He one of them slave speculators!”

  Wesley frowned. “There are . . . unpleasant . . . rumors about Count Montelone, Mrs. Fornier. He is unwelcome in Charleston society.”

  “Ruth, you are perfectly safe. Fetch your master. He and Mr. Evans should become acquainted.”

  “Bring us a punch, while you’re at it. Mrs. Fornier�
�may I call you Solange?”

  Solange was accustomed to slower-paced men. Although she felt her horse had the bit in its teeth, she was more exhilarated than alarmed. “All these people . . .” she said. “Isn’t it warm in here?”

  “I’m sure we could find somewhere . . . ah . . . cooler.”

  Solange took the reins. “This is an ‘unusual’ house. I’m told they’ve done away with necessaries.”

  Wesley cleared his throat. “The principle has been known for centuries. Water descends from the attic through water closets and thence to the basement. The Romans knew how to do it.”

  “The Romans were so . . . so advanced, don’t you think?”

  “The Romans, yes . . .”

  Biting her lower lip in concentration, Ruth balanced two brimming punch cups. “Master says he ain’t comin’, missus. Say he learnin’ ’bout them ‘noble savages.’”

  “Thank you, Ruth. You may go.”

  Frown. “Where I go, missus?”

  “Elsewhere. Mr. Evans, have you seen the orangerie?”

  Worriedly, Ruth watched them depart. “Where’s I got to go?” she whispered.

  In the peaceful orangerie, the industrious musicians seemed a world away. “I blush confessing I’d looked forward to this evening. Mr. Evans, if Connecticut society is as tedious as Savannah’s . . .”

  “Worse, I believe. Very much worse. We Yankees aren’t entirely sure we should be amused by our amusements.” The orange he plucked may have been the fruit Ruth had been examining.

  “My husband says Count Montelone is ‘A True Frenchman’ but failed to mention the Count’s line of work. It must be profitable. Can’t you buy an eight-hundred-dollar field hand in Africa for fifty?”

  “Madame is a businesswoman?” Wesley flipped peels into the tub housing the tree.

  “I am a lady, sir.” She refused a proffered segment. “The Robil­lards had these trees brought from Florida.”

  “I don’t object to any lawful trade, and under our Constitution slaving will be legal until 1808. The slave trade makes a few men rich but bankrupts more. First you buy the ship and then you must employ an experienced captain—a man with strong New England connections, that’s where he’ll purchase his trade goods, and even stronger connections in West Africa, where he swaps those goods for surly, unruly, unhealthy, rebellious creatures who’d as soon slit his throat as come to America. To profit, the captain must pack his cargo between decks as tightly as ever he can, which inevitably foments disease. A twenty to thirty percent loss is expected. The captain must evade pirates off the coast and the British navy in deep water. As you know, the Atlantic is no millpond, and slave ships are no more immune to storms than ships carrying missionaries the other direction.”

  “Slavery, sir, is necessary for sugarcane production. Rice and cotton too.”

  He shrugged. “That may be. I shouldn’t wish to be a slave, and I venture you wouldn’t either.”

  “Ruth is happy to be my servant.”

  “Ah.”

  “She is a curious child, and sometimes she seems . . . mysterious?”

  He grinned. “She certainly doesn’t want to get close to the Count.”

  The segment of orange Solange accepted was hot and very, very sweet.

  “Excuse my forwardness.” With his handkerchief, he dabbed juice from her chin.

  * * *

  Louisa and Pierre had quarreled. Oblivious Pierre had sparked their disagreement by informing her (as if Louisa hadn’t noted the snickers at her home’s “innovations”), that Mr. Haversham had asked if they’d disposed of their chamber pots, whereupon Louisa, who felt like bursting into tears, elected to assault Mr. Haversham for his well-known faults, not least his assistance to Mrs. Fornier, whose husband had no more been a planter than Louisa! and who had an “unusual” (sharp nod for emphasis) relationship with that very black child whom Pierre (yes, Louisa’s beloved husband) had, in a moment of weakness and without considering his wife, accepted as his godchild before the altar of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, despite Pierre’s (and Louisa’s) staunch Methodism, and where, had Pierre looked for his friends in St. John’s sanctuary on that particular occasion, he would not have seen that same Mr. Haversham, who was so very, very curious about the Robillards’ chamber pots!

  While his wife caught her breath, Pierre Robillard asked his daughter, Clara, to dance, which restored Pierre’s customary good humor.

  Unfortunately his beaming face made his angry wife angrier. “Chamber pots! Godchild! Indeed!”

