by Gina Danna
“With Mama down, how can I ignore the demands of the house,” Cerisa answered firmly, leaning into her husband, but the strong lines that outlined her features told Ada that the general would stand no chance.
“Where is Emma?” Francois asked. It was his tone that bothered Ada. It was a touch more concerning than she liked.
“She’s gone, too.”
“How do you mean, ‘gone’?” His question hinged on worry and that now got Ada’s hackles up. Her fiancée seemed way too interested in his sister-in-law, if she understood him right.
Cerisa shrugged. “Surely you remember those two could be rather,” she rolled her eyes, as if trying to find the right words. “Argumentative at times.”
“Wait, please.” Ada’s temper was rising fast with this family’s unconstructive bantering. “Mrs. Fontaine is sick?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Everyone turned to find one of the servants at the door. Ada didn’t even see the ebony skinned young girl enter the room. She stood rather tall for the childlike features. Perhaps she was in her early teens, Ada guessed. The girl was thin but not starved, with long limbs and barefoot. The one thing that immediately grabbed Ada’s attention were her light almond blue eyes.
“Would you take me to her?”
The child nodded and turned with Ada in tow. She could hear Francois still arguing with his sister, so she said nothing but left. With his quick worry over this Emma, Ada realized she must be the woman in the mini portrait she discovered in his coat pocket. Inside seething, she needed to get herself busy before she did something drastic. What that’d be, she wasn’t sure, as her emotions rolled inside her stomach, making her mad and upset all at once. He exposed Richard for the scoundrel he was, but from the look of it, was he any better?
It took Francois a shove by his sister to realize Ada had left. He gritted his teeth and reached for his cane, which Cerisa took instead.
“General, get hold of your wife,” he barked, anger surging. What the hell had he just allowed to happen?
Pierce leaned back against the server, crossing his arms. “I believe this is a discussion for brother and sister.”
“Cerisa! You’re in no state for bickering with me like this!” He stumbled and cursed the injured foot, the pain searing up his leg.
“And you bring home a northerner to wed,” she shot back. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Cerisa, don’t get yourself so worked up,” her husband warned.
“Pierce, please, not now!”
“Tell her what?” Francois narrowed his gaze but his sister wouldn’t back down.
“Mon Dieu!” She threw her hands into the air. “It will come out. It always does!”
“Jack stopped all that,” Francois shot back.
On that note, Cerisa laughed. “And all that evilness just washed away!”
“And who are you to say it was evil?”
“Wicked, and you know it was!” She was fuming. Pierce finally unslouched and went to her, taking her by the arm.
“The doctor told you not to get so riled up, my dear,” he cooed.
“Fiddlesticks!” She turned to give her brother a look as Pierce walked her toward the stairs. “Tell her, Francois. If you have any feeling for her, tell her now, or lose her forever!”
Ice slithered down his back at his sister’s last remark. He’d worked so hard to try to win Ada’s hand and had succeeded only to now have the family secret destroy it? He closed his eyes, trying to cool the rush of nerves that came when it hit him—She was on her way to check on his mother. Saints preserve him!
As they walked the halls back, Ada enjoyed the relief from the heat and humidity by the breeze that blew through the open floor to ceiling windows that surrounded the house. The wrap-around porch also dropped the temperature slightly, enlightening her on how these Southerners could withstand the driving heat that dominated their part of the country.
The servant who took her back intrigued her. The girl had turned her over to another servant who appeared out of nowhere. The boy was quiet as he walked on his soles down the hardwood floors. His coloring was as light as the girl’s. Mulattos were not foreign to her. Many of the runaways she heard from in the Underground Railroad tended to be lighter than their ancestors were when they arrived from African ages ago, and their stories on how they were related to their owners by blood, often caused a stir of sympathy and anger, but what was this boy’s story?
He turned and she almost missed it, being so caught up in her musings, and then he stopped in front of a double door. When he opened it, she found herself in a spacious bedroom, with the windows shut and the mistress bundled in the bed. The older lady looked flushed and miserable.
