Tansy

by Gretchen Craig

  There lay the parchment that would have condemned her to a diminished life once and for all. She reached for the paper to crumple it into a ball, to throw it into the cook fire, but she paused. She had to be canny, thrifty, and smart. She scissored off the writing and slipped the rest of the page into the drawer. The strip that bore the humiliation of her doubts and fears she folded and folded until it was a small tight square. This she threw into the fire and watched it flame brightly before it was consumed.

  She got Alain up and fed him a big breakfast. He swung his legs as he ate his sausage and rice. Happy, healthy, trusting his maman to keep him safe. And she would. As other women did, women like Christophe’s mother, or his Musette, or Rosa. They had survived without a Valere or a Nicolas. So would she.

  “What rhymes with book, Alain?”

  He licked a finger. “Cook, took, shook, mook, sook, look.”

  She smoothed his hair. “You are a great rhymester, Alain Valcourt. You ready to see Mrs. O’Hare?”

  He was. She dropped him off and walked on to school. Later in the morning, when her boys had covered the board with cat hat sat mat flat and free tea sea glee, she pulled the orange out of her apron pocket. The boys looked at her blankly for a moment and she smiled at them in challenge.

  Theodor, a little boy whose father had a cigar shop, raised his arm and waved it madly.

  “Yes, Theodor?”

  “Torange!”

  She grinned at the glint of mischief in his eye. “Orange, torange. Sounds like a rhyme to me. What exactly is a torange, Theodor?”

  He looked stricken for a moment, but he rallied. “A torange is a big orange cigar.”

  Tansy laughed, so very pleased with his ingenuity. So very pleased to be his teacher.

  On the way home, she dropped by Dr. Benoit and paid him the small fee she owed him. After supper, she felt too happy to settle down. “Let’s go to the levee, Alain. Let’s see which ships came all the way from India.”

  They swung hands and sang Alouette as loudly as they pleased. Lanterns flickered along the levee while stevedores continued loading and unloading cargo. The ships, anchored five and six deep from the dock shifted gently in the current, the lanterns in the mast tops twinkling like fairy stars.

  They imagined that in one of these ships a fabulously rich raja wearing a purple silk turban and a ruby bigger than a hen’s egg sat in splendor amid gold and silver and jewels. “Which ship, Maman?”

  Tansy chose a ship with fresh paint and a proud up-turned bow. “That very one. If you close your eyes and breathe, you’ll smell the spices he brought with him from India.”

  Alain closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He opened his eyes and frowned. “Maman,” he whispered, “it smells bad.”

  Tansy laughed. The river did smell bad, like sewer and tar and mud. “We’re pretending, Alain. I’m going to pretend it smells like cinnamon.” She breathed in deeply through her nose. “Hmm, cinnamon.”

  Alain tried again. He closed his eyes and breathed in. “Hmm, cinnamon.”

  Tansy grabbed him into a hug. “Let’s go home and get you into bed. It’s not your time to sail away to China or India or even Mobile.”

  That night Tansy slept deeper, more peacefully, than she had in weeks. Saturday she woke early and got her cook fire started. She fried three dozen fruit tarts and let Alain sprinkle them with sugar. She packed them up in a basket and together they carried them to the open market at Bayou St. John north of the Quarter. Within an hour, she had an empty basket and a pocket full of coins.

  The next Saturday she took five dozen tarts, and in another basket, paper, quill, and ink. Once the tarts were all sold, she set out a hand-lettered sign: Letters written, 25 cents. She wrote only one letter, but the one-eyed sailor who had her write his mother back in Massachusetts promised to tell his mates about her.

  Very pleased with her success, Tansy sat next to her oil lamp that evening after Alain had gone to sleep. She picked up her bobbins to work on the lace collar she had been tatting for months. Madame Celeste had had a lace display in her shop, and Tansy had noticed she asked the world for a three inch wide yard of lace no finer than the collar Tansy worked. She could sell this collar. She could make lace ribbon in the evenings and sell that. And she could buy coffee, thank heavens.

  Christophe would be pleased with her.