  * * *

  Ruth slipped into the orangerie. “We go home pretty soon now, yes?”

  “All in good time, dear. Please fetch us another punch.”

  Very reluctantly she collected their glasses.

  “Go, child! You may go!”

  When they were alone, Wesley Evans resumed. “Business is about putting capital to work where it may earn the most with the least risk. Ah, but I forget. As a lady you are unfitted by your finer nature for sordid commerce.”

  “I am a lady, sir. Not a fool.”

  “So.” He shifted nearer. “As you may know, capital for business expansion is hard to find. Pierre is a fine fellow, but, as a partner, he lacks—how can I be delicate—passion. You may think that’s an odd term for a businessman.”

  “My funds are with Mr. Haversham in six percent bonds.”

  “Commendable, I’m sure.” After a pause, Wesley added, “You could do better.”

  * * *

  Louisa’s friend Antonia Sevier had never been able to deny Louisa anything, and the delightful James O’Hara’s homely wife had been shooting daggers at her all evening, and, who knows, the wife was Irish and those daggers might become real! so Antonia let her friend show off her new home’s innovations. And Antonia certainly had to admit Louisa’s water closet was interesting! What was this new century coming to? “You sit on it?”

  “First, dear, you lift the lid.” Her friend raised its hinged cover upright.

  Antonia eyed the seat with its neat circular hole. “You sit on that?”

  “It is a seat of ease. Like the necessary. Exactly the same.”

  “Then . . . ?”

  “Then, my dear, nature takes its course. As you see, carded wool tufts are available for . . . uh . . .”

  “Then . . .”

  “Drop the used tuft into the device, then . . .”

  Louisa yanked a chain descending from a varnished wooden bin overhead, and a thunderous rush of water swirled through the device.

  “But where does it go?”

  “We’ve a tank in the basement.”

  Mrs. Sevier put her hand to her mouth, “Louisa, you are so . . . unconventional.”

  Perhaps not the happiest choice of words. Tears welled up in Louisa’s eyes. “That . . . that ungrateful Englishman. We gave him his first American commission. Our home was to be his showcase. Simple courtesy . . . Ordinary decency . . . You’d think he could have made a brief appearance tonight!”

  “I think this, uh . . . thing is perfectly wonderful. Louisa, how I envy you. How I wish I had your courage!”

  “Yes. Well. Do you wish to try it?”

  Antonia giggled into her fan. “Would I were you, dear Louisa; alas, I am merely Antonia. Surely you’ve tucked away a few commodes for your timid friends.”

  Louisa sighed. “In the small room behind the library.”

  The ladies exited, passing into the withdrawing room, which was so thick with cigar smoke Louisa’s eyes watered. Gape-mouthed gentlemen sprawled on love seats, snoring. Doubtless, some would be here in the morning.

  A long case clock struck the one o’clock hour. Antonia stifled her yawn.

  Captain Fornier and Cousin Philippe hovered over the punch bowl as if it might get away. The pun
ch had started the evening as Louisa’s mother’s recipe: pinkish and redolent of citrus. Now, it was shallow, dark brown, and reeked of raw spirits.

  The orchestra was so . . . vigorous! Louisa heard a man’s shout. Oh dear! Had the Irish asked them for jigs?

  “The Robillards’ Christmas ball,” Louisa Robillard reminded her friend, “sets Savannah’s—nay, Georgia’s—standards!”

  “Why of course it does, dear.” Antonia sighed. “We are all so grateful.”

  Captain Fornier instructed the drooping Philippe about “the good earth. La Bonne Terre.” The Captain crumbled invisible soil between his fingers.

  Older ladies fetched their husbands and thanked Louisa.

  That very black maid—Pierre’s Godchild!—sat cross-legged in the window seat, half-concealed by the drapes.

  Her window seat! Pierre’s Godchild!

  Louisa sniffed the air, and, although she would have been shocked by the comparison, she sniffed as a wolf for prey.

  “Poor man,” Louisa said, apparently thinking to herself. “If he only knew.”

  It was late, and Antonia was getting one of her headaches. “Which ‘poor man,’ dear? Philippe?”

  “Don’t be a goose. Of course not Philippe.”

  They passed into the hall, where the musicians offered weary enthusiasm. “Oh, to be young again,” Louisa said.

  “Who? Which ‘poor man’?”

  “Um.”

  “Mrs. Fornier’s little maid is so attractive.”

  “Um.”

  “It’s easy to see why dear Pierre agreed . . .” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Dear Louisa, you were in accord with him, were you not?”