After I took Jelly home, I walked on to Fortitude in the growing darkness. The new year had been celebrated the week before, so it was 1860, and I considered the new decade as I climbed the hill. Missus Livingston had said that a new president of the United States would be elected this year. Who the new president was would tell me whether I had a chance of returning to Louisiana. But it seemed too far off to contemplate in that moment. I pulled my cloak tighter around me and sat on the front steps. I didn’t want to go in just yet. The moon was rising. Missus Livingston would probably have with me a conversation about the election very similar to the one we’d had the night before. She tended to repeat herself unknowingly. It didn’t seem polite to keep alerting her to this. I thought it better to just listen. If I stayed on the steps, I could delay our little scene for a few minutes longer. I got up and walked down the drive. There must be some remedy to my discontent. I refused to believe such a remedy involved moving on to another position. What change would there be other than location? I could travel the world and still feel this way. The restlessness was within me. It would follow me wherever I went. My heart trembled at the thought because it seemed to foretell a restless life. I looked up at the evening stars and felt a wordless prayer rise from my chest. I didn’t know if it would go anywhere or whether it would find someone who could interpret it. It was just out there floating in the cold winter air. Behind me, I heard the hall clock in the mansion strike the hour, and I knew I was late. Missus Livingston would be wondering where I was. I answered the clock’s summons and turned away from the moon and the stars. I slowly climbed the steps of the mansion and went in.
A few moments later I would be standing at Fortitude’s main staircase, and Mr. Colchester would roll down those stairs and crash into me.
Chapter 7
Winter 1860
I was twenty when Mr. Christian Robichaud Colchester went tumbling down the stairs of Fortitude Mansion and knocked the air out of my body. He didn’t say he was sorry for landing on me, and he didn’t thank me for breaking his fall. Instead he started asking questions and making demands, as most white men seem born to do.
“Who the devil are you, and what the hell are you doing in my house?”
I couldn’t yet speak, but if I’d had breath, it would have been my right to ask him the same thing. I had been a resident of Fortitude Mansion for five months at that point. I’d wandered its floors and halls and walked the rolling hills of the property down to the Great Miami River and back again countless times. But I’d never laid eyes on this man with skin like onion-colored parchment. I gasped and rolled over onto my hands and knees, the better to find my footing again. The servants came running.
“Mr. Colchester! Are you all right?” Porter knelt and tried to take him by the arm. The man peevishly pushed him away. George appeared by my side, and I sighed and groaned when he pulled me upright.
“Stop it! Stop fussing!” Mr. Colchester took hold of the banister and rose to his feet, which were bare and pale. “Who is this person?”
I composed myself and took a deep breath. I was determined to speak for myself. “I am Jeannette Bébinn.”
He wheeled his wild eyes over to Porter, who bowed his head slightly. “Mr. Colchester, Miss Bébinn is the one Missus Livingston brought here to teach at the school you built on the little knoll down a ways.”
“That doesn’t explain what she’s doing here.”
“Sir, the teacher’s cottage isn’t done yet. Doesn’t even have windows. Weather was too bad at the end of the season, so come winter they couldn’t finish it.”
Missus Livingston arrived from her parlor office. “Christian! What was that noise? And why didn’t you tell us you were coming home?”
“Because it’s my home and I can come and go as I please.”
She crossed her arms and looked over her glasses and down her long nose at him. “Well, if you were more regular in that coming and going, I suppose so. But we haven’t seen you since the spring.”
The fact seemed to knock the air out of him a little, too, like he’d forgotten he hadn’t been there. He turned away from Missus Livingston and looked at me. “Never mind that. This is the teacher you found?”
“Yes. I thought it proper for her to stay here, in the empty suite on the second floor, until the cottage is ready in the spring.”
“But who is she? Where is she from?”
“I can speak for myself,” I said. I stepped forward. “I am a learned woman and a good teacher.”
Missus Livingston came over and put an arm around me. It felt comforting and helped me be steadier on my feet. She said, “Reverend Bell from the association wrote a letter of recommendation for her and sent her here. She’s been doing an excellent job with the children.”
“I will be the judge of that.” He turned his dark-eyed gaze on me and seemed to assess me from the top of my reddish-brown hair, the topknot loosened by our collision, down to the instep of my shoes. “Are you hurt?”
“No, sir.”
He waited like he expected me to say more, and when I didn’t, he sniffed and raised himself up and puffed out his chest. “I’ll get to the bottom of this myself. We’ll talk more. I’ll receive her in the parlor.”
I didn’t see how there was any mystery to get to the bottom of, but since I was used to doing what I was told, I moved toward the room. Missus Livingston gently grasped my elbow and made me pause. “Christian, you’re not fit to receive anyone,” she said.
Mr. Colchester looked down on himself and seemed to notice for the first time his bare feet and unbuttoned shirt. His forehead scrunched up, and he put a hand to his eyes like he’d forgotten something. “Damn it!”
“Language, Christian!” Missus Livingston moved toward the parlor and drew me with her. “Miss Bébinn and I will have some tea. When you’ve made yourself respectable, you may join us.”
We turned away from him and toward the library, a room I’d never been in. As the door closed on us, I heard him speak sharply.
“Leave me alone! I can walk for myself!”
Missus Livingston led me to a seat at one of the round tables in the room, which was handsome and large. I was stunned by the collection of books lining the walls. In another moment Leah brought in a tray with tea and a plate of small corn cakes. After she left, Missus Livingston looked me up and down like a china doll that might have been scuffed.
“Are you all right, Miss Bébinn? What happened?”
“He fell down the stairs, then onto me. That’s all. I’m not hurt.”
“Well, I’m sorry you had to have such an unfortunate introduction to Mr. Colchester. You’ll find he’s not always so . . .” She seemed to search for a word and finally settled on, “Unreserved.”
I chewed on a piece of corn cake and thought about who Mr. Colchester’s connections in the South might be. Would he have known my papa or any of his people? Would he have heard of a fair-skinned slave who’d fled the Holloway Plantation in Mississippi? Founder’s caution made my skin feel hot, and I saw how I needed to watch my mouth when it came to Mr. Colchester. Even if he was friendly to colored people, as it seemed on the surface, there was no telling who he associated with and what they all said to each other. As much as I felt at home at Fortitude, I couldn’t be careless.