House of Rougeaux

by Jenny Jaeckel

  “Oh Miss Rougeaux,” he said, “you say you are good at school? Good with children? We have a new tutoring program starting up in the fall. Might you have time in your week to volunteer? We certainly could use someone like you.”

  Heading back outside and down the stairs, lost in the events of the day, Martine nearly ran smack into Leo LeForte. He was a friend of her brother Albert-Ross, but it had been quite a long time since she’d seen him.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, “I thought I might see a Rougeaux today.”

  “Have you been away?” she asked. She thought she’d heard from Albert-Ross that Leo was working with the railroad now.

  “Yeah, but I’m here for a few days. Ma’s already got me working.” He held up a shopping bag, full of something to deliver to the church. “I’ve been staying in Toronto, with my brother’s family.” He rubbed at the back of his head and smiled, showing the points of his canine teeth. “I guess it’s funny being back.” He pushed the brim of his cap up to his hairline.

  “Why is that?” Martine brought a hand up to pat her hair, suddenly thinking she must look a fright from running around all day in her maid’s uniform, probably smelled like cigarettes from the Club too.

  “Well, you know, everything is the same, so much the same it’s strange somehow.”

  Martine had never been outside the city, but after everything today she knew something about strange.

  “Maybe it’s you that’s changed,” she said, and he laughed.

  “Maybe we all changed.”

  “Did you like Toronto a lot?” Martine asked. Leo’s big smile was contagious and she was smiling like a fool.

  “I like it fine. Did you ever go there?”

  She shook her head. For a moment neither knew what to say. The sun was low in the sky now and their shadows stretched out long and blue over the pavement.

  Leo looked regretfully at his shopping bag. “I better take this in,” he said. “Hey, where are you headed?”

  “To my sister’s.”

  “Are you in a hurry? Could I walk with you?”

  * * *

  That evening after supper Elodie came to help Martine talk with Momma before Papa arrived home. They sent the children to play outside and sat in the kitchen. Momma received the news about Mr. Braddock in silence and then stood with her hands clasped to look out the window, facing this new adversity with her customary grave composure.

  “First we are going to praise God that he didn’t harm you,” she said, sitting down again at the table. “A woman’s got to always be on her guard.” She rubbed her eyes with one hand and then looked at Martine with tired eyes. “Especially you young ones. Maybe it shouldn’t be so, but by God it is.” She took Martine’s hand, something she rarely did. Martine felt her strength and it fortified her. “You did right today. You did everything right. I’m proud of you, and your family will stand by you. There are risks we just won’t take.”

  “Thank you, Momma,” said Martine, reaching over to hug her.

  Momma patted her on the back with one hand and laid out the next steps. Martine would have to send word to Mrs. Braddock through Caroline, with some excuse; she would have to forfeit her pay for that week, and they would just have to hope that Mrs. Braddock wouldn’t say anything against her among the ladies in her community. Reputation was everything. In any case, Martine would have to find another job, a position with another white family, if that was still possible.

  Didi looked over at Martine and raised a finger. “Momma,” she said, “wouldn’t you know it, but Martine has already been offered another job.”

  Martine bit her lip. This one might shock Momma even more than the Braddocks.

  * * *

  Martine stood in her bedroom, washing her face at the basin with fresh, cool water. The sky out the window was dark, and her image in the little mirror was lit from the lamp beside her bed. That morning seemed like such a distant memory it couldn’t have been the same day. Downstairs Papa and Momma were talking things over. Momma hadn’t said yes or no, but with Papa, Martine knew it was a long shot. The thought of working for Lucille filled her with hope, and the energy that comes with the opportunity for a wrong to be made right. She pressed the towel to her face and prayed for the chance.

  Martine changed into her nightdress and got into bed. She picked up the package from her bedside table and tore off the paper, admiring anew the beautiful book of poetry that was now her own. She opened the book and gingerly turned the crisp pages to the William Blake section. There was one she was looking for, the one about the tiger. She read it over a few times, lingering on the last stanzas.

  When the stars threw down their spears

  And water’d heaven with their tears:

  Did he smile his work to see?

  Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

  * * *

  Tyger Tyger burning bright,

  In the forests of the night:

  What immortal hand or eye,

  Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

  Reverend Este’s phrase, All God’s creation is welcome here, echoed in Martine’s mind. What if here wasn’t just church, but everywhere? What if here was the human heart?

  In the drawer of the bedside table, together with the little Bible secreted with pressed flowers, a few ribbons she’d won in school, and a drawing of a cat Maxwell had once made for her, Martine kept a fountain pen. At some point she had borrowed it from her father’s desk and had neglected to return it. She took it now from the drawer and turned to the back end of the book where there were a few blank pages. In the top corner of one she wrote out two lines from the poem.

  Did he smile his work to see?

  Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

  And then, of her own idea, she wrote,

  Did he smile his work to see?

  Did he who made the Lamb make me?

  Martine closed the book, placed it and the fountain pen gently in the drawer, and blew out the lamp. She lay back on the bed and drew up the covers. Tomorrow would be tomorrow. For now it was still night.

