“Why would he say something so queer? He comes from an old Acadian family.”
Amanda took some of the dishes from Virginia’s hands. “Yes. His family raises cattle on the prairie near St. Martinville. They’ve been in Louisiana for decades, which is why it’s so strange he would say such a thing.”
Virginia turned from her job to gaze intently on Amanda.
“What?”
“How come you know so much about this Mister Comeaux?”
A smile stole its way across Amanda’s face, even though she fought hard to suppress it. “He walks by every day on his way into town. Sometimes he stops and we talk a little.”
The eagle eye persisted and Amanda felt another trickle of perspiration travel between her bodice’s cleavage. The sun’s torture had been avoided, but the heat permeated every inch of the back room. After lunch, she would retire to her bedroom to attempt to sleep through the hottest part of the day.
“It sure is hot today, isn’t it?” Amanda asked sheepishly. “If you like, I’ll go into town and get the meat for dinner.”
Virginia returned to her task, but continued her inquisition. “You haven’t answered my question, Amanda.”
Wiping the back of her neck with her handkerchief, Amanda sighed. “You’re as bad as Father. We talk, is all. He politely mentions my health. I comment on the weather. It’s all very formal and proper I assure you.”
“Knowledge of where he comes from and what his family does is hardly what I call commenting on the weather.”
“All right.” Amanda sighed and began placing some of her cut roses into a crystal vase. “I asked him one day how the Acadians came to Louisiana and he told me his family history. Did you know the English exiled them from Nova Scotia and sent them to the Colonies where they lived in intense poverty and neglect?”
Virginia grunted. “Is that what he told you?”
Amanda twirled a fading rose between her fingers, wondering whether to place it in the bouquet or throw it away. “It’s true, Gin. I’ve heard others speak of it. His ancestors suffered a story that’s renown in these parts. The father was separated from the mother and three daughters and it was more than a decade before they were reunited in Louisiana. All because they were French and Catholics and refused to swear allegiance to the British crown.”
Amanda inwardly smiled when her auburn-haired nanny stopped stacking plates and sighed. It was a sign she approved. What Irish woman, whose family had suffered a similar fate, wouldn’t?
“Well, I guess he’s a gentleman. I’ve noticed his dress and he doesn’t look like a Cajun.”
“What does a Cajun look like, dear Gin? How many have you seen in your lifetime?”
Virginia smiled a little. “Not many, but I’ve heard tales. They were peasant farmers in Nova Scotia — or Acadia, if that’s what they called it. They’re mostly illiterate. Even their French language betrays their class. When some of them were sent to France by the English, the French couldn’t do anything with them because they had lost touch with the modern world. They lived off the crown, you know. And refused to go to work.”
“Monsieur Comeaux says that was because they had been independent all those years in Acadia. Most of them had their own farms for over a century. France was still under a feudal system, and the Acadians refused to live under it.”
This time, Virginia laughed. “Only talked about the weather, eh?”
Amanda gazed down at the flower in her hand. She decided to place it in the center of the bouquet, despite its former glory. “I like him, Gin. He’s my friend. At least, I think he is.”
A silence almost as stifling as the heat fell upon the back room. “Beware my dear,” Virginia said. “Don’t give him ideas.”
Amanda could hardly believe her ears. “For goodness’ sake, Gin, he’s just an acquaintance. We barely know each other.”
Virginia waved a hand between them. “Perhaps you should keep it that way.”
With those final words, Virginia moved into the dining room with her stack of fine china leaving Amanda alone with her thoughts.
“Ideas indeed,” Amanda said to herself. Monsieur Comeaux would hardly think of her in the romantic way. He was an Acadian and she was an American. He would marry a nice Acadian girl and have a lot of French-speaking children. And she....
Amanda didn’t know if it was the unbearable heat or the smothering darkness, but a pain settled on her heart and took hold. Suddenly she could no longer make out the bright yellow rose in her hand. This time it was tears that dampened her gown.
James Richardson would have worked straight through from morning till dinner had it not been for the attentive Miss O’Neal, Amanda’s former nanny and the household’s all-around lifesaver. He hired her years ago when he and Amanda moved to Franklin, and it was one of the finest personnel decisions he had ever made. In addition to maintaining a household of servants, she made sure that each midday James settled down at the lunch table with Amanda, despite his repeated objections.
The way conversations were headed these days in his house James preferred the peace of his study where a case against the new sugar tariffs awaited him. Girls were supposed to go through these stages when they turned twelve or thirteen — or so he was told by other fathers in similar situations. Amanda had been a pillar of strength when she was twelve, the year her mother ran...
As quickly as the thought entered his mind, James dismissed it. He would not think of his wife. He couldn’t bear it.
Looking over at his daughter, he was thankful she resembled his side of the family — a bit stocky and on the short side, hair the color of corn tassels. She would have been more fortunate to have inherited her mother’s dark, seductive looks, but the torture of seeing Genevieve’s face every day would have been more than he could have borne.
Irritated that thoughts of her again infiltrated his mind, James grabbed the napkin and hurriedly placed it in his lap. “Miss O’Neal, where is lunch?”
