Al led the way up the narrow, unpainted stairs into a stuffy loft room. White sheets protected rows of books lining all the walls, including the space between two full-length dormer windows. A small bed fit into an alcove beneath the sloping roof, and a table, scarred with ink stains and knife cuts, held a single kerosene lamp.
“It looks like a boy just moved out.” Amelia pressed her hands to her breasts to keep her heart from breaking out of her chest.
“Come see my lookout post.” Al had become the boy, eager to show off his world. He stepped through the window onto a narrow iron-railed balcony and pointed across the rooftops. “Those spires are on St. Louis Cathedral. See those black smokestacks sliding past the buildings? Some days I’d stand here and count how many steamships plowed up and down the river.”
Amelia gazed across the vast expanse of buildings trying to imagine Al living in this sky-high island, away from the rest of his family. She followed him back into the shadows of the room. “Every shelf holds books and boats and maps.” She lifted the dusty covers.
“I can’t remember how many years it’s been since I came up here.” Al’s fingers slipped across a thick brown volume trimmed in gold lettering. “I was a big follower of Dickens. I began reading Oliver Twist in serials in a magazine called Bentley’s Miscellany. I planned when I was about ten to become a pickpocket and round up a bunch of boys to work the tourists.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“My tutor, Ol’ Pancake––”
“Pancake?”
Al laughed, “Monsieur Panque was round as one of Violet’s pancakes. I loved those pancakes, and I loved Monsieur Panque. He took me often to old-man Billy McKean’s to buy books. We’d sit at a little round table at the back of the store deciding which book we wanted. Then he’d get me an éclair on the way home. Every book we read and every talk we had about the world always came back to a man’s character. I couldn’t let Pancake down by becoming a pickpocket.”
“What happened to him?”
He got old and put out to pasture. Father thought I needed the discipline provided by the Jesuits at Georgetown Preparatory. He said a year up there with the brothers would get me ready for Georgetown University.” Al kept rummaging through the books, “Here’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” He started pulling books from the shelves. “I don’t know why I forgot these books, let them sit here and get yellow and brittle. Let’s take them back to school. Rachel will make sure they get used.”
He passes over being sent away like swatting at flies. Amelia sat on the little bed watching Al touch each book with gentle reverence. “Toby is right. You take care of everything and everybody. I think you learned it from ol’ Pancake.”
Al flopped down beside her, circled her into a tight embrace as they stretched out together. “I’ll take care of you right now if you’ll let me.”
“What about D. H. Holmes Department Store? You promised to take me back to see it.” She closed her eyes, stroked her fingers through his untamed curls, relishing the pressure of his body.
He looked down at her. “The years have worn on both of us, but I think it’s better than before. This time it’s forever.”
She smiled to herself, aware that this man needed a forever.
D. H. Holmes looked as elegant as she remembered. The store rose four floors above Canal Street. From the massive front doors, white Gothic arches curved two stories above the main level, each department an island of refined taste. “This feels like the old days.” Amelia strolled among the lush bolts of fabric in the Silk Hall, selecting several pieces they agreed would sell to the planters’ wives.
“Why don’t we buy a sewing machine, hire a seamstress like the one they have here?” Al examined a partially finished morning dress draped over the curved body of a headless mannequin. “If we could find a woman to sew, I’d shock both towns by ordering one of these risqué mannequins for each store.”
“Would the seamstress have to be white?” Amelia ran her fingers across the patterns displaying stylish gowns festooned with ruffles and ribbons. “Before the war, a resident at Stein House came to New Orleans and freed her black half-sister, brought her back to Indianola. She was a marvelous seamstress. She didn’t use a machine; her stitches looked like tiny pinpoints. As war talk heated up, women who had flocked to her, suddenly couldn’t stand her touch. She and her sister fled to Boston––”
“I doubt it’ll be any different at home. But, I vote to look for the best seamstress.” Al gathered several different patterns—morning dresses, travel suits, and evening gowns. “Let’s see how these new fashions catch on.”
They spent several hours ordering hats—bowlers for the men and little crowns trimmed in twilled silk and velvet flowers for the women—vests, capes, and corsets made of whalebone and metal to slender the waist and push the bulk of fabric to a rear bustle.
While Amelia selected several pieces of emerald green pressed glass to stock in both stores, Al roamed away and returned holding a Zoetrope Reel. “This is a gift for everyone. You load a roll of pictures at the top of this thing, then turn the crank. Look in the slot. You can see the figures moving.”
Amelia gasped. “They are moving.” She looked at her husband. “You find the best gifts.”
