East of Orleans

by Renee' Irvin

  “More dangerous than here?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Bodies are arriving at the morgue. There is panic and talk of an epidemic. If I do not get her out in the next few days then she may be under quarantine.”

  Influenza spread throughout Paris, but it was not an epidemic as feared. The artists had taken to painting inside their houses; the city was different now. The news of Jacqueline Rousseau O’Brien returning home filled the streets of Savannah. Of course, Jules finally struck a deal with Noble Jones. Jules never admitted to being responsible for Jacqueline’s absence. Jones had been in power in a small way, but with an election coming up and with the generous contributions of Jules McGinnis, Jones saw it as a benefit for the people to proceed with Jacqueline’s trial as quickly as possible.

  The truth was Jacqueline had been so weakened by the Parisian flu some feared she had returned home to die. She could no longer even take her beloved walks through Forsyth Park. Jacqueline was suffering not only from the effects of the illness, but the years of opium use had started to take its toll. She had become a mere shadow of herself. However, always powdered, perfumed, and wearing the latest French couture, Jacqueline was still a stunning woman. Over the next few weeks, Noble Jones prepared Jacqueline for the trial. He persuaded her to plead self-defense and she did. Of course, there was gossip in the streets that it was not self-defense and that she was nothing less than a cold-blooded murderer. The artists in Forsyth Park looked around with scowls on their faces when shouts were heard that Jacqueline should be hung like Alice Riley. The artist shook their heads and then went back to painting.

  Rumors were heard all over Savannah that Jacqueline Rousseau O’Brien would walk free for the murder of Jacob Hartwell. Soon after Jacqueline returned and a trial date was set, Mae Patterson and the two-faced girls returned to Savannah. The first evening after arriving in Savannah, Mae walked into the hotel lobby and overheard the twin girls discussing whether Jacqueline would serve any time. Mae sent a message to Jules McGinnis that she must see him and soon.

  Jules’s answer came, but he never did. The messenger told Mae that Jules had no desire to speak to her. The twin girls heard Mae shouting and cursing inside her hotel room. They rushed in to find her exploding with anger. Mae swore to the girls that she would kill both Jules McGinnis and Jacqueline if it were the last thing that she did. The twin girls could smell the strong odor of whiskey on Mae and just assumed that she was drunk and by tomorrow, she would have forgotten the entire ordeal. But Mae did not forget.

  In a few days Jacqueline, appeared before the good people of Chatham County and on a cool rainy day, the people of Savannah responded with an acquittal of Jacqueline Rousseau O’Brien for the murder of Jacob Hartwell.

  “Thank Mary mother of Jesus!” Kate O’Brien shouted when she heard the good news. Excitement rang through the streets of Savannah, but not everyone was happy. The night before, Mae Patterson had been seen chanting and carrying on with Mathilde out near the burned down plantation of Lettie McGillivrary. There was a black cloud that was spreading across the city. As Jacqueline stepped out of the courthouse and down the steps, she stumbled upon the mutilated body of her dead black cat. Jacqueline burst into tears. Patrick stepped out in front of Jacqueline to remove the body of her dead cat when Mae Patterson appeared from a carriage.

  Mae entered the yard of the courthouse, quietly pulled a gun out from her drawstring purse and pointed it at Jacqueline. Patrick moved Jacqueline out of the way and then tried to reason with Mae to put the gun away.

  “This has nothing to do with you, Mr. O’Brien, get out of my way!” screamed Mae. There was no reasoning with her. Mae aimed the gun at Jules and Jacqueline started screaming, putting her hands over her face. Patrick glanced over his shoulder and saw Mathilde with a smile on her face. He turned back around and said, “Mae, if you do this, there’ll be another death for you to contend with. Please, give me the gun.”

  “No! That whore and Jules McGinnis have destroyed my life,” said Mae.

