Chapter Fourteen

Work, the solution to all her problems, work to forget the death of David, heavy work to weight down a rising passion for a new man far too soon after the death of her husband. Laura single-handedly hewed out a children’s corner in the old library by moving the stacks and hundreds of adult books with the help of the janitor to create a sunny nook where she read stories to a small, but steadily growing group of preschoolers once a week.

She recorded the stories of Tante Lu in both French and English and sought out other elders with tales to tell. With Father Ardoin’s permission, she began transporting the Ste. Jeanne church records, volume by volume, thirty miles to the local university for microfilming. In exchange for copies for their archives, the university supplied the film, equipment and the expertise of their archivist whose slow methodical ways often irritated Laura into laboriously turning and photographing each page herself when the work bogged down in his hands.

Now and then, an entry arrested her attention, like those recording the births of Caroline Montleon LeBlanc’s children. “Baptized August 12, 1852, Charles Adrien LeBlanc, son of Adrien LeBlanc and Caroline (Montleon)”, “Baptized January 14, 1854, Catherine Castille LeBlanc,” “Baptized May 5, 1856, Aurelien August LeBlanc,” “Baptized September 16, 1859, Felice Camille LeBlanc.”

The entries supplied the bare facts to trace a lineage. The diaries of Caroline LeBlanc which Laura had taken to her room and read one by one, fleshed out these facts. At first, the diaries provided a quaint diversion, a mild escape. Caroline barely mentioned her pregnancy throughout the volume for 1852. Instead, she filled the pages with rambling commentaries on household management with an occasional recipe or housewifely hint thrown in for posterity.

A gap occurred in the entries for August after which the diarist wrote, “Two days ago, I was delivered of a healthy son after a long and arduous travail made easier by the skills and potions of Tante Inez.” Caroline described the baptismal ceremony in detail, followed shortly by the affecting scene so loved by Miss Lilliane when Camille LeBlanc on her deathbed handed the young woman the keys to the plantation.

Naturally, the diaries provided Miss Lilliane’s source of information, though the old librarian neglected to mention the keys Caroline received opened not only the larders and wine stores, but the safe and cash boxes as well. The massive iron safe still stood in a corner of Robert LeBlanc’s bedroom, open now and crammed with old ledgers, agricultural magazines and new bills, the large key long lost. Laura had seen it herself when Angelle dragged her into Robert’s room to coax her father into yet another game of Monopoly. The diary also recorded the dying woman’s parting advice, “Give Adrien enough money to allow him to be a man, but not enough to ruin the plantation—for Mama LeBlanc realized she had indulged her son terribly.”

The diary for 1853 revealed a young woman blossoming with motherhood and responsibility, a woman who redecorated, planned entertainments, revived the gardens, oversaw the preservation of the plantation bounty by the cooks, ministered to the health of the slaves and fulfilled “so many duties I fear I have neglected this diary.”

Laura entirely understood this burst of energy. Since Tante Lil had retired at last to brood in her mansion, Laura cleaned, discarded and rearranged, making the library her own. The story-telling evening had been only the first of many programs to lure the citizens of Chapelle.

One feeling she could not share with Caroline LeBlanc was the young wife’s mild surprise “that I am with child again so quickly, which only proves that I perform my wifely duties as joyously as I perform all others.” Laura laughed over that coy remark one evening as she thought about her earlier comment to Miss Lilliane. Perhaps, Caroline had enjoyed sex very much indeed.

Still troubled by her own longings in the night when Robert LeBlanc came to chase away his daughter’s night terrors in the next room, Laura lay still in Caroline’s marriage bed convincing herself that Bob had inherited his ancestor’s animal magnetism along with the ole plantation. Perhaps, she only yearned for what she had lost, David. Whichever, she had no intention of acting on the attraction. Plenty of projects to keep her busy and involved, really.

In their depiction of domestic life, the diaries had historic value. Laura planned to ask Miss Lilliane for permission to film them once she’d completed the church project. She wondered why the old woman with her family pride had not published the manuscripts long ago. She hadn’t found any deadly secrets in the diaries, at least not up to 1856 when Caroline gave birth to her third child and second son. The young mother could be forgiven, perhaps, because of her times and circumstances for a slight disappointment expressed at the earlier birth of her daughter for: “I have perceived that to have only one son is a hazard and having been reared in a family with over many daughters, I do no desire to repeat that pattern either.” Regarding their publication, she would have to catch Miss Lilliane in a good mood—if she had any.

