“I didn’t ask her. It is not my business, nor yours. In fact, I’m not pleased to be this involved, but I understand she feels alone and needs someone to talk to about this. I’m going to tell you what I told her. Be patient. God has a plan, and He’s not required to show it to you.”
* * * * *
“I heard a person can find the best coffee and calas in the city here.”
Rosette almost poured powdered sugar on Gabriel’s shoes when she heard Joseph Joubert’s smoky voice as he strolled into the café. She handed Gabriel the canister and headed toward Joseph, her arms outstretched. “So, you have returned?”
He clasped her hands and bowed in what Gabriel deemed an exaggerated performance. “Yes. How could I stay away from all this?”
But when he spoke, he looked only at Rosette, whose cheeks reddened as if she had been bending over the open kettle, stirring sugar for pralines. She clearly did not react like a cautious woman, and Gabriel thought she trusted this man far too much and too soon. This uncharacteristic frivolous behavior from Rosette concerned him, especially since they all knew so little about Joubert. Gabriel had witnessed one painful and disappointing relationship; he would not allow another man to damage his mother again. To remind them they weren’t alone, Gabriel walked over to hand them each a cup of coffee. “Welcome back, Monsieur Joubert,” he said with a voice as cool as the coffee was hot.
“Thank you, Gabriel.” Joseph lifted the cup and sniffed. “Ah, just as I remember. I’ve not had the pleasure of great coffee for days.”
“Let me make you some fresh calas before the morning crowd arrives,” Rosette chirped, fluttering off to the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
Gabriel started to follow her, but Joseph said, “Gabriel, wait. I’ve only been away a few days. Why have I lapsed into being ‘Monsieur Joubert’ again?”
“Habit, I suppose.”
“Of course,” he replied, with the same edge to his voice as Gabriel’s—letting Gabriel know that Joseph didn’t believe him any more than he expected Gabriel would believe Joseph. He finished his coffee then buttoned his frock coat. “I know Saturday is a busy day here, but I would like you to come with me this afternoon to look for more materials for the jobs. And that will allow us time to talk. Man to man.”
“I would appreciate that opportunity,” said Gabriel.
“Good. Then I—”
“Are you leaving?” Rosette appeared and handed Joseph a plate of sweet fried rice cakes under powdered sugar that looked like melted snow.
“Not until after I eat these,” he said. “I need to check the progress of the two houses on Dauphine Street. The seasoned lumber was supposed to arrive from Florida this week. But I’ll be back this afternoon. I’d like Gabriel to help me with some materials, if you think you can spare him.”
Rosette smiled. “That won’t be a problem,” she said.
“Then we will see one another this afternoon,” Joseph said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
...........................
As they went down Dauphine Street, Joseph Joubert showed Gabriel two brick cottages with double chimneys and kitchens with upper galleries that were almost finished.
“I wanted to show you the facade on these cottages. It’s called floche. The plaster is scored to resemble stone, and then it can be painted with a washed-out red to make it decorative. I thought about doing this on the addition to your mother’s house. What do you think?”
“I think it’s impressive, but she needs to see this herself. That’s not a decision I want to make for her. Can you imagine her coming home to an exterior she detests?”
Joseph laughed. “I understand. She’d start tearing it down with her bare hands. Or tearing us down.”
Inside one of the houses, Joseph pointed out the cypress pilaster-style mantel with a faux marble treatment, the tongue-and-groove wood ceiling, and the intricate cornices in the main rooms. “I know Rosette respects your opinion, so I thought it would be important for you to see all this before I discussed it with her. Showing you a design on paper isn’t the same as seeing the final product. I want the people I build for to trust the quality of my work.”
Before getting in the cab, Joseph was stopped by one of the men with a question about a wrought-iron fence. While they spoke, Gabriel examined the hand-crafted corbels waiting to be added to the ceiling. He had faith in the quality of the builder’s construction. It was evident in his attention to detail in door moldings and carved ceiling medallions, those finishing touches that set a house apart from ordinary. Gabriel wanted to have the same faith in the quality of the man his mother obviously cared about.
“I have one more place to stop. Do you still have time?” Joseph headed down Dauphine.
“Sure. Rosette isn’t expecting me back until she closes.”
“Good, because I suspect you didn’t agree to this just to look at a few houses. Am I correct? And if so, then be honest with me.”
Gabriel wondered if Joseph truly meant what he said. There was only one way to find out. “Are you married?”
“Whoa, stop,” Joseph pulled the reins. “Married? You think I am married?”
“I do not know that you aren’t. You leave suddenly for days, sometimes longer, and return unexpectedly. This has happened a number of times, and you’ve only lived here two years, and she’s known you for only a few months. It is cause for suspicion.”
“Marriage? I never thought of that.” He looked like a man who’d had a new idea dock in his mind like a ship on the river. “Of all the things someone might conjecture about my comings and goings, I had not considered that possibility.”
“Well, no one in my family did either. Except me. I’m old enough to remember my father leaving. My mother is one of the strongest women I know, but after he left, there were nights she cried herself to sleep. If this is going to end the same way, I do not want it to start.”