  Patrick shook his head and said, “No Mae, you’re just upset—now hand me the gun.” He watched her closely and then went for the gun. With Jacqueline standing right behind him, Mae shot Patrick O’Brien three times in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  It was late in the evening when Doc Chandler came. The streets were quieter than they had been before. The artists had packed up their easels and gone home. A slow drizzle of rain was falling, and families from all over Savannah had begun to call on Kate and Mr. O’Brien to extend their condolences.

  Dr. Chandler pushed through the crowds. His feet moved quickly and once inside the house on Oglethorpe he removed his raincoat and draped it across a dining room chair. He glanced nervously around the parlor and then spotted Jules.

  “Where is she?” asked Chandler.

  “Follow me.”

  When Jules and Dr. Chandler entered Jacqueline’s dimly-lit bedroom, they saw a devastated Isabella leaning over Jacqueline. Jacqueline tried to rise up, but she was too weak. Dr. Chandler smiled, put out a hand, urging her to lie back down. He then knelt over and kissed Jacqueline lightly on the cheek. “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Ah, my child, lie down and let me check you,” said Dr. Chandler. Jacqueline glanced at him. Dr. Chandler opened the front of her white cotton gown and listened to her chest with his stethoscope. He looked at her and then backed away.

  “It will only be a short time now,” he whispered to Jules. “Let her sleep.”

  Before Isabella left the room she went to Jacqueline’s side and sat on the edge of the bed. Jacqueline took Isabella’s hand and squeezed it hard, “You have been like a sister to me.”

  “You are my sister,” Isabella said, unable to hold back the tears. “Shh, I want you to rest. You’re going to be fine.”

  Jacqueline turned to Jules and Dr. Chandler. “Can the two of you leave for a few moments?”

  Dr. Chandler nodded. “Only a few minutes.” Then he and Jules left the room.

  A jolt of pain hit Jacqueline when she tried to breathe. Slowly, she removed the gold cross necklace from her neck that Isabella had given her. “My baby, I want you to see that she has this. I want her to wear it always and know that I loved her. I want you to promise me something.”

  “Yes, ask me, ask me anything.”

  “Promise me that you will help raise Juliette in this house. I never wanted to leave this house.”

  “I promise you,” said Isabella.

  “Jules, he will need you. He is not a bad man,” she said.

  Down the hall in Juliette’s bedroom, Jules looked at Dr. Chandler. “Is there any way she can get better.”

  “Things will not change.”

  “So, she will die?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. How did you meet her?” asked Jules.

  Dr. Chandler rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment. “I was a young doctor in New Orleans. I was there completing my residency and Jacqueline was still a child. I was about to leave work and a young prostitute that I had helped after a botched abortion ran inside the hospital. She had a desperate look on her face and pleaded for me to go with her. She took me to a bordello in the French Quarter. I was ushered to a dark, dirty, wet basement. There I saw a shadow of a girl curled up in a fetal position. It would have been impossible for me to have treated her there and when I attempted to pick her up I realized that she was in shock. She didn’t say a word. Again, I, bent down to pick her up and she started to whimper like a child. I told her that I would take care of her.” Dr. Chandler paused. “They had her so drugged with opium that she was barely alive. I started to lift her and realized that she was in pain. There was a trail of blood around her frail body. I pulled up her dress and started to examine her when I realized that she had a dead fetus that she had not yet delivered. I pressed her hand tight against mine and removed the dead fetus. Jacqueline was thirteen. I have never been able to forget the look on her face. I took her to the hospita
l but knew that she couldn’t stay there forever. I didn’t know what to do with her. I always wanted to adopt her, but I had just gotten married and my wife was not too happy when I said that I wanted to adopt a thirteen-year-old girl. I never forgave my wife or myself for letting Jacqueline return to that place. And then for years I kept up with her, would send her money; the gold bracelet that she wears on her right wrist I gave her the day she left the hospital. She always haunted me.”

  “Why didn’t you go back for her?” asked Jules.