  The thought had come to her unbidden. She worked hard not to tantalize herself imagining Christophe sitting across the parlor, his nose in a book while she sewed or read or simply watched him in the lamplight. Some choices could not be undone. He had made a new life for himself, a hundred miles up the Mississippi. It didn’t matter to him anymore what she did.

  But he’d promised to come see Alain at Christmas time. He would see she’d shed the life he’d always despised. She was as enterprising as his seamstress, as purposeful as Rosa. He should be proud of her. More important, she was proud of herself.

  ~ ~ ~

  Christophe refolded Rosa’s letter and tapped it against the edge of his desk. They exchanged letters regularly, hers generally full of news about the school and the people they both knew. News of everyone except Tansy. This letter, however, had been all about Tansy.

  She wrote about Augustine, the brothel owner, about Tansy’s selling gowns and fruit tarts, yet she wrote nothing about Valcourt. Would Tansy have to sell her ball gowns if she were still the man’s placée? It’s what he’d ached for, her turning Valcourt out of her life.

  And if she had, would she marry him now? She could have written him she’d detached herself from Valcourt. She could have written him that she was teaching, and told him about her students. She should have written him about Alain and his recovery, whether he was growing and learning and if he missed him. It had been months, and she had not bothered to write.

  He leaned his face into his hands. He’d moved to Baton Rouge for the chance to build a new life. Maybe to find someone else and forget Tansy. But it wasn’t going to happen. He knew that now.

  So many times he’d been tempted to present her with a list of his assets. His earnings as a musician and as a teacher. The houses he owned in the Quarter, the half interest in the bakery on Decatur. His bank account. But he’d always held back out of pride. He didn’t want her to come to him because of his damned assets. He wanted her to want him.

  Images, scents, tastes of the night she’d come to his bed washed over him. He tried to never think of that night, but at moments of weakness, he was overcome with searing memory and burning humiliation. That she could love him like that, and then leave him. He welcomed the anger that knotted his jaw. Damn her, anyway. He shoved back from the desk and picked up his valise. The steamship left for New Orleans in half an hour. But he was not going in order to see Tansy. He was going to see Alain. And Musette and Rosa and Denis. Not Tansy. She’d made her choice.

  He arrived in New Orleans on Christmas Eve and took a room at a hotel near Rampart overlooking Congo Square. Tomorrow the slaves would have a few hours off to dance to the drums and sing and celebrate. Maybe Musette would like to come down with him. They could drink rough rum and dance and forget for a while the white blood in their veins, the taint that removed them from their African ancestors and turned them into solid citizens.

  No, what he hoped for was an afternoon with Alain.

  He unpacked his valise. In the bottom, wrapped in his shirts, was the boat he’d carved from a block of balsa wood for Alain’s Christmas present. After he’d proved it would float, he’d painted it red and blue with yellow port holes. Tomorrow, if the weather was good, he and Alain would launch it in the stream the other side of Congo Square.

  Rosa had invited him to her Christmas Eve party, but Tansy might be there. He knocked on Musette’s door instead to join her and their old friends in telling stories and playing music and dancing in her small parlor. After too many cups of rum punch, he said goodnight. A cold front had come through. The night was cold and clear. He decided to walk off the buzz in his head
before he retired to his hotel room.

  He could have stayed the night with Musette, he supposed. She’d kissed him goodnight with enough warmth to let him know he’d be welcome, but he’d seen the way Charles Mansard had watched her through the evening. Charles was a good man, widowed more than a year now. If Musette had a chance to be happy with Charles, Christophe should get out of the way.

  He walked across the Quarter till he was in front of Rosa’s Academy. A single candle burned in Rosa’s upstairs window. The party was over, then. He thought about climbing the stairs. Rosa would give him a glass of wine and tell him to put his feet up. He’d had enough wine and he wasn’t fit company. He’d see Rosa tomorrow when he could bring the book of John Donne’s poems he’d found for her.