  5

  Hetty

  Montreal, 1853

  Margaret held Josie on her lap, the girl’s long legs draping over onto the ground where they sat. Their bare feet were muddy from the chase, and Margaret’s fair hair spilled over her shoulders in soft waves, having lost all its pins, which would now be scattered in the grass, to be found later by crows. Tiny beads of sweat shone on Josie’s forehead and Margaret smoothed them away, singing softly.

  Hetty watched, stretched out next to the baby, Joah, who slept on his carrying cloth. Margaret and Josie could almost be mother and child, Hetty thought, if it weren’t for the fact that in color and features they were near perfect opposites. Hetty allowed her eyes to close, listening to Margaret’s song, to the breeze that swept the embankment and the blackberry bushes where they had filled their pails, and to the sounds from the river beyond.

  Of all Hetty Rougeaux’s children it was Josephine that most reminded her of a certain part of herself, of faraway places, the ones she had known as a child. Because unlike the others, who took for granted roots that bore straight into the earth, Josie never quite seemed of this world. By 1853 Hetty had spent most of her life in Montreal, having arrived in the Province from the Caribbean a girl of thirteen years, the company and property of two sugar estate heiresses scarcely older than herself. She remembered much from her girlhood on the Island, but when she sifted among these memories, looking for the thing that was like her daughter, it always eluded her.

  Once when Josie was very small, three or four years old, she pointed to a man who had come to do business in her father’s saddlery. She declared there were two owls flying about his head.

  Another day, upon waking she told her mother that she had floated up out of her bed, up through the ceiling and all the way up to the sky to visit the stars.

  “What a lovely dream,” said Hetty, petting the child’s round forehead.

  “But I saw
Papa too, Maman,” Josie said. “He met an old wolf in a house and didn’t want to buy his leather.” Indeed, Hetty’s husband was away that night, meeting with a trader about a shipment of goods for his saddlery shop. He returned later that same day with an empty wagon, saying the leather he meant to buy was of such poor quality that he refused it. Hetty looked at Josephine, playing in the corner with her rag doll, and suddenly remembered a place she had never been.

  * * *

  Thérèse and Nicola Belcourt began their education in Québec City. They attended a school for young ladies where they learned dancing, pouring tea, piano, poetry, proper French, and other charms. In the evenings they taught Hetty to read and write, to read music and play piano, and because Hetty was curious, how to figure numbers. These were lessons carried out in secret, minutes stolen here and there out of sight of the elder Belcourts. Learning piano was permissible, but not letters and numbers. Hetty collected candle stubs, hiding them in interior pockets, with which to illuminate the books the Belcourt girls gave her for her nightly reading practice.

  Though the clandestine tutoring afforded Hetty no small nourishment, the four years after landing in Québec City were the loneliest of her life. She was parted from everyone who loved her, from the only mother she had ever known, and whom, she feared, rightly, she would never see again. Thérèse and Nicola were both kind and familiar, and Hetty was obliged to them, but they existed in another world. They brought her stories of their days the way they had brought her tidbits from their dinner table back when they all lived on the Mont Belcourt Estate. The stories were colorful, full of gossip about other young ladies and their overly proper instructors. Nicola was a great mimic and they did laugh.

  But while the Belcourt girls were at school, or parties, or outings, as they often were, Hetty was alone in the house scrubbing the coal bin, ironing shirts, peeling vegetables. The best she could hope for was a trip to the market for groceries. Even if the Belcourt girls had once in a while thought to ask Hetty about her day, she would have had no amusing tales to tell them.

  There was one treasure that Hetty had brought with her from Martinique, a threadbare rag doll given to her by her father, that she had named Claudine, after an older child she had known in the quarters. Those nights in Québec City when she lay in her bed, after the candle stub had spent itself, the darkness became vast. Her loneliness was wide as an ocean and keen as a sword. She would pull Claudine out from under the pillow and tuck the doll in the space between her chin and shoulder, and whisper to her that she had cut her thumb with the paring knife that day, or seen a bird’s nest from the upstairs window, or that she’d forgotten to buy apples at the market, and had to go back a second time.

  Every time Hetty returned to that ocean of loneliness she groped for something solid. Slowly, as one year turned to two, and then three, she finally felt something beneath her, holding her up. She had seen a boat, long ago on the beach of her island, Martinique. Left by some visitor, it was small and beautiful, with polished wood carved into long curves. The little boat shone in the sun, a rich mahogany, at the edge of the brilliant blue sea, with two long oars laid carefully inside, waiting for its owner’s return. Hetty began to imagine herself in such a boat. She might be adrift, but there was something to keep her afloat.

  Hetty had a talent for music, something the Belcourt girls did not possess. Once they had taught her the basics, she studied their music books, and was allowed to practice after she had finished her chores. As the family noticed her growing abilities, Hetty was often called upon to play for guests. This led to paid offers to play at parties in the homes of some of those guests, as well as to requests that she give lessons to children. It was at one of these households, where she taught weekly piano lessons to two little boys, that she chanced to meet a young light-skinned, hazel-eyed mulatre. He was an apprentice saddler who came to the house one day to deliver a set of new harnesses, arriving just as Hetty was leaving, and they crossed paths on the carriage driveway. They greeted each other with a polite exchange, “Bonjour Mademoiselle,” and “Bonjour Monsieur,” he touching his hat brim and she nodding in return. So taken was he by this momentary encounter that he made it his business to ask one of the housemaids who she was, and after that found a way to return to the house the next week at the same time.