  “There were times that I wanted to. I thought about it, but how could I raise a thirteen- year-old girl on my own? When I heard that she was in Atlanta and needed a place, I sent her to Mae Patterson’s. I had been to Mae’s on a few occasions and checked some of the girls—it was a clean place and I thought Mae had a good heart.”

  “There was a time when she did,” said Jules.

  Dr. Chandler smiled. “It was my idea for Jacqueline to use the opium to her advantage. I told her how much to give the men to drug them just enough to knock them out. Since I knew no way to get her away from that life, which was the only way I knew to protect her.”

  Jules nodded. A sad look came over his face; a look that was never to leave, never the same again. He faced Dr. Chandler. “Can you keep her comfortable?”

  Dr. Chandler nodded.

  “Thank you for telling me,” said Jules.

  It was almost midnight when Jules was called to Jacqueline’s bedside. She opened her eyes and smiled a weakly. “Are you leaving?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I ‘m afraid,” said Jacqueline.

  Jules raised his eyebrows. “You afraid, you’ve never been afraid of anything. I want you to rest.”

  “Do you love me?” asked Jacqueline.

  “I have never loved anyone but you,” he said. “I want you to get well, I’m going to get a divorce and we’re going to be a family.”

  “That’s all I ever wanted,” she said, then she fell asleep.

  Jules left the room and called for Dr. Chandler. Kate brought Jacqueline some water, but she was not strong enough to drink it. Before dawn, Jacqueline awoke and asked for Dr. Chandler. He entered her room and she smiled. “You always took care of me,” she said. He did not say anything but he watched her remove the gold bracelet that he had given her years before. “I want you to give this to my daughter and promise me that you will always look after her.”

  Dr. Chandler nodded and never said a word to her again. He left the room with a single gold bracelet in his hand and broke down and cried. Jules was standing in the kitchen with others when he saw Dr. Chandler enter the room. Dr. Chandler simply nodded that it was time.

  Jules ran up the stairs, into Jacqueline’s bedroom and found her peacefully sleeping. He slid into the bed next to her and said a silent prayer, more than he knew he had the right to. He took Jacqueline into his arms and cried and cried. She smiled, a tear ran down her face, then she took one last breath.

  Jules came to see Juliette every time he got a chance. But because of his pain and the loneliness, he was drinking more and more. After Jacqueline’s death he was a changed man, but he could never ever talk about her again. There was never to be happiness in his life again. The thing he loved most he had lost. And he wasn’t able to bear it. He was forever changed.

  As Jacqueline had requested, Isabella moved into the house on Oglethorpe and left Jules to his drink and his grief. He did not even try to reconcile with Isabella. In fact, he gave her everything that she wanted or needed—he was just indifferent to her and everything else in his life, except for Juliette. Every week he would take the baby with him to Bonaventure cemetery to visit the grave of her mother. He’d put flowers on the tombstone and whisper words that Juliette could not understand.

  Life was complicated, but to Isabella, death seemed more so. Death to her was final and when there were no answers, it became like a puzzle that she had to try to explain. And explain was what she had to do when she looked through the window of Jules’s Bay Street warehouse and saw him lying on the floor.

  Since Jacqueline’s death, Jules had spent the best part of six months trying to drink himself to death. He had finally succeeded. Isabella ran to get Jesse and when Jesse got back to the warehouse he kicked open the door. Isabella looked at Jules, lying dead on the cold floor. She could not speak—all she could do was stare as a flood of memories rushed through her. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but Isabella thought it ironic on this day for the first time in years, she had worn the rose velvet bonnet from Paris. She touched the bonnet and somehow it seemed to diminish the pain.

  Isabella did not stay away from the cotton warehouse after Jules’s death. She had men she had to work and cotton she had to sell. She had, after all, inherited the business. She sold the house on Monterrey and never went there again. There were times she cursed Jules leaving her in such a mess, but she seldom had time to dwell on it. The lesson she had learned was hard and with most of the money now gone, she knew that it had not been worth it. If she could just hold on until she sold all the crops and the land over in Beaufort, she thought that she might go into the lumber business. Chances were slim, but she had put Jesse in charge of the cotton exports and she kept reminding herself that she would not lie down, and she would not give up. This time she would not run, she would stay and fight, no matter how tired she was.