Laura joined the local genealogy club meeting once a week to intertwine their collateral lines. While she still maintained her antecedents had no bearing on her own life, she did recognize ancestor hunting as a major obsession in Chapelle, and therefore, she had to know more about it. Besides, the weekly get-togethers removed her from Chateau Camille every Thursday evening. By the time the elderly women who composed ninety percent of the membership finished their tea and scones, repacked their notebooks and asked Laura for a ride home because they ­disliked ­driving in the dark, all the residents of the Chateau had adjourned to their rooms: Angelle asleep, Miss Lilliane coughing into her pillow and Robert working on his accounts or reading. Laura always tried to slip soundlessly through the spill of light from the transom over his door. Occasionally, he caught her, or they collided by accident in the hallway, Laura could never decide which, the game they played being as complicated as Monopoly.

One evening, he mocked her, standing in the doorway of his room with the light and shadows making alluring patterns across the dark, curly hair on his chest only half-covered by a deep burgundy-colored robe. “So you have discovered the importance of the past. Have you joined the DAR, too?”

Laura felt up to the challenge as her independence returned with each successful project she completed. “No, Mr. LeBlanc, I’m simply making inexpensive Christmas gifts.”

She showed him two ornate family trees, gilded and embossed, that she’d filled in with calligraphic script. The twisting roots held the names of Josef Schumann and his wife Hannah born in the early nineteenth century. Laura’s own name, and that of her sister and her sister’s children, rested in the outermost leafy tendrils of the tree’s canopy.

“Unfortunately, Josef Schumann arrived in Pennsylvania in 1830 during the great German immigration along with several million other anonymous farmers. However, Mrs. DeVille assures me if I trace all my female lines, I am bound to find someone who will make me eligible for the DAR. I think I’ll quit after I have these framed for my mother and sister. My nephew and niece are getting voodoo dolls, which I’m sure they’ll find more interesting, especially if they dress them like each other.”

“Yes.” He smiled and said, “Angelle is fascinated by that sort of thing, too. At her age, she still believes a person can use magic to get what they want.”

To avoid his direct, dark gaze, Laura slid her eyes across his shoulder and stared into his bedroom dominated by a massively carved half-tester bed fit for a French king. “Well, I’m feeling a little tired. Guess I’ll turn on. Turn in, I mean.”

“A good night kiss, then.”

Robert leaned over and brushed his lips softly over her forehead as if she were Angelle, then placed another gentle kiss on her cheek. Turning his head, slightly prickling her skin with his stubble, his mouth moved toward hers. Laura bolted for her room. She heard him laughing at her retreat all the way down the hall. “Coward,” he called after her. “In any battle, you should stand your ground.”

The kiss hadn’t been as potent as the one under the oak tree, but it disturbed her enough to keep her awake and reading Caroline’s diaries because she could not rest. That night, she found the first inkling Caroline Montleon was not a paragon of virtue. The now mature mistress of the Chateau, nearing Laura’s own age, wrote, “Without joy, I have discovered I carry a fourth child. Papa Aurelien is failing and Adrien is so often gone that more and more of the burden of the plantation is thrust upon me. I cannot carry two such heavy loads.”

Two weeks later, the diarist noted, “I have lost the child but am recuperating at good pace. The tragedy brought Adrien to my side. Perhaps now, he will share more of the responsibility of the plantation. Tomorrow, we go together to light candles at the church for the soul of our lost child.”

If the previous passage about not wanting the child were omitted, then the second was quite affecting. Laura, her tired mind full of ancestors, Montleons and LeBlancs, and Christmas gifts for her own family, thought what strong stuff the past could be if it were as well-known as this family’s history. If she could convince Miss Lilliane to allow the diaries to be printed, what a contribution they would make to the local history of the area, perhaps to the history of the South. Caroline Montleon had been far more candid about her sexuality and bearing children than most women of her era. The diaries went from being a charming discourse on manners and customs to a personal outlet for the writer, and so would speak directly to the concerns of modern women.

Thanksgiving waddled into view next week. Yes, if she began now, she could have the first diary typed, printed out and bound at the university bookstore by the holidays. That would surely please the old librarian and soften her up for having all of the volumes published. Pleased to have another project on the way and another gift out of the way, Laura slept unusually well that night after all.