Ellen watched as Latrobe the factor shook his head. A straight-backed man of medium proportions and moderate years, he had large doleful eyes protected by gold-rimmed eyeglasses. ‘He has a weakness of facial character, disguised by a careful beard,’ Madame Labiche had earlier confided to Ellen. Now, the factor gave a mannered but very definite refusal to Madame Labiche.
‘Madame Labiche, how many years have I factored large sums to your husband for the prosperous advancement of Versailles?’ He extended his hand slowly, in supplication for her understanding.
‘Many years, Monsieur Latrobe … but then there was no risk …’ the plantation mistress began.
‘Ah, Madame Labiche … !’ the factor interrupted, with a smile. ‘… for those who lend against the future there is always risk … though we endeavour to mitigate it. Now …’ he continued, ‘… the great houses are falling, the slaves runaways, or waiting for deliverance from the pretender president, Lincoln.’
‘But the South will prevail, Monsieur Latrobe – it must!’ Lucretia Labiche argued.
‘Madame Labiche, were it only so,’ Latrobe answered. ‘But pragmatism must temper loyalty … even loyalty to the South. It would be derelict of me to advance an old friend such large sums as would plunge you into penury. As the Emperor Caesar once said, “The house is fallen, the beaten men come into their own”. And it is true, the “house” of the South is fallen. Besides … where ever again will be the likes of your dear husband, gone now gallantly to defend us, to restore order once more?’
Ellen could resist silence no longer. ‘Mr Latrobe!’ she interrupted. ‘Look around you! Do you see a fallen house? Madame Labiche has by her own hand performed a miracle here. She is the new South. The old thinking will be swept away with the war.’
The factor raised a whimsical eyebrow above the rim of his glasses, took them off and inspected them, ignoring Ellen.
She continued, unheeding of his condescension. ‘Madame Labiche’s plan is a good plan – to buy slaves from the houses now closing. When the war ends and the country is united, sugar will once again be king!’ She surprised herself at how authoritative she sounded.
‘The slaves will leave and go North,’ he answered, cleaning his spectacles.
‘No, they will stay!’ Madame Labiche answered. ‘It is my plan to set them free … to pay them for their labour … enter the new thinking.’
‘But, Madame Labiche, there’s the rub if I might say so … paid labour will not pay for all this!’ The factor raised his hand towards the splendour of the house behind them. ‘The new thinking – as you call it – will attest that plantations such as these were built on the backs of black labour … free black labour. But black labour is no longer free, when freed.’
‘Then, if necessary, I will live in a cabin, like them,’ Madame Labiche answered, stonily.
At this the factor’s face blanched. For a moment concern flitted across his face, then it was gone. He replaced his glasses with great deliberation, thoughtfully pushing the centre-rim back over the bridge of his nose. ‘Then I am sure you shall,’ he said, inclining forward in a half-bow. ‘It is always a pleasure to conduct business with such ladies,’ and he concluded the conversation, betraying not even a hint of anything other than the decorum which he had long practised.
When he had left, Ellen caught the other woman’s hands. ‘The Latrobes of the world will quickly enough disappear,’ she said, thinking of a Northern victory.
‘I doubt it!’ Madame Labiche answered. ‘Or if they do, they will be replaced by their Yankee counterparts. The slaves may well be liberated, us women … never!’
The plantation mistress then showed Ellen into the Mill and the Purgery – a hundred feet in length, fifty feet in breadth.
‘It was not sugar alone that was made here …’ she said, ‘… but history! The Jesuits brought sugar to New Orleans one hundred years ago from the tropics of New Guinea. So it is a holy tradition. But the Jesuit chemists failed. Sugarcane needs fourteen months of hot sunshine to reach maturity. Here, in Louisiana, we have only eight before the weather begins to cool. ‘Here the cane never reaches full maturity …’ she paused, as if reflecting on something else of life. ‘But the cool, dry weather of early Fall produces an artificial maturity. This is accelerated by light frosts that slow the growth, and increase the sucrose levels in the juice. But if we have freezing temperatures during harvesting destroy the sucrose content and the juice will no longer crystallise. Crystallisation is the art, the divine intervention. The West Indians … there!’ She pointed at a group of slaves for Ellen to understand. ‘They are masters of the art. The Congolese slaves from Africa, less so.’
Ellen was fascinated by it all, the history and geography of the divine art of making sugar.
Lucretia Labiche continued her story while, in the next month or so, this friendly frost is welcome it is the killing frost of late October, we must race against. If it comes while the cane still stands … then we are all dead.’