Joseph shook his head back and forth, mumbling. Whatever conversation he was having with himself, he seemed to be losing. Still holding the reins, his elbows resting on his knees, he said, “If she knew we were sitting in the middle of New Orleans talking about her, she’d be home making voodoo dolls.”
Maybe Joseph knew Rosette better than Gabriel thought, because he wasn’t going to debate that one.
“I’m not married, and you’re too late for not wanting it to start. I care about your mother. And I respect her. And to explain the comings and goings, well, if you’ve ever made promises to people, then you know how it feels if you have to disappoint them. I didn’t want them to feel that way. That’s going to have to be enough for now. I think the reins are going to freeze in my gloves, and I’m about to be late for my appointment.”
* * * * *
“I will stab each of my fingers with this needle if I must sit inside one more hour.” Lottie pushed the needle through the new sampler she had started after being bored with the other. If Grand-mère fussed, then she would fuss. Soon Lottie would be married, so what could she do? In fact, this arrangement had the effect of bestowing a power upon Lottie that only the pouting and whining daughters of the dreadfully rich had.
Grand-mère, of late, had been daringly close, however begrudgingly, to what one might call kindness. Lottie’s not wanting to marry Paul, no one cared a whit about. But if Paul chose to walk away from Lottie because of her uncivil language or compulsion to twirl her hair and raise her skirts above her ankles, that Grand-mère cared about. And though Lottie wouldn’t destroy her grandparents in such a way, her grandmother didn’t doubt that she was capable.
The drama of it all was sufficient to amuse Lottie most days, but not today. Winter had decided to be an unbearable brat, and it hurled wind and cold and sometimes rain that hit bare skin like pins. For days, she had been confined to the house, not attending any of her lessons—according to her grandmother—because of the ferocious weather. Not visiting Justine. And facing the worrisome possibility of not being able to go to the orphanage
tomorrow.
“Lottie, my girl, if General Jackson knew you stabbed that well, he would have recruited you for the Battle of New Orleans.”
“I wasn’t born yet, PaPa,” said Lottie, who grinned at her grandfather standing in the doorway of the parlor and looking at her over his spectacles as if he were surveying land. She had spent so little time with him because of the “girl things,” as he called all the party preparations, she’d forgotten how calming it felt to be around him. Not like Grand-mère, who required constant vigilance to assure she couldn’t break through Lottie’s barrier.
“Maybe ‘Old Hickory’ was born too soon, p’tit.”
“He managed a victory without me,” she said. “But a little battle right now would be welcome.” She secured her needle in the sampler and tossed it onto the settee next to her. “I understand how prison could make a person crazy. You know there is an entire world just beyond a wall, but you can only reach it in your mind.”
Grand-père slipped his gold pocket watch out of his vest pocket. “I have time,” he said as he snapped the watch closed, “to wander in the bookshop on Camp Street. Then I can go to my office, where a young lady might choose to read or, if she is not opposed to a brief walk, find herself in Barriere’s, the leading store on Royal Street, where she can browse through all the nouveautés. Assuming there is a young lady here who would meet those qualifications of loving new merchandise like books, fancy things, and her grandfather.”
“Oh, PaPa, you have saved my life!” Lottie jumped up and reached her arms around him, the familiar smell of pipe tobacco making her six again, waiting for him to lift her off the ground. Every night it was the same secret, but for as long as he could gather her up in his arms, she’d cup her hands around his ear and whisper, “Lottie loves you.” Their little ritual ended when Grand-mère decided Lottie was too old for this and that she needed to conduct herself like a young lady. Lottie didn’t tell her grandmother, of course, but one night she told Agnes that if being a young lady meant not hugging Grand-père, then she never wanted to be one. And now she was one, and her occasions to hug him waned, and in months, they wouldn’t even live in the same house. Where had all those days gone?
He tugged one of her curls. “Your grandmother is taking a nap, so I need to tell Agnes you’ll be with me. Hurry. Go fetch all your girl things. Abram and I will wait for you in the carriage.”
Lottie could not remember the last time she’d moved so quickly wearing six petticoats and a wool gown with layers of ruffles.
* * * * *
“What a surprise that you selected only one book today. I expected not to see the bottom half of your face, for all that you’d be carrying.” Grand-père opened the door to his office and followed Lottie in.
Actually, Lottie wanted more books, but if she was to be the wife of wealthy Paul Bastion, then why spend Grand-père’s money when she could spend his? She set the package on one of the side tables in the viewing room and removed her cape, hanging it, along with her bonnet and muff, in the armoire in Grand-père’s office.
“I don’t have as much time to read now. I’m certain that, later, I will be making more visits to the shop.” She kept her voice light, not wanting to weigh her words with the resignation and frustration from which they originated. Since the day he told her about the coming-out party, the two of them had not had one conversation about the suitors there, Paul, or her future. But Lottie did not want to have that discussion today. She wanted this day to be colored scenes painted for the magic projector, so that years from today, she could shine the pictures on the wall and always remember it.