  He walked past taverns whose yellow light and raucous celebrations spilled onto the pavement. Cats scurried in the shadows after rats; otherwise, the streets were quiet. He paused across from Tansy’s cottage. Candlelight seeped through the shutter at her bedroom window. Was she alone? It was late. Surely on Christmas Eve Valcourt would be home with his wife, would have to get up early for Mass. But what if she shared her bed with someone else? Bile rose in his throat at the thought. All those years she’d been with Valcourt, if she should now betray him with yet another man. His step faltered. Betrayal? Yes, it would be betrayal. He had not imagined that she cared for him. She had branded him with the heat of her body and the need in her heart the night she came to him. If she could do that to him, then take another man, he would — what would he do? He would have to leave Louisiana. He would go to France. Paris, or Lyon. Or maybe he’d sail to Indonesia or North Africa.

  He returned to the hotel, suspicion gnawing at him. She was a changed woman, Rosa had written. Maybe she wasn’t Tansy anymore. Maybe she’d turned hard, having to fend for herself. Maybe she did what so many former placées did, taking lovers as they pleased.

  He wiped his hand over his face. He’d conjured up this phantom lover from nothing. He had no evidence, no reason to think she had taken up with a new man. It shocked him, how painful the thought was. He really didn’t think he could bear it.

  “Stop it.” He’d said it aloud, he realized, his voice harsh and desperate. He lit the candle by the bed and opened up Rosa’s volume of poems. He’d read John Donne until he could sleep.

  ~ ~ ~

  Christmas morning, Alain bounced onto her bed. “Get up, Maman. Christophe is coming today!”

  “Today?” She pushed the hair out of her face.

  “He promised. How many months until Christmas, he said, and I counted August, September, October, November, Christmas!”

  “But he may not mean Christmas day, darling. He might mean tomorrow or the next day.” Why couldn’t he have written her when he was coming? He must know Alain would be waiting for him. And why couldn’t he have written her anyway? She could hardly write to him first. If he’d just sent her a few lines, inquiring about Alain, for instance, she could have written back. She could have told him about school, maybe hinted that she was no longer tied to Valere. Would she be so brazen? He’d think she was telling him to come get her.

  Well, that’s what it would mean, wouldn’t it? Valere is gone. No man here. Come get me. Impossible. He’d think she just wanted a man, any man, to take care of her like Valere had done. She certainly did not mean any such thing. If that’s what he thought, he could just keep himself in Baton Rouge. She didn’t need Valere or him, either. And how was she supposed to plan the day with Alain expecting him to appear at any moment?

  When Alain heard a knock at the door, he flew off the bed. Tansy heard him unlatch the front door and fling it open. Lord, what if it really were Christophe and she not yet dressed, her hair a fright? No glad shout came from the front room. She let out a breath of relief.

  “Good morning, Grand-mère.” Maman had come by? She had not seen her since they quarreled over Valere. Well, Christmas Day was a good time for reconciliation. She hurriedly put her wrapper on and tied her hair back. Estelle appeared at the bedroom door.

  “I thought we’d go to Mass together.”

  Tansy took in the stiff shoulders and carefully blank face. Maman was unsure of her welcome for the first time in her life? She walked over and kissed her mother’s cheek and was rewarded with a quick, hard hug.

  At the hint of wetness in her mother’s eye, Tansy kissed her again. “That would be lovely. If you’ll help Alain dress, I’ll put myself together. Do we have time for coffee?”

  “I’ll make it.” Estelle cleared her throat. “Dress for a cold day.”

  They walked to the St. Louis Cathedral, the bells calling everyone to mass. After a half hour of elbow to elbow, knee to knee worship, they emerged into the sunshine.

  “Martine and Frederick are having us to lunch, Maman. Won’t you come with us? You’ll be welcome.”

  “No, I can’t. Monsieur Girard is taking me to Antoine’s for a champagne brunch.” She hesitated, and Tansy wondered if she saw a slight blush in her mother’s cheek. “We’re celebrating our … understanding.”

  “He’s spoken for you?”

  “Yes. I must admit, I made him a good deal. I’m not so young, after all, and I rather like him.”

  Tansy laughed. “So you made him ‘a good deal’? You must like him very much indeed.” She kissed her cheek. “I’m happy for you, Maman. And for Monsieur Girard.”

  Estelle glanced at Alain whose attention was fixed on a puppy squirming in a little girl’s arms. “Part of our agreement, Tansy, was about you. He will pay for your subscription to the balls for as long as you remain in need of a protector.”

