Four weeks in a row, I’ve gone to Eugenie’s house on the pretext of keeping her company while her mother was at a ladies’ aid meeting. Four weeks in a row, I’ve gone with Eugenie and Madame Dalcour to a quadroon ball instead.
That first time, it was just a lark. I knew Maman would never approve; she thinks the dances are little better than slave auctions, a disgrace to the gens de couleur libres, and she doesn’t consider Madame Dalcour a proper chaperone because Madame is not truly married to Eugenie’s father. It’s a mariage de la main gauche; Madame is mulatto and Monsieur Reynaud is white, and under the laws of Louisiana, they cannot marry. My parents raised me for better — to marry a good colored man from one of the good colored families in the Quarter. I thought I’d have some fun, then go home and never think anything else of it. I certainly didn’t set out to find a protector.
But Antoine asked me to dance — and then asked for a second dance. And when he inquired if he’d see me the following week — me, not Eugenie! — I said yes. One falsehood turned into two, turned into three, turned into four, and now . . .
Now it’s been four weeks. Eight dances, two each night. More would be improper without an understanding between us.
Eugenie elbows me. “At least Monsieur Guerin isn’t an American.” She waltzed with an American last night, and Madame Dalcour nearly had an attack of apoplexy over it. Madame is fiercely proud of her French ancestry. She expects Eugenie to find a protector, but he’d better be a Creole like Eugenie’s father — a white man of good French stock.
“There is that,” I agree, though I’m not sure it will make much difference to my mother that Antoine comes from a good Creole family with a sugar plantation up in St. James Parish, a family that’s been in Louisiana since it was a French colony. She won’t care how dashing and romantic he is, or what pretty compliments he pays me, or that my pulse flutters when I spot him across the crowded ballroom.
Maman will only care that Antoine is white, and that it’s not marriage he’s offering.
But I need her to listen. I need her to intercede with Papa for me and persuade him to accept Antoine.
We stop in front of Papa’s livery. Papa’s family has been in Louisiana as long as Antoine’s, but they were slaves back then. His great-grandfather was freed after he fought the Indians for the French.
Eugenie wrinkles her nose at the pile of dung in the street and the flies buzzing around. I grew up next to the stables, so the stench doesn’t even register until I see her look of distaste. Then I swallow a surge of shame. Madame Dalcour’s cottage on the Rue des Remparts always smells of fresh flowers and the Valencia orange trees out front. Eugenie has one older brother, and he lives in France now; she doesn’t have to endure the twins tussling and baby Marie Therese shrieking and the horses clomping in and out below. At Eugenie’s home, everything is quiet and orderly and beautiful.
I dream of having my own elegant cottage and idle, leisurely afternoons.
Maman tolerates Eugenie, but she’s never approved of our friendship. She says Eugenie fills my head with romantic nonsense and uses me to increase her standing in the Quarter. But I don’t care what anyone says. Eugenie isn’t like that; she’s good to me. She’s let me rattle on for weeks about how torn I feel between what I want and what my parents want for me.
I bite my lip. Truth is, in the quiet of Eugenie’s parlor, an arrangement with Antoine felt possible. Almost respectable, even.
Running into Madame Augustin in the street — well, it’s reminded me that people see Eugenie and me differently. Expectations are different.
They expect Eugenie, with her wild curls and smart mouth, to follow in her mother’s footsteps. To know about things like kissing. They expect me to be an innocent — a demure, respectable girl who’ll grow up to be a staid, respectable wife.
Only I can’t stop thinking what it would be like to kiss Antoine, to have him pull me close — closer than a waltz, even, and —
“I’m going to talk to Maman this afternoon,” I announce.
Eugenie raises her eyebrows. “That’s what you said last week, Maddie. You’d better do it soon or Monsieur Guerin will find another girl.”
I clutch the fringed shawl draped over her elbow. “Do you think he would?” It wouldn’t be difficult. I saw the way the other girls looked at me when we danced — even Eugenie. She’s the one looking for a protector, but I caught the eye of the most eligible man in the room.
“I wouldn’t keep a man like that waiting, is all. Why would he keep courting you when he’s got dozens of girls ready to fall at his feet? Girls whose parents aren’t so — particular?” My stomach twists, but Eugenie’s right.
“Maman will listen to me. I know she will,” I say, a trifle desperately.