“Oh, Isaac, please fetch me some water,” she called.
“Mistress Marie, you got a visitor,” he piped back, then he zipped out the door, and hopefully, Ada prayed, for that water.
“Oh, my, please excuse Isaac,” she said softly. “He’s uncomfortable being around the sick.”
Ada swallowed but moved in quickly. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Fontaine, I’m Dr. Lorrance.”
The woman looked at her with a surprised glance. “A woman doctor? Now, where did Cerisa find you? I realize we are short of physicians, due to the unpleasantness, but…” Her eyes closed tight as Ada put her wrist to the woman’s forehead. She was hot, her skin clammy.
Quickly, she went to the washstand and found a pitcher with some water. The clay pitcher was cool, the rag wrapped around it cool as well. She put her medical bag near the bed, rolled up her sleeves and dampened another linen into the water. Wringing out the excess, she put it on her patient’s forehead, right as the woman’s eyes opened.
“Please forgive me. I have had better days,” she moaned.
“Place your worries aside. You’ll return to those days shortly.” She began to loosen the bed linens that were tucked in around her. “You’re like an oven, roasting away all waddled like that. Let’s let you cool.”
Isaac appeared with the bucket and she motioned him to bring it next to her. Before he slipped away, she called, “Isaac, I need you to open these windows.”
“Mistress Marie always says—“
“Yes, but this is for her comfort, so please do as I say.”
The boy ambled to the window and started to open them. Cooler air invaded the room and she relished in it. “Anyone could get a fever in here this way. Now, the bad humors can leave!” She wasn’t sure who she was telling that to, or if it was just a reassurance, but she did.
At the doorway, another colored person arrived. A young woman, her hair pulled back tight and her cotton dress clinging to her with no shape without petticoats and corset. The dress didn’t hit the floor so Ada could see her bare toes peek out. Her apron, though, was clean yet not a pure white, no doubt, Ada figured, from being used so often. Yet she, too, was a mulatto, her eyes appearing crystal green.
“Miss Ada, my sister Gemma.”
The girl came in. “We’re so glad you’re here,” she stated boldly. “Doctors been scarce, and Miss Marie wouldn’t take one with the quarters sick. ‘Fraid she’s been ailing a while.”
Ada smiled, plunging her hands into the bucket. Her skin tingled from rubbing Francois’s mother down. The two colored servants got busy helping her, opening windows, re-dipping the cloth for their mistress’s face.
“Anyone else sick?”
“Got a handful down in the quarters. Think they’ve hit the worst of it,” the girl shrugged.
“Has Mrs….” She stopped, not knowing the proper name for Francois’s enceinte sister.
“Has Mrs. Duval been here? No, her mama not allow it, being big with child.” The girl sighed as she expunged the excess water off the strip of cloth. If Ada was guessing, she bet the girl was attracted to that Union general the girl was married to. She wanted to laugh. Youth…yet, the thought stuck her, was she that far off? She shook that thought aside and refocused on the ailment.
She pulled
out a mortar and pedestal, with a paper packet, opening it carefully and withdrawing a couple of twigs. They were dry, so they pulverized easily with a couple of stiff grinds. She poured the contents into a cup and added water. Stirring it swiftly, she came back to her patient and lifted her slightly.
“Drink this. Slowly,” she added, doing her best to barely tip the cup to Marie’s lips so it could trickle in. The woman drank it with only once coughing. “There. A little willow bark will help with that fever.” She watched patiently as the woman fell back asleep. Ada smiled. Sleep was the best way to get over yellow fever, she figured.
“Hmmm,” she hummed, checking on her patient again. “I think, if you’ll stay with her and keep doing what I’ve been doing of dabbing her face with the wet rag, I could go to ‘the quarters’ and take a peek.”
“Uh, Mrs. Fontaine wouldn’t allow that,” the boy stated bluntly.
