Grace de L’Écart was not so eager to dispose of Valdoré. She imagined the possibilities of society in Washington to be promising, especially given her familial connections, but she had also dreamt of becoming a plantation mistress, a role for which her upbringing had most thoroughly prepared her. As it was, she had had to endure the snobbishness of the créole planters and their spouses, and the vulgarity of the government functionaries and the rich traders, as a barrister’s wife; though her husband possessed both wealth and prestige, and was of the landed colonial classes, even adopting the de, as became his father’s right by the King’s quill-strokes, he had spent his adult life among this sphere essentially landless and in the service of a government in Paris whose aims had long been held in mistrust.
Given this new change of fate, she was thus quite willing to endure Valdoré’s oppressive tropical heat and the summers of fever-bearing mosquitoes, which, her husband had once joked to her, were the colony’s true masters. She was also ready to take reins over her own retinue of slaves, even if the blacks of Saint-Domingue had tasted freedom and would only return to their prior condition at penalty of death. If it meant a life among French-speaking whites with airs and mulattoes grown so presumptuous as to declare themselves on equal footing with their former masters, she would weather it.
As soon as he had planted his trunks in the main salle and inspected the house and near grounds, de L’Écart deputized three of the male slaves that remained to serve as personal guards. A ricketed hunchback of about 16, named Beauné or Boni, whom he found sleeping in the stables, was to guard his wife and daughter; the second, Alexis, his brother’s former groom, who moved through the house as if it were his, was to accompany him at all times; and the third, the middle-aged Ti-Louis, whose right hand had been lopped off at some point in the past, was charged with guarding the grounds. De L’Écart then rode off to the town hall in Jérémie.
In the meantime, Madame de L’Écart had Ti-Louis gather the remaining female slaves. There were four — Amalie, who tended the few remaining animals and the garden — she was Alexis’s sister, and, younger than him, in her late 20s; Joséphine, an elderly woman who was deaf and partially blind; Jacinthe, another elderly woman of regal bearing who could barely cross the room; and the long-legged, mute creature named Carmel. The Madame immediately set Amalie and Josephine to cleaning the ground floor, while directing Carmel to the upper storeys. The ungainly, very black woman-child who could not talk particularly unnerved her.
When the tasks were underway, Mme. de L’Écart scoured the pantry. The shelves contained half a dozen pulpy mangoes and sabrikos, three furred malangas, a stalk of blackened bananas, covered bowls of horse chestnuts, wormy meal, jerky, numerous tins that had been emptied of their spices and nearly empty jars of English preserves, and a circle of hard, heavily molded cheese. Roaches wove a sepia tapestry on one shelf, ants another on the floor. Jacinthe, who had never labored in the de L’Écart kitchen, was told to prepare a proper supper for the family. Mme. de L’Écart did not trust that the slaves would not attempt to poison her, but she was certain, based on her quick review of them, that the elderly Jacinthe had the most to lose by destroying the source of her sustenance. Still, she stood watch in the kitchen until the meal was complete.
Carmel brought her tureen of lukewarm water, frothened by lye shavings, several large palms and a handmade broom, up to the front guest bedchamber. She had tied several washrags around her wrists. The room like many on the upper floors lay shrouded in old sheets, smelling of woodrot and disuse, so it must be cleaned in order for the daughter of the new Monsieur de L’Écart to sleep here. One of Carmel’s charcoal tableaux, though not as fantastical as the one in the master bedroom, covered the largest wall. She looked right past it. She raised the window and opened the shutters, then hauled the Tunisian carpets onto the sash overlooking the balcony. As she began to pummel the ends of the rug with the broom handle, a nasally voice snapped from the closet: “Girl.”
Carmel instantly stopped cleaning the carpets and turned around. Before her stood the white girl she had seen earlier, her shoulder-length, greasy, hay-colored hair falling in green grosgrain-ribboned braids behind her ears; her eyes, beads of cooled nickel, floated above her hawkish nose. She wore a pale green short-waisted dress of lawn, with a matching green girdle cinched by a darker green silk bow that set off her growing bosom. It had been years since Carmel had seen a young white woman on the grounds of Valdoré, let alone in such a brilliantly colored dress. She clenched her fist around the broom handle, and took a step to the side.
“What is your name?” the white girl asked, in melodic French.
Carmel mouthed her name, though no sound emerged. She wanted to resume her work, but the white girl circled, observing her closely. She paused, leaning close enough to Carmel that her nose momentarily touched the enslaved girl’s cheek. Carmel froze.
“I know your name. This is my father’s plantation now. But he’s going to sell it.” She smiled conspiratorily. “We’ll be leaving for Georgetown, where I was born. Father has a house there too. I’ll have to have a handmaid, Mother says. Tu restes avec moi.” She perched on edge of the high canopy bed, wheeling her legs about. “I had one in Santo Domingo named Carolina.” Carmel nodded. “She would sass Mother all the time, the black witch, but Father doesn’t believe in whipping Negroes. But that’s not a problem, because you can’t sass me.” She then said several things in a language Carmel did not understand, and laughed.
“You don’t seem lazy, though,” she continued. Carmel returned to battering the carpets. The white girl grabbed her shoulder and wrenched Carmel towards her. “Can you keep secrets?”
Carmel, unsure how to respond, nodded a second time. The white girl looked her over once more, and said, “Of course you can, how could you tell? My name is Mademoiselle Eugénie. But that’s not a secret. I’ll have to figure out a way to teach you to understand English soon. Then I’ll share a few with you.” She bounded out of the room just as Boni poked his head in. Carmel splashed lye soap water onto the pine floorboards, and untied one of her wrist-rags to start scrubbing. Through the window wafted the faint scent of burning cane.
Within several fortnights, Olivier de L’Écart had identified a potential buyer for the property, a creole speculator who lived in town. The price was a robbery. The rebellion had yet to fully turn to the blacks’ favor, but they now controlled large stretches of the colony from the border with Santo Domingo all the way to Jacmel, and where they held sway their administration was as vengeful as that of the French. In fact, reports of the slaughter of whites were as common as the fires from distant plantations painting each night’s sky. De L’Écart set about settling his brother’s chief debts, hired an agent to handle the remaining fiscal and land matters, sent trunks on to Washington, and purchased passage for his family. Although his original plan was to free the slaves — because he was finally ready to take a radical step not just in mind but in action — his wife suggested that because there were so few still at Valdoré, they be included as part of the estate to bolster the price. She also wanted him to retain several for their personal use. They would be keeping Carmel because Eugénie must not be left without an attendant of her own.
In fact, Eugénie so dominated Carmel’s waking hours that she was unable, at least for the first few days, to do anything but serve the white girl. Eugénie followed her everywhere, continually demanding her assistance in everything, ordering her around and insisting that Carmel play games with her, often in the midst of the slave girl’s required tasks. She taught Carmel to deal cards and comprehend the Spanish cursewords she had picked up in Santo Domingo. Or she practiced her amours with her servant, cuddling and caressing the younger woman, commanding her to brush and braid and unplait her pale hair, showering her with a level of attention Carmel had never experienced. In this way, to Eugénie’s way of thinking, an understanding took root between them.