  Tansy’s shoulders dropped. She let out a long breath. “Maman. Do you not see? I am not in need of a protector.”

  Estelle briskly rearranged the strings of the reticule hanging from her arm. “Yes, well. For as long as you like, then.” She pecked Alain on the top of his head. “Good morning to you. I shall come by later in the week.”

  Tansy watched her mother walk quickly through the crowd exiting the cathedral, on to her new patron. Maman did not understand, not yet, but at least she had reentered her life. For that she would say an extra rosary of thanks.

  They had a festive lunch with Tansy and Frederick. Cuban coffee, coconut cakes, ham, sweet potato pie, and fresh asparagus. Alain had opened Frederick’s present first and ate with his six new cannon arrayed around his plate, three for the British, three for the French.

  Martine sat close enough to hold Frederick’s hand while she sipped her coffee. Tansy had never seen her look lovelier. “This afternoon,” Martine said, “we’re going —” She took a sharp breath. “Oh.” She turned rounded eyes on Frederick. “Oh, I felt it again.”

  She took Frederick’s hand and placed it over her abdomen. “Feel it?”

  Frederick grinned like a boy. “I feel it.”

  “Alain,” Martine called, “come here.” She held his hand against her belly and waited. “There. Did you feel it?”

  Alain frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Martine smiled at him. “There’s a baby growing inside me. A girl or a boy for you to play with someday.”

  “Well, if it’s a boy, we can play. But I don’t play with girls.”

  Frederick mussed his hair. “We’ll see about that. Come on, let’s blow up some hillsides with those cannon.”

  After an hour of sitting like a coiled spring, Tansy wished Martine and Frederick a happy Christmas and took Alain home. She checked whether Christophe had left a note on the front door. He had not. Determinedly, she set out her bobbins and worked at lace making. Alain played happily with his cannon, interrupting the quiet with eruptions and explosions and loud shrieks of missiles flying through the air. Under the sounds of war, the clock ticked on.

  When the knock came, Alain instantly stilled. He looked at Tansy, then rushed for the door and threw it open. “I knew you’d come!” He threw himself in Christophe’s arms and buried his face in his chest.

  Tans
y blinked her eyes dry and rose with all the control she possessed. If she didn’t keep herself in check, she’d throw herself into his arms just as Alain had. Her face wooden, she forced a smile and welcomed Christophe into her home.

  ~ ~ ~

  Christophe dropped the package and caught Alain up, hugging him and laughing with him. “Of course I’ve come. I promised you I would, didn’t I?”

  “Happy Christmas, Christophe.” Tansy stood six feet away, still as a statue except for hands twisting around each other. “It’s been a lovely day, hasn’t it? Cold, but sunny. A good day for Christmas. It should be cold for Christmas, after all. December should be cold.”

  He scooped up the package, carried Alain inside and closed the door. Then he turned to Tansy. She did not reach out her hand in greeting nor take a step closer. “Happy Christmas to you,” he answered.

  She had lost weight, her face thinner, her gown looser. But her skin still suggested rich cream, and her gaze was still direct from dark, luminous eyes. She clasped her hands before her in a tight wad. She was tense. He tried to swallow the disappointment rising in his throat. She wasn’t glad to see him.

  “Come sit down,” she said. “I have wine punch. Oh, you need a glass. I’ll get you a glass. For the punch.”

  He’d never seen her like this, unnerved and babbling. “Thank you.” Uncomfortable at her discomfort, he carried Alain with him to the sofa and eased down. Tansy left them, to get the punch, and he shifted Alain in his lap.

  “Let’s have a look. I’ve heard of boys growing a foot in a few months.” He ran his fingers through Alain’s hair. “But I don’t see any sign of another foot.”

  Alain grinned and held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “I grew this much.”

  Christophe squeezed Alain’s biceps. “And you’re twice as strong as the last time I saw you. How tall do you plan to grow?” He noticed a neatly sewn patch on Christophe’s knee. Never before had he seen Alain in anything but well-tailored, pristine clothes. Tansy had indeed changed.