Al pulled out his pocket watch. “I haven’t thought about Toby since we started shopping. It’s time he should be boarding the train headed to Chicago.”
Amelia watched Al grow more silent, more restive. She knew the words of the blabbing old woman haunted him. He had tried to lighten the implication of his lookout post being more than an exciting place for a rowdy boy to find adventure. But, she’d seen the pain flash across his face when he pulled the door shut and ran his hand over the raw wood.
He had embraced Ruby and Peter with the intensity of a last goodbye. Even as their steamer pulled away from the pier, he clutched her arm against his side and watched in silence—like saying farewell at a graveside. Finally, he stroked her hand. “We’re making a new beginning. Just you and me.”
When they stepped into Galveston’s new Tremont House, she was stunned by the sprawling lobby, festooned in towering palm trees, and circled by white Corinthian columns. A marble stairway curved to a mezzanine where more columns stretched to an arched two-story ceiling. So different from the tiny Tremont where she had emptied chamber pots.
After Al registered, they followed the colored bellman, uniformed in a black morning coat, to a steam-powered elevator. “We’re the only hotel in town with a contraption like this.” The bellman bowed as they stepped into the polished brass box. The wire cage door slid shut, and they ascended slowly past floors that grew more ornate. “Our top floor offers views of the city.” He swept into another deep bow at the door to their room. He rushed past the massive four-poster to throw open their windows onto a clear blue sky and the distant clattering from the street below.
Amelia and Al moved to the window overlooking the rooftops stretching to the ships anchored at piers spreading into Galveston Bay. “I never thought I’d see all this with the eye of a bird.” Al wrapped his arms around her. They stood clasped together, feeling the welcoming breeze.
The clock on the City Hall tower struck twelve as they turned back into the room.
She ran her hand along the soft mosquito netting tied back like stylish draperies. “Amid all this grandeur, we still must contend with mosquitos.”
“Do you still want to look for Fannie? I’d like you to meet Anthony. He works with Norris Wright Cuney. If Fannie’s still in Galveston, those two men will know her.”
“I never knew her last name.”
“She worked for Samuel May Williams. That’s enough.”
When Al asked how to locate Norris Wright Cuney, the hotel clerk, a balding man whose too-stiff collar squeezed his neck, drew himself up like an over-stuffed turkey and leaned across the counter to whisper. “You’ll find him in the Tremont Bar this evening. During the day, he’s down at the Customs House on Twentieth.”
Al steered Amelia toward the hotel’s raised walkway to wait for their carriage. “Looks like Cuney’s carved a place for himself. Money’s getting him welcomed even in a white man’s bar.”
“How did a Negro manage that?” Amelia whispered behind her hand.
“I’ve heard he’s a partner in the Belle Pool Club. It’s a Negro gambling hall that cheats the unsuspecting.”
“I can’t imagine Mama Zoé’s son being part of that.” Amelia nodded at the coal black carriage driver who bowed as she stepped into the open buggy.
“Anthony’s the charming opposite of Hébert. A natural politician. He left like a flash for richer climes the day he became a free man.” Al slipped his hand around Amelia’s clenched fist. “You’ll like him, sweetheart. Everyone does. That’s how he’s pushed the freedmen’s agenda.”
Amelia stared at the buildings standing in haughty Victorian contrast to the dirt street, a stinking quagmire of mud after last night’s rain. A long-haired medicine man rattled a loud call for his elixir. A trained bear held out its beggar’s paw to men in every state of dress from top hats and morning coats to a pirate balancing a parrot on one shoulder and a black patch partially covering a sunken eye.
“Welcome to The Strand,” Al shouted over the bedlam of bellowed greetings and curses. “This is the Wall Street of the Southwest. The largest banks in Texas occupy those buildings. They mimic Queen Victoria’s finest.”
The driver, turning from his bench shouted. “Madam, this block is Insurance Square––all the big ones are right here.” He waved his arm toward stone buildings faced with low canopies shading wide double doors. “That is Monsieur Alphonse’s Restaurant.” Grinning, he added. “The menu says it specializes in beefsteak goddam à la mode.”
Al rolled his eyes and shook his head. “It’s a different place from when my wife lived here thirty years ago.”
“Yes, siree. I was a boy back then. I been watching our port grow to third in the world for shipping out cotton. I drive important folks from the steamships to fancy hotels, restaurants, and the Tremont Opera House. Last year, Madame Rentz’s Female Minstrels entertained the gentlemen with the Can-Can. The newspaper claimed they had to burn incense and olive oil to purify the atmosphere. Make it fit for the ladies to return.” He halted the buggy. “Right there. That red brick building is the Customs House. Mr. Norris Wright Cuney is the man to see.”