His tone startled Amanda, whose eyes met his for the first time since he sat down. Had she been crying? He knew she was unhappy, but he dreaded finding out why. Every time they approached the subject she began inquiring about marriage and men. Sometimes she even mentioned that dreadful night.
“Are you not well?” he asked her, forcing his mind to other things.
“I’m fine, Father,” she answered meekly.
James sighed. Why couldn’t women just speak their mind and not make you pull it out of them? “Is this any way to spend your birthday? You should be beaming. After all the money I spent on you.”
“The dress is beautiful, Father. You know I love it.”
“But?”
“But what use is it if I can’t wear it to the ball tonight?”
A slow pounding began behind James’ temple. “We have been through this all before. I don’t wish to speak of it again. You are not to leave the house when I am out of town.”
Amanda stared at the salad placed before her by one of the servants. “Do you realize how old I am today? I am twenty-one.”
“I’m sorry, my dear, I tried to make other arrangements but I must attend this meeting. The tariffs are on everyone’s minds.”
“I understand, Father, truly I do. But what harm will it be for me to go to the ball without you here?”
James breathed deep and exhaled. “Amanda, I do not wish to speak of this. I have heard it all before and you know how I feel.”
“But you haven’t heard me, Father. I keep trying to talk to you about this and you keep refusing me. Why do you not approve of any men in town? Today I’m the age most women enter spinsterhood. Do you really wish for me to spend the rest of my life alone?”
The pounding that had started as a slow beat began to increase in intensity. James rubbed the bridge of his nose, but to no avail. He wanted the pain to disappear as much as the subject.
“Your ... mother,” he continued, physically cringing at the sound of the word, “insisted you be raised a Catholic. You
must have realized that there are no men in town from the families we socialize with who are Catholics.”
“There are some families who are...”
“There are no families,” he answered a bit too harshly. Since Franklin was a town born of Americans straight off the boats and wagons of other states and territories, most were Protestants. But regardless of any religion, James approved of none of them as suitors for his daughter.
Amanda’s sad gaze returned to her uneaten salad. James knew Amanda always thought best of everyone. She was by far the most unprejudicial person he had ever known.
And naive.
He remembered how easy it was to trust people, to let one’s heart love freely, and he’d be damned if he’d let his daughter make the same mistake.
“There are well-connected Catholic families in New Orleans,” Amanda added, refusing to let the subject drop. “But you won’t let me enter society.”
“I don’t want you away from home.” He stabbed his fork into the plate of lettuce before him.
Amanda turned her startled eyes on him. “I spent years in an East Coast finishing school.”
James thrust the salad aside with disgust, his headache getting the best of him. “Why didn’t you find a proper husband then?”
Amanda laughed. “Well, if there aren’t many good Catholic men in this corner of French Louisiana, there certainly aren’t many in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
“Take my word for it, Amanda,” James said, hoping to end the distasteful conversation. “There are no decent Catholic American men in the city of New Orleans.”
James watched as the corners of Amanda’s lips tightened into a grim smile. “But there are French families.”
He had had enough. Damn Miss O’Neil’s lunch. Damn women. Throwing down his napkin, he stormed from the room.
Alcée Dugas couldn’t find enough to talk about as they walked down the waterfront to the market. First the weather and the heat scorching acres of Jean Bergeron’s corn, then Widow Pitre’s new hound dog, now the price of steers. If René didn’t know better, he would have thought the man was trying to slowly drive him insane.
“Have you managed to breathe all this time?” René finally asked his uncle.
“What?” Alcée asked, then began to recant his conversation with Father D’Arbyville, who was hoping to raise enough money by fall to build the new church.
René had suffered enough. Grabbing his lifetime companion who, thanks to being his mother’s youngest brother, was only five years his senior, he shook him long enough to shut him up. His uncle indeed stopped talking, but his deep brown eyes staring out of a kind, yet stern countenance made it clear he didn’t approve of being rebuked.
“I know you’re trying to help, but I’d rather you didn’t,” René said, attempting to smooth the wrinkles he had caused in the shoulders of Alcée’s waistcoat.
Alcée sighed and followed René to the market. Catching up with long strides, Alcée muttered under his breath, “Just trying to get your mind off your jolie blonde.”
René stopped abruptly, causing Alcée to practically trip over him. “She is not my jolie blonde. And I’d prefer if we didn’t talk about it again.”
Before René could return to his hurried gallop across town, Alcée grabbed his arm. “My friend, I have known you all my life, have I not?”
René stood in silence, but refused to turn around.
“Have I not stood in the very shoes you stand in today?”
Again, René did not speak or turn around.
“It may be a long time before you forget her, but you will forget her, mon ami. She is an American and she will marry an American and that will be that. Soon you will go home to that wonderful family of yours and marry that Dupré girl your maman keeps writing you about.”
The familiar pain stabbed at his heart, but René refused to grant it refuge there. “Of course I will.”
René waited for Alcée to keep talking, to reassure him that he would indeed forget, that time would heal his persistent need. Instead, Alcée put a fatherly arm about his shoulder and led him away from the market.
“How about I buy you a drink?”