That surprised her. “And why not? Isn’t she in charge of watching over the…” she stumbled, trying to find the right phrase. “Help?”
Chapter 43
“Joe Johnston would have retreated after two days of such punishment.”
—Ulysses S. Grant surmised, familiar with the CSA General in the West, May 7, 1864 Battle of the Wilderness
Francois sat in the library, pouring another glass of wine and sank back into the chair. Coming home had turned to hell. He’d expected a marvelous event, not this. Perhaps seeing Jack? Emma? His nephews? Nope, they were all gone. As to Emma, that was probably good. Nothing like bringing another woman home and having to contend with hell.
Fact was he was here because they were sick in Louisiana. Sick of the Yankees, sick of the War, sick of the occupation but also physically sick with the yellow fever that ran rampant through here in the summer months. Reason his family had their retreat in New York. But the way it looked now, from what he’d seen of the war, he wasn’t sure he’d ever see that home again.
As to Ada, his thinking stopped. His heart was heavy. He’d gotten over Emma, so he should congratulate himself. Ada was perfect. A beautiful lady, one with a head on her shoulders he should be wary of. Despite everything, he’d fallen for her. She didn’t like him being a Southerner or a slave-owner, but she’d saved his life in more ways than one and was a passionate demon in bed with him. He’d saved her from wasting time on that scoundrel, yet, was he bad enough to be one as well? He poured another glass.
The doors to the room slammed open. He glanced up, halfway expecting her and she was there, breathing fire and brimstone, if he could read her face right. He girded himself up for the attack.
“You, you heathen!”
Now, that curse startled him. He relaxed a little. “Hardly, my dear. I’m a good Catholic, born and raised.”
“That is not what I meant!” She flew in and stopped before the desk. Mildly, he wondered if her witch’s broom was stuck in the furniture or on the ground?
“How is Mama?”
“Your mother is well on her way to recovery. The fever broke just before I left for the quarters.” She paced, flushed and furious. Yet to him, she was so alive, it ignited his passion. “I go down there and find a flock of mulatto children, all with unusual eye color. Green and blue are hardly normal colors for the coloreds!”
“How do you know? Did you become an expert on this? Yankee schools teach you that cockamamie stuff?”
She whirled, her skirts swishing as she turned. “How dare you! And I thought you were more enlightened!”
That made him get up, hobble around the table and take her by the shoulders, forcing her to sit. “Ada, mulattos are pretty much prevalent down here. Millions of reasons why, majority of which you’d despise and the rest denied. But it does happen.”
“And with a great deal of regularity here! How many of these did you father? They carry your blue eyes,” she snapped.
Inside, his heart broke. He’d lose another again to the family tradition. “Yes, one was mine. I was a young man. Not supposed to go play with the pretty little lady next door, so…” he shrugged, realizing that sounded bad to even him. “As you might bet, blue runs in the family, too. Slaves of that color fetched a pretty sum, or so the family claimed.”
“You fathered slaves for profit?!”
“I guess you could view it that way,” He was going to hell, and he knew it.
“Ah, no wonder Mrs. Wiggins laughed at me for agreeing to wed you! You realize I don’t share well!”
“You’re not sharing. Haven’t in a long time. We don’t even have slaves here, thanks to my brother Jack. He freed them all last year.”
“I beg your pardon?” She frowned. “I don’t believe you! They call you massa and—”
“Yes, they do. Some habits die hard. Look, Jack freed them and gave them a parcel of land, plus for those who stayed, he paid them. Not a bad situation, considering. Some did leave, but the bulk stayed.”
“Well, of course. You can’t go traveling anywhere here as a freeman!”
“Yes, they can and they have.” He ran his fingers through his hair as frustration threatened. “They were slaves but given their freedom. Jack’s offer was good and here, they were still covered by us on anything that’d go wrong. Yes, there are still the remains of that time, but they’re given a chance. Creoles handle this situation differently. Having freed servants isn’t a rarity.”