Large black leather portfolios of houses, house plans, and maps crowded the visitors’ table where clients and prospective clients looked to sell or buy or build. Before they understood how their lives had already been charted, she, Justine, Gabriel, and sometimes André would pore over the books, picking Faubourgs and land and houses on sale for prices they couldn’t comprehend. Grand-père also sold and bought land for businesses, though that wasn’t of much interest to them then—or now.
Grand-père walked out of his office, dusting the sleeves of his frock coat. “After all these years, you would think I would have learned to wear a coat at least the same shade of silver as the dust, instead of blacks and browns.”
Lottie flipped pages in the Faubourg-Marigny portfolio. “But you look so distinguished in those dark colors.”
“Is that your kind way of telling me that a gray coat and my silver hair might make me look like a riverboat gambler?”
“I doubt Père François would allow you to look like a gambler and still attend Mass. Certainly Grand-mère would not.” She closed the portfolio. “When your appointment comes, I’ll go to Barriere’s for another change of scenery. I won’t be there long. Unless you need me to be.”
“No, no. Come and go as you please. I suspect my client will be here at least an hour. He’s already looked at the properties for sale, so today we’re meeting to determine the ones he wants to purchase. We were scheduled to meet last week, but he was called away on other business. I’ve tried to keep the weekends free of work, but sometimes in this business you have to be available if you intend to sell.”
It sounded as if he was apologizing, though Lottie had no idea why he felt he should.
He glanced at his watch again; then he pointed to the door. “There he is. Joseph Joubert.”
Lottie looked out the long windows at the front of the office just as her grandfather said, “Isn’t that Gabriel following him?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
...........................
Joseph Joubert and Louis LeClerc started their meeting, delighted that the two young people with them could entertain one another. Lottie acted equally pleased, while Gabriel did his best to avoid eye contact with her.
The two men went into her grandfather’s office, and Lottie wished they could have taken the awkwardness between her and Gabriel with them and shut the door.
“I didn’t expect you would be here. Though, until Joseph stopped, I did not know I would be, for that matter,” said Gabriel.
“Grand-père saved me from boredom and brought me to the bookstore. He told me he had an appointment, but had he told me the name, I would not have known who he was. Or that you would be with him.” She didn’t want Gabriel to think he was the reason for her being at the office.
“Joseph is designing and building additions to our house and the café. I’ve been working with him.”
“Oh, I see,” said Lottie.
Pretending to be transfixed by a map of the Garden District, Lottie sat at the table and hoped she could outwait Gabriel. After ten times of visually tracing her finger up and down St. Charles, she’d almost conceded when he said, “You always won the breath-holding games.”
“Except for the time I passed out.” She let her eyes rest on his face.
“Oh, I disagree. That was most definitely a win. André and I proclaimed you champion. Remember, we looked for laurel to make you a wreath just like the Greeks would be awarded.”
She laughed. “The wreath. I didn’t forget the wreath for days. None of us did. Our first lesson in identifying poison ivy.”
He stood behind her, reached his arm over her shoulder, and pointed at the map. “Garden District?”
His sleeve grazed her neck, and at that moment she was grateful to be an expert breath-holder. She nodded.
“I think Monsieur Joubert might be talking to your father about land there. The Americans, he said, are attempting to outdo one another in who can construct the most pretentious house.”
Sitting in her grandfather’s office and struggling to limit their dialogue to unimportant topics was more painful than jabbing herself with her sewing needle. “I planned to walk to Barriere’s while I waited for Grand-père, since I expected to be waiting alone. Would you care to join me? We could go to Woodlief’s on Chartres Street, if you’d prefer. I don’t have a particular reason for shopping, so either
is fine.”
“Let’s start at one, then if time permits, we can walk to the other,” Gabriel said.
If only he knew that, given different circumstances, she was willing to walk right into his life.
* * * * *
Strolling down Exchange Alley, Lottie wanted to share with Gabriel how much she detested the visit from Paul Bastion and how she dreaded the ones that would be forthcoming. But to mention his name would be insensitive, and she had demonstrated her capacity for that last week. Lottie didn’t really need Gabriel to say the words to know he loved her. It was easier—for her—if he didn’t. Words spoken aloud were irretrievable. Voices gave them form. She was grateful for the wagon that had passed that day, else she might have had to find a way to stop him herself.
On Sundays before they met, she had time to construct an emotional barrier, to convince herself that since what they wanted was impossible, she needed to be protected behind a wall of politeness. Today, the surprise attack of his appearance lowered her defenses and her vulnerability. She sensed it in him as well.
“I want to apologize for how I acted toward you last week on the way home,” Lottie said.
His eyes scanned her face, but he said nothing.
So, he wasn’t going to make this easy for her.
“If the carriage hadn’t passed to interrupt you, I—I was scared… am scared. Because this can go nowhere. And if I let you say those words, they will echo in my heart for the rest of my life.”
She blotted her eyes with one gloved hand and felt Gabriel’s hand entwine itself in her other.
A trio passed, too intensely and loudly arguing about their food bill at Antoine’s to be attentive to Lottie and Gabriel. When the three young men turned out of the alley, Gabriel lifted his arm, bringing Lottie’s hand to his lips.
Love Finds You in New Orleans, LA Page 17
