Page 86 of Frankly, My Dear

He squeezed her with mock chastisement and went on, “and decided when I was thirteen that I was a man. With foolhardy abandon, I signed a three-year indenture that took me to Santo Domingo, then stayed on for an additional seven years until I earned enough to return to my mother. Those years were intolerable beyond belief. But no worse than Negro slaves face every day in the South.”

“But not on your plantation, James,” she offered. “I can see that you’re trying to make it better for them. Can I tell you something about slavery and the future?”

He hesitated, not sure he wanted to know of events to come.

“Slavery will be abolished after the Civil War, which, I think, will start in 1861 with the firing on Fort Sumter. The war between the North and the South will be a horrible, bloody travesty of brother fighting against brother.”

James felt the blood drain from his face in horror. “How long…how long will it last?”

“Until 1865.”

“My God!”

“And, James, you have to know that the South will be brought to its knees. Devastated. Burned to the ground in some places.”

James could barely comprehend all she was telling him. Could it be possible? “But the Negroes will then be free?”

“Yes, but the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t bring an immediate solution. Heck, a hundred and thirty-some years later, in 1996, blacks will still be fighting for equality.”

“You say the Civil War will start sixteen years from now. I’ll be fifty years old then, and Etienne twenty-one. I hope I will be long gone from the South by then.”

“You wouldn’t want to fight for the North in the Civil War?”

“I don’t know. The cause sounds noble, but the idea of fighting my neighbors…I just don’t know. I wouldn’t be very young then, either.”

“But Etienne would. Oh, James, I hadn’t thought of that when I began to tell you about the future. I don’t like this knowing what’s coming in the years ahead.”

“Neither do I, but now that I do know, I will be forced to make a decision as regards Etienne, won’t I?”

She nodded. “And we can’t tell anyone else about this, James. I don’t know why I’ve been sent to the past, but somehow I know it’s wrong for me to be trying to change history…impossible, actually.”

“You’re right.” James would have much to think about later, but not now. It was too much to digest at once. Besides, he was supposed to be taking Selene’s mind off her harrowing experience with the alligators. He smiled to himself, remembering something. “Hmmm. The Civil War…that’s the time of that story you keep dwelling on, isn’t it? You know…Crimson and Rat.”

She pinched his arm playfully. “Oh, you! It’s Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, and you know it. And Gone With the Wind is the most famous, romantic love story ever told.”

“Well, I think it would have been a better book with the names Crimson and Rat.”

“I think you’re just changing the subject. It’s your turn now. Tell me about your early days at Bayou Noir and…and Giselle.”

He froze for a moment, then sighed with resignation. “I was almost twenty-four years old when I returned from Santo Domingo with twenty thousand dollars in my pocket.”

“That’s a lot of money for these times, isn’t it?”

“A considerable amount,” he agreed, “but not enough to buy a prosperous plantation, or even a flourishing business in New Orleans. So, like many of the Americans coming into the South, and the Creoles down on their luck, I took a chance on a run-down shambles of a bayou sugar plantation.”

“The Last Chance Plantation,” she remarked with a laugh, reminding him of her earlier nickname for his home.

“The rest of my story is not so unusual. It’s lonely here in the swamps. I was able to make even fewer trips into the city then. And when I did, I met Giselle. Ironically, Victor introduced us. I thought she was the answer to my dreams.” He made a low sound of disgust before adding, “She wasn’t.”

“Oh, James.” She clasped his hands in both of hers, and the gesture touched him as deeply. Then she asked softly, “And what are your dreams now?”

He didn’t hesitate to answer. “I have none. Or, at least, they are more simple dreams. Make a home for my son and my mother away from the ignominy of slavery, perhaps in a less harsh environment, one less susceptible to the moods of nature.”

“So you want to move away from Louisiana?”

“Yes, most definitely, but I’m not sure where. Maybe the West, maybe even another country.”

They stopped and James slid off the horse, tying its reins to a birch sapling. Then he held out his arms for Selene to slip into his embrace.