Read Online With One Look by Jennifer Horsman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jennifer Horsman
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He always promised he would send for me the next year. Then the next year and the next.
"I was thirteen when he died." "I'm sorry."
Mercedes shrugged unseen, her finger tracing a smooth line at the scrupulously clean windowsill where she stood. "I barely remember him now. I received a letter from my brother, who of course had inherited Belle Saint Bleu, and he too, promised to send for me soon. But within two years he had lost everything at the gaming tables, everything: our land, over a hundred slaves and the house, all the servants, even the house servants. I have not heard from him since. I sometimes wonder if he is dead or if he has just deserted me.
"Anyway, the Sisters had little choice but to put me to labor, and I was given a matter of months to choose between the holy vows or a position as a servant in a nearby house. I was ill suited to the vows; I am too sensitive to doubts, and I do not like the confines of such a cloistered and quite existence."
On the heels of a thoughtful pause, she explained: "I know that I was too in love with my dreams. Sometimes I wonder if God is ..." She felt the hot sting of tears and for a moment it shocked her.
Mercedes stood very still, confused, quite unable to continue, when Jade did it for her. "Punishing you now?" she asked quietly. "Punishing a young girl for enchanting dreams made of beautiful seas and white sand beaches, of a place where she could be loved and love again? Not the God of mercy and compassion."
Mercedes swung around to stare at Jade, struck by the poetry of her words. But what could she know? The young lady too, had been cloistered in a convent, and God knows, 'twas a world apart from a harlot's sinful existence.
Mercedes stepped to the fresh dressing water, where she bathed her hands to rid them of the dust from the sill. She thought of little Missy, her favorite, of the day she leaped from the rooftop to her death. A merciful God? A compassionate God?
"Well, I made my choice." Her smile disappeared as she dried her hands and folded the yellow towel neatly on the table. "It was a mistake. I was dismissed after less than a month of my new life."
"What happened?"
A pause followed a bitter sigh. "I was apparently not vigilant enough in warding off the Madame's husband's advances. She dismissed me and dispatched a letter of dismissal to the convent, and this prevented me from ever returning. So, foolishly, I decided to set off for the Mediterranean. It was my hope that I would find work until I could afford passage back to Saint Dominique. I planned to swallow my pride and beg the mercy of our good neighbors. I don't know what I was thinking, it seems so foolish and naive now: a young woman with no means or family to protect her. I was accosted in the seaside town of Biarritz and forced aboard a ship heading here to Orleans."
The voyage to New Orleans appeared regularly in Mercedes's nightmares. Those few times she referred to it in the light of day, she found that the years had mercifully reduced it to vague glimpses and pictures of a young girl's worst nightmare. She had awaked from a daze in this very room with a man's weight on top of her. She had screamed. The first descent to the Madame's basement had been her last. Life as she now knew it began the next day.
"What happened? How did you end up here?"
"The captain of the ship had false papers that claimed I was a tried and convicted criminal of France, sentenced to seven years of indentureship. The Madame bought my papers."
Mercedes never let herself reflect on all that had happened to her. She shared her history to make Jade see that it was impossible to escape and that the sooner she accepted this the easier it would be. Yet the weight and oppression of her story broke through her protective walls. She tried to recover, quickly wiping a lone tear sliding down her cheek.
Jade did not need sight to perceive the emotions gathering in the room, and guided only by the quiet sound of Mercedes's
"I was thirteen when he died." "I'm sorry."
Mercedes shrugged unseen, her finger tracing a smooth line at the scrupulously clean windowsill where she stood. "I barely remember him now. I received a letter from my brother, who of course had inherited Belle Saint Bleu, and he too, promised to send for me soon. But within two years he had lost everything at the gaming tables, everything: our land, over a hundred slaves and the house, all the servants, even the house servants. I have not heard from him since. I sometimes wonder if he is dead or if he has just deserted me.
"Anyway, the Sisters had little choice but to put me to labor, and I was given a matter of months to choose between the holy vows or a position as a servant in a nearby house. I was ill suited to the vows; I am too sensitive to doubts, and I do not like the confines of such a cloistered and quite existence."
On the heels of a thoughtful pause, she explained: "I know that I was too in love with my dreams. Sometimes I wonder if God is ..." She felt the hot sting of tears and for a moment it shocked her.
Mercedes stood very still, confused, quite unable to continue, when Jade did it for her. "Punishing you now?" she asked quietly. "Punishing a young girl for enchanting dreams made of beautiful seas and white sand beaches, of a place where she could be loved and love again? Not the God of mercy and compassion."
Mercedes swung around to stare at Jade, struck by the poetry of her words. But what could she know? The young lady too, had been cloistered in a convent, and God knows, 'twas a world apart from a harlot's sinful existence.
Mercedes stepped to the fresh dressing water, where she bathed her hands to rid them of the dust from the sill. She thought of little Missy, her favorite, of the day she leaped from the rooftop to her death. A merciful God? A compassionate God?
"Well, I made my choice." Her smile disappeared as she dried her hands and folded the yellow towel neatly on the table. "It was a mistake. I was dismissed after less than a month of my new life."
"What happened?"
A pause followed a bitter sigh. "I was apparently not vigilant enough in warding off the Madame's husband's advances. She dismissed me and dispatched a letter of dismissal to the convent, and this prevented me from ever returning. So, foolishly, I decided to set off for the Mediterranean. It was my hope that I would find work until I could afford passage back to Saint Dominique. I planned to swallow my pride and beg the mercy of our good neighbors. I don't know what I was thinking, it seems so foolish and naive now: a young woman with no means or family to protect her. I was accosted in the seaside town of Biarritz and forced aboard a ship heading here to Orleans."
The voyage to New Orleans appeared regularly in Mercedes's nightmares. Those few times she referred to it in the light of day, she found that the years had mercifully reduced it to vague glimpses and pictures of a young girl's worst nightmare. She had awaked from a daze in this very room with a man's weight on top of her. She had screamed. The first descent to the Madame's basement had been her last. Life as she now knew it began the next day.
"What happened? How did you end up here?"
"The captain of the ship had false papers that claimed I was a tried and convicted criminal of France, sentenced to seven years of indentureship. The Madame bought my papers."
Mercedes never let herself reflect on all that had happened to her. She shared her history to make Jade see that it was impossible to escape and that the sooner she accepted this the easier it would be. Yet the weight and oppression of her story broke through her protective walls. She tried to recover, quickly wiping a lone tear sliding down her cheek.
Jade did not need sight to perceive the emotions gathering in the room, and guided only by the quiet sound of Mercedes's
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