  Priscilla argued with Isabella that the children needed more discipline. Isabella listened to her and intended to do something about it, but when she came home from the warehouse and heard the children’s’ voices, it made her so happy that she forgot all that she had intended.

  A couple of years passed and then one afternoon Isabella heard Silas talking with someone outside the house. Most likely, it was someone on business, perhaps interested in buying the warehouse in. Isabella walked out on the porch and saw a man crossing the yard. It was Tom. There was a harder look to his face; the look of a boy had disappeared, but when Isabella looked into his eyes, she could see herself running and teasing with him many years before. She had her suspicions about why he was there, but she wasn’t sure.

  “I apologize for just showing up, but I was in the neighborhood.”

  If Isabella had ever wondered what it was that she had loved about him she now remembered.

  Tom cocked his head, toward the house and said, “Looks like this place could use some work.”

  Isabella stood there for a minute, and then said, “I can take care of myself, Tom Slaughter.”

  He just stood there, blinked and smiled with his hands deep in his trouser pockets. “I hear you’re trying to sell that land over in Beaufort. I may be able to get you a good price for it.”

  Jesse walked out of the house and said, “We thinking about starting us a lumber business.”

  “Yeah, I been thinking about that myself,” said Tom.

  “What about your writing?” asked Isabella.

  “Well, I kept waiting for the right story to come along and it never quite did.”

  The evening sun had almost gone down, mosquitoes were biting, and Tom was about to turn and walk away when he said, “I want to take you home.”

  Isabella breathed deep and then said, “I’ve thought about it. I’ve spent days going over books and records and I finally realized I could go. But then when I thought about it, what’s there for me?”

  Tom paused. “You’ve Henry and Livie and your mama’s still alive.”

  Isabella narrowed her eyes. “I ain’t like any of them anymore. I wish I could; I’ve always wanted to go back, but I ain’t the same girl that left there. I don’t know what became of her. And I promised Jacqueline.”

  Tom turned and started to walk away. Isabella ran down the steps after him. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d go fishing.”

  “Do you care if I go?”

  “I was thinking about that,” he said.

  “Tom?”

  “Yeah?”<
br />
  “Did you know there used to be riverboat gamblers on this river?”

  “Bella, there ain’t been no riverboats out here in years. You better come on, snakes are crawling and Savannah’s got some big ones.”

  She followed him to the river like she had years before, and now understood that she was home.

  8, April 1902

  Paris, France

  Dear mama,

  Juliette and I love Paris. Juliette says that she wants to stay here forever. I told her we have to go home. There’s a heap of fancy ladies here with big hats; even more than in Savannah. I know I promised you that I wouldn’t embarrass you and daddy and I have kept that promise, but I can’t say the same for Juliette. I don’t think she’s grateful for anything. You and daddy sending us to Paris after Juliette’s graduation (which we all thought would never happen) and she hasn’t even uttered as much as a thank you. And here we are among all these people that seem to know everything!

  I am sorry, I don’t mean to say mean things about my sister. And to think that I was mad about you sending Jesse along to chaperone. Let me just say—that it’s a good thing he came. Yesterday he placed his arm on hers trying to get her to come along. She’d been flirting with artists all day in the park. She jerked away and told Jesse to mind his own business. So, that’s how things are going here. I will see you in one week. Provided Jesse and me can tear Juliette away.

  Your loving daughter,

  Elora Grace

  About The Author

  Born to a poker playing pilot and a Berry College English scholarship awardee, Renee' Stargel Irvin is no doubt her parents daughter. Not quite one year old, busy playing amongst the pots & pans in the kitchen, Renee' Stargel Irvin's mother asked her what she was doing.