Al whistled low and stared at the two-story building boasting white Doric columns across its façade. “I wish Mama Zoé could see this place. I think she’d be proud of her son.”
Norris Wright Cuney, the inspector of customs, looked as impressive as the building. A tall, slender man in his carefully pressed Prince Edward suit, he could pass for Mediterranean with his finely groomed mustache and skin as creamy colored as Mama Zoé’s. He held a slender cigar between tobacco-stained fingers.
Al had started asking for Anthony when an equally handsome man rushed from the inner office. “Al, I heard your voice. I hoped you’d stay long enough for a visit. Mama wrote that you finally got married.” He stopped and smiled broadly. “To this lovely lady.”
After the introductions, Cuney insisted they go into the conference room for a visit.
“This man gave me a chance long before he had to.” Anthony laid his hand on Al’s shoulder as they settled around the long table.
“You made the best of it.” Al kept shaking his head, pride showing in his eyes as he watched the tall, square-jawed man. “Anthony wanted to do more than farm. He read law and passed the bar while he worked in the state legislature.”
“That’s where we met.” Cuney’s cigar smoke haloed his graying hair. “I served as first assistant to the sergeant-at-arms. We got to be friends learning parliamentary rules and a whole lot about political maneuvering.” His smile exposed pearl-white teeth. “Galveston became the center of the Union League.”
Anthony clamped a cigar between his teeth without lighting it. “Norris recently organized Negro dockworkers into a union. I aim to get schooling for colored children as good as I got. Mama Zoé taught me to read, but I needed that tutor you hired. Bossy Miss Stevens shoved Latin and the classics in my face every day. That old lady made me see the importance of learning.”
“She saw your potential.” Al grinned. “She never let you get away with anything. We’ve got a young, pretty teacher now, and Hébert married her.”
Anthony beat the table as he laughed. “Mama wrote me about it. I never thought Hébert would get over his woman shyness long enough to get him a gal.”
“I’m taking credit for some educating and pushing,” Al said.
When the conversation finally moved to Fannie, Amelia explained that she worked for Samuel May Williams.
“They’re talking about Fannie Williams,” Cuney said. Anthony vigorously nodded in agreement. “She became one of our main supporters in the Union League. Ever since the league folded, she’s made it her business to get the colored men out to vote. She won’t take any excuse for not going to the ballot box. And she knows how they should vote.”
“That’s the Fannie I knew when we worked at the Tremont House. I’d love to see her.”
“She works for the Browns at Ashton Villa. I’ll ride over there with you.” Anthony began rising.
When their carriage stopped on the Boulevard at a brick Italianate house circled by a tall iron fence, Anthony cut his eyes at Al. “I think we better go around back. Fannie’s the head housekeeper. She doesn’t greet her visitors at the front door.”
Amelia saw the twinge of a frown pinch Al’s brow before he nodded, “Of course. I didn’t think––”
Anthony grinned, “We coloreds are pretty free around here, but there’re some things we have to remember.”
The carriage pulled through the back gate, and Anthony waved to a Negro man who looked out the door of the detached kitchen. “We’ve come to see Miss Fannie. I’m bringing one of her old friends––”
“And who would that be?” It sounded like Fannie’s voice, but the stout and slightly stooped woman who uttered the words had changed from the stylish dresser who had swept with such assurance into the Tremont House lobby. In place of the green taffeta day dress and matching broad-brimmed hat and parasol, Fannie wore a starched black dress and white apron with a white fringed cap much like the chambermaids at the old Tremont.
Amelia burst into tears, clambered out of the buggy, and rushed toward Fannie.
“Well, bless my soul. Is that Amelia? All dressed up in that fine silk dress and crying like a baby.” Fannie rushed out the back door and into Amelia’s arms.
“Are you all right? Have you been well?” Amelia dabbed at her eyes and swung onto Fannie. “Do you remember Al?”
“Al? You mean you finally got some sense? You’ve gotten with him?”
“We’re married, Fannie. If I’d listened to you, I’d have married him a long time ago.”
Fannie’s eyes examined Al from head to foot. “You’re a lucky man. I worked with this woman at the Tremont. She’s got a backbone of steel. And a good stubborn streak––”
“You didn’t answer,” Amelia said. “Are you happy here? It’s a fine house, but are they good to you?”
“Yep. Samuel May Williams went broke before he died. Just before the war. He up and sold me to the Browns. Best thing ever happened. I came in here to care for Miss Bettie. She had just turned four, and we got along from the start.”