  As she came around the corner of the house, Hetty spotted him on the walk that led from the back door to the carriage way, knocking something from the top of his boot with his hat. He held his hat to his chest and waited for her to pass. When she stopped to greet him, he bowed.

  “Has the Mademoiselle enjoyed her lesson?”

  “Oui Monsieur,” said Hetty, curious at this special attention. In fact she had not enjoyed the lesson, as these particular pupils whined and fought a great deal, but the pleasure of the moment was quickly overriding it.

  His name was Dax Rougeaux, and he was eighteen years old, one year her senior. He asked her name, and after exchanging a remark or two about the weather they prepared to take their leave. This was all that decorum would allow in a first conversation.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Hetty,” Dax said, bowing again. He mounted his horse, a fine bay Morgan, and went away, leaving her alive with questions.

  * * *

  The next week he waited for her at the bottom of the carriage way. The day was bright but a chill hung in the air, announcing the beginning of autumn. After greeting each other Hetty asked Dax if this were his horse. She had a special love of horses and this one was especially pretty. She reached up to stroke the soft nose.

  “He’s mine alright,” said Dax with evident pride. “His name is Casimir and he’s a rascal.”

  Hetty laughed, saying that every rascal was surely intelligent.

  Dax drew a little oval-shaped tin from his coat pocket and presented it to Hetty. A pink rose printed on the lid beckoned her to open it, revealing the sweet-rose smell of the hard candies inside. She accepted the gift, at once so flustered she had trouble putting it away in the covered basket she carried. She thanked him very much, and thought she saw him blush.

  That night, when Hetty went to bed, she spent the candle stub turning the tin box over in her hands. Had it really happened that this young man had thought of her, was perhaps thinking of her now? She recalled Monsieur Rougeaux’s smile, the charming gap between his front teeth, the lovely timbre of his voice. Would he come again the next week?

  He did, this time with a little bag of candied orange peel. He asked if he might walk with her toward town. This time he pointed out the street of the saddlery where he worked, not so far from where Hetty lived with the Belcourts, but each on the opposite side of a thoroughfare. More importantly he asked about her station. Hetty had already guessed Dax was a freedman, because he owned his horse, had money for candy and was able to come see her when he chose. In answer to his question Hetty just shook her head.

  “There’s no shame in it,” he said, “it’s a circumstance of birth, no more than that.” She looked up and met his eyes, the hazel color burning with a kind of incandescence. “But God gave us free will,” he went on, “and happenstance. I don’t believe in accidents.”

  * * *

  Hetty learned that Dax Rougeaux was the product of an alliance between a Frenchman and an enslaved African woman. Because of the Code Noir, wherein the child followed the condition of the mother, he was born enslaved, but he was manumitted by his father when he turned thirteen. His father had arranged for his apprenticeship with a saddler. But his parents were both gone now, taken by pneumonia during one bitter winter, and Dax was quite alone. He longed for a family of his own, something that Hetty had not yet dared to consider for herself.

  Four months later, on their walk back to the Belcourt house, Dax was unusually quiet. When they arrived at the door he asked Hetty if she would mind taking another turn around the block, as he had something important to say to her. They walked slowly and Dax was thoughtful all the while. When they again neared the house, and Dax stil
l had not spoken, Hetty stopped walking and put her hand on his arm.

  “Dax,” she said, “if you don’t hurry up and tell me I’m going to faint from nerves.”

  “Let’s go around once more,” he said. They continued walking. “I may have a chance to open my own shop,” he said, “in Montreal.”

  Hetty felt a stab in her heart. “You are going away?”

  “If I had my own shop, I could take care of you.” Now he looked into her eyes.

  “Take care of me?” she whispered.

  “Hetty, do you love me?” He gripped her hands. She did. Of course she did. “Will you be my wife?”

  She wanted nothing more, but on one condition: her freedom. If there was one thing Hetty knew it was her own heart. She loved Dax, but she would not bring children into the world that could be owned by someone else.

  “I will purchase your freedom,” Dax declared. “I will work without stopping.”

  “I have some money too,” Hetty said, feeling as though she were floating in mid-air, as if the two of them were rising in a sudden summery updraft. “The lessons!”

  “We shall do it together,” he said.

  “Yes, together.”

  Thérèse and Nicola Belcourt were at once in support. They had spied Hetty and Dax, curiously passing three times in front of the parlor windows, and plied her with questions. Marriage and all things related were foremost on their minds, as both had come out into society. And as their time in the North had acquainted them with abolitionist views, they did not consider the matter of Hetty’s sale an obstacle.

  “We’ll write to Papa straight away,” said Thérèse.

  “To be sure you’ll be married before I am,” pouted Nicola.