A drink was what he needed, René thought. A good drunk would cure him of this incessant aching. But there were people waiting for him to return home with provisions, his widowed cousin and her children who needed food to eat that night. He had responsibilities.
“After dinner,” he said. “Then I promise we will gaze at the bottom of the best bottle of run.”
“Bon,” Alcée replied. “But I will hold you to it.”
René knew this to be true. Alcée hated drinking alone. Many nights the two had spent visiting the pubs along the coastline of nearby Côte Blanche Bay.
Turning Alcée back toward the direction of town, this time René put his arm around the older man’s shoulders in a paternal gesture. René was a good two or three inches taller than Alcée, even if he was twenty-five and Alcée thirty.
“I promised Collette I would pick up some oysters for dinner,” René said. “It will only take a minute.”
The two entered the Franklin Market House and found it bustling for a Friday afternoon. Alcée leaned lazily against the front wall, tipping his hat down over his forehead while René pushed himself through the crowd to get to the counter. There were too many people in the tiny space and the heat had made the air unbreathable. Noticing that the selection was slim, René quickly decided he would purchase what he could and make a hasty retreat back to fresh air.
As he made his way to the newly opened space at the counter, he heard a familiar voice. Perspiration dripped over his eyes, clouding his view for an instant, but it didn’t matter. He would have recognized that heavenly sound anywhere.
Searching for its owner, he spotted a pair of sky blue eyes staring vacantly at the butcher. If René wasn’t mistaken, Miss Richardson appeared as if she was ready to faint.
Before he could tap her elbow and inquire as to her health, the woman next to her bumped her basket on her way to the door and Amanda looked over in his direction. She appeared first glad to see him, then apprehensive. René moved to her side to study her further.
“Miss Richardson,” he said with a tip of his hat, “are you well? You look pale.”
At first, Amanda acted as if she hadn’t heard him speak. Then she nodded slowly and gazed over to a chair in the corner of the room.
“A glass of water Johnson, if you please,” he shouted to the man behind the counter. With an afterthought, he added, “And a pound of oysters.”
René led Amanda to the chair and helped her sit down. He crouched down next to her to get a better look at her condition and, he admitted to himself with disdain, another glimpse of her angelic face.
Amanda’s eyes were swollen and red, and her lips were trembling slightly. Had she been ill that morning, he wondered. He really hadn’t noticed, he had been so focused on her father’s hateful words, and the realization that she had thought nothing of him after all this time.
“Are you ill?” he asked.
Amanda shook her head and continued to study him. René stared back at a loss for words until the butcher broke the silence between them.
“Is she all right?” he asked, handing her the glass of water. “Perhaps you should take her outside for some fresh air.”
“Yes,” René answered, taking the opportunity to break the spell she was casting on him. “Good idea.”
When the butcher was out of earshot, Amanda finally spoke. “Why did you call yourself an immigrant this morning?”
René couldn’t believe his ears. Miss Richardson was on the verge of fainting and she wanted to know about his use of words? Then a hopeful thought entered his mind. Was she crying because he had slighted her that morning?
“Forgive me, but I was not myself this morning.”
“Have I offended you in any way?” Amanda asked earnestly.
Hope that René had not dared imagine filled his heart. �
��No. I have behaved rudely because of something your father has said. It has nothing to do with you.”
But it had everything to do with her, he reminded himself. Didn’t her father make it clear she would have nothing to do with Acadians? Still, the concern in her voice made him doubt she could be so prejudicial, especially after their warm conversations over her front picket fence.
“Why on earth did you have words with my father?” she asked incredibly.
The reality of her statement erased all of René’s hope. Why on earth indeed would an Acadian such as himself be talking to the father of one of the most prominent American women in town? Discussing the weather and the history of Louisiana over rose bushes was one thing; asking her father for the right to court her was yet another.
“You’re right,” René answered sternly, rising. “Why would I have reason to talk to your father?”
Amanda quickly placed the glass at her feet and rose. The sudden movement drew all the blood from her face and René thought for a moment she might faint for sure. Instead, she placed her hand lightly on his arm.
“I have offended you again,” she said in a tone that touched his heart. “And I don’t know why.”
His lips moved to speak, but he could not find the right English words. Confused, he could only stare at the woman he had dreamed of relentlessly. He reached for her hand, but before he could place his fingers over hers, he heard a shrill female voice calling her from behind.
“Amanda,” the voice practically yelled over the room’s noise, “I have been looking for you everywhere.”
René turned to find an impeccably dressed woman standing before him. After she had taken René in from foot to head, she grabbed Amanda’s elbow and quickly led her away. As the two women disappeared through the market’s front door, he heard the woman say, “What do you mean talking to that man? Don’t you know he’s a Cajun?”
René felt the bag of oysters being pressed into his hand and he heard Alcée mention bringing the wagon around, but nothing else seemed to register. The humid air pressed at his lungs and again his sight blurred from the sweat on his brow. He imagined himself drowning, standing straight up in the Louisiana heat. Drowning in the pain of a broken heart.
A Cajun Dream (The Cajun Series Book 5) Page 2