“She’d be grown now. Do you need to keep working here?” Amelia rubbed Fannie’s back that appeared to be growing a hump.
“Hardly do a thing anymore. Miss Bettie’s a fine artist, travels all over the world. Keeps a place in New York City. Mrs. Brown, that’s Miss Bettie’s mama, has me boss the staff.” Fannie flashed one of her feisty grins. “I’ve always been good at bossing.”
“We’re leaving in the morning.”
“You staying at the Tremont?” Fannie looked up at Al with narrowed, accusing eyes, waiting for him to pass her test for a proper provider.
“We’re on the top floor.” Al grinned, enjoying the interrogation.
“I knew he’d be the right choice. I’m glad you got rid of that no-good one.”
Amelia giggled and then, embarrassed, covered her mouth. “I’m glad too.”
“Is there any way you could go to lunch with us at the Tremont?” Al raised both eyebrows like he already knew the answer.
“In the old days, I could flash in there all dressed up because I worked for Mister Samuel May Williams who owned the place. Today, I’m a maid. I live in mighty fine quarters right next to Miss Betty’s old room, but I keep my place.”
“Anthony’s going to join us.”
“Big shot. Works with Norris Wright Cuney. Most powerful colored man anywhere around. I thank you just the same.” Fannie grinned at Amelia. “I can see you ginning up thoughts of me going off with you. Don’t you think it for a minute. This town is the best place to be if you aren’t white.”
Anthony threw back his head and laughed, the same rich sound Amelia had heard thunder out of Hébert. “She’s got that right. Norris is making a difference in this town for us Negroes.”
“I’ve got to get back to work. The Browns are having guests for dinner. I’ve got to make sure that cook has everything going so it’ll be ready on time.” Fannie kept looking back at the house, impatient to get away.
Amelia reached to hug the little woman and choked back a sob. “I love you, Fannie.”
“Go on now. We all have lives as good as we need.” She turned away and disappeared into the back door.
Amelia stifled tears all the way back to the Tremont while Al kept squeezing her shoulder and distracting Anthony with talk of the November presidential election. “If the Negroes have any hope of retaining political clout, Hayes will have to beat Tilden. Do you hear much encouragement?”
Anthony snorted. “It’s looking worse every day. This new Texas constitution almost cut us out of power. Taking the schools away from state control, we’ll have to fight in every county to get our kids educated. The literacy requirement for grand juries is going to eliminate most coloreds.”
“You’ve got real influence in this town,” Al said.
“It’s not me. I’ve been swept up in Cuney’s wave. He knows how to work both sides to get colored power and soothe the scared white folks.”
When they swooped into the Tremont dining room, the maître’ d’ and most of the staff greeted Anthony with questions about Mr. Cuney.
“He’ll be along later,” became Anthony’s stock reply. After being seated at a lovely table near the center of the room, Anthony whispered. “Norris Wright Cuney is the only reason I’m welcome here. I take full advantage.”
“I’ve read that he’s gaining in power all over the state,” Al said. “I’m sure you’ve impressed him as the man he needs.”
“Times are a changing, my friend. With this new constitution, we’re going to be fighting every day to hold the gains we’ve made.”
When Al and Anthony launched into a hushed discussion about the significance of the Klan burning the cross on the front lawn, Amelia reached under the table for Al’s hand clenched in a cold fist.
Finally, Anthony said, “Tell me about Mama. Is she well? She sounds good in her letters. She’s so happy with Hébert’s new wife.” He smiled broadly and bent toward Amelia. “She’s almost giddy about your marriage.”
While Al updated Anthony on all the people at home, she watched Anthony’s eyes—the same gray as Mama Zoé and the same handsome face and elegant bearing as the man in that painting that Hébert had burned. Were all the mulatto people on the plantation Charles’ children?
Anthony leaned forward and pursed his lips. “I’ve been trying to think how to say this. Can’t come up with a delicate way so I’ll just spit it out. How’s Toby doing? When Mama wrote that he’d come out, I thought I’d pop wide open with pride in that boy. I told Cuney about him. He’s as jubilant as me. He hates cowardly coloreds that hide behind their white skin. Calls them ‘Lily Whites.’”
Amelia felt Al relax, his head dropped, and he sucked in a deep breath before he looked into Anthony’s eyes. “Toby’s doing better than I am. He’s feeling the insults, but he’s not letting it get to him.” Al shrugged. “On the other hand, I want to kill the next bastard that insults the boy.”
Anthony threw back his head and bellowed in that rich Waters’ way. “You’re the best mama bear I’ve ever known. Tob’s lucky to have you.”