She stood there, heaving to breath but the corset restrained her. “How could you?”
For a long time, he never given it a thought. It was done. Now, though, a voice, deep inside him, croaked the same question. Started when he was with her, maybe before when they waited for a fight, but the reality was hitting when he started to heal and listened to her. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, but it did make him question.
“You simply don’t dispute the family rules,” he stated. Or how the family accumulated their wealth. “We’re around them all the time. We grew together. I knew her well. I told you I was young and she was pretty.”
She walked right up to him and slapped his cheek hard. He wasn’t ready for that, nor its sting, yet he probably deserved it. Fire glowed in her eyes, her cheeks were flushed, turning her into a breathing volcano and that passion, those flames, made his heart thud wildly. A mild maid was not in her repertoire. No wonder she fought, and won, her arguments with the Union Medical Department. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her.
“Doc! Doc Ada!!”
They both turned to find Isaac barging in, gulping for air from running.
Instantly, she threw her anger aside and went to him. “Yes, Isaac, what is wrong? Mrs. Fontaine all right?”
“Yessum, ma’am,” he stuttered between gulps of air. “But there’s Mes Jenny calling for ya.”
“Miss Jenny?” She wasn’t sure if she was a servant, but she guessed so. “Take me to her.” She swung a glance toward Francois. He grabbed his cane and ambled after her.
The boy took them to the front of the house as Francois tried to recall the Jennys he knew, and outside his servants, all he could think of was the shopkeeper’s wife. She’d been with Mrs. Wiggins. What was going on?
They got to the entrance hall and there stood Jenny Miller. She gripped her reticule and looked worried or scared, he couldn’t determine. Her husband, Benjamin Miller, ran the mercantile in town, the gathering place for most of the parish. Francois picked up his speed to catch up to Ada, finding his step easier as they went, that or he just ignored the pain.
“Mrs. Miller, good afternoon,” he greeted. “To what do we owe this visit?”
“Mr. Fontaine,” Jenny nodded but turned her attention to Ada. “It’s been told that you are a doctor. I’m hoping I’m correct. Can’t always get the truth out of these darkies.”
Ada flinched. Granted, darkies was the usual term, but the tone was insulting. Yet her medicinal ear got the urgency, too. “I am. How can I help you?”
The woman outwardly sighed with relief. “Fever is flying rampant through the parish. I’m wo
rried about my husband and several others are concerned over their families as well. Could you come and see about us? I understand you’re Mr. Fontaine’s wife, or to be, and we don’t have much in Union money left to pay. Confederate ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on,” she snarled, but then she switched back to pleading. “Please?”
Ada nodded before she could think. Doctors didn’t decide help based on the political standings of their patients, just their health was the issue. “Yes,” she answered, calling for her medical bag.
She wasn’t ready for the onslaught that hit her. For the next four days, she had her own medical practice brought on by necessity, being the only doctor in town. The remaining physician had succumbed to the illness after the first day of her taking charge and she truly believed it was because the elderly man had been run ragged between the town and farms that scattered across the land.
“Dr. Ada.”
She turned, too exhausted to think, it was just automatic for her to do. There stood Fanny, one of Francois’s former slaves. In her hands, she held a pitcher and she handed it to Ada.
“Take it by the handle. It still be mighty warm.”
Ada did and took a whiff, crinkling her nose. “Pine?”
Fanny snorted. “Helps with the parched achy throat. A cup of that and tablespoon of honey will solve that complaint.”
Ada sighed, a slight wave of relief flittering across her shoulders. “Thank you. It’s sorely needed.”
“Yessum. I’m familiar with this sickness. Visits yearly. Most these folk scatter like the wind during the summer, that river they use so much ain’t nothing but a cesspool at times like this.” She leaned in. “Most us slaves know what to take to stave it off, though this year, with us being free, some think they’re too good for old slave remedies.” She snorted and walked off.
