Southern Ruby by Belinda Alexandra Page A

Orleans was because everyone you met had a story they wanted to share with you. In a city of storytellers, Maman was the best, especially when she told tales about the history of the place. The animation in her face and the way she raised and lowered her voice at the right moments made it seem like the scene she was describing was unfolding before your eyes. Perhaps her talent had been handed down from the plantation days, when there was nothing to do during the hot, mosquito-ridden evenings except play cards, read poetry and tell each other stories.
    Mae came to refresh the tea. She glanced from the cake to me and winked. Even though she didn’t like me working, I guessed she was pleased that we could make Maman happy with the money I was earning. Then I realised that not only could I not return to the ice cream parlour after I’d run out like that and thrown away my uniform, but I hadn’t picked up my currentweek’s pay. It was going to be gravy and bread again if I didn’t figure something else out quickly. Curse, Aunt Elva , I thought. She’s got a way of spoiling everything.

    â€˜Ruby,’ Maman said that evening, when we were sitting together reading and listening to Chopin on the record player after dinner, ‘you are looking more and more like your father every day.’
    â€˜Maman, that is not a compliment!’ I cried, putting my book down.
    â€˜Pray, why not?’ she asked, looking indignant. ‘He was the handsomest man in town and you’re the prettiest girl.’
    â€˜Because he left us and got himself killed by a mosquito. Being the handsomest man in town isn’t much use if you aren’t there for your wife and daughter.’
    â€˜Now that’s no way to talk about your papa,’ said Maman, taking off her mother-of-pearl spectacles. ‘Your father was a passionate man and passion is a fine trait, even if it does get you into trouble sometimes.’
    Despite the fact that my father had practically deserted us, Maman never said a bad word against him. She had some strange points of view about the world, and being loyal to your husband, even if he was a cad, was one of them. She wasn’t capable of seeing things any other way.
    She pressed her lips together and frowned. ‘It’s true the de Villerays perhaps had more passion than most. But my branch of the Dreux family had none, and that made them weak. Both my parents were dead before they were forty and produced no heirs except me. Passion gives you the will to live. I think that’s why I was so charmed by your father: he had a zest for living. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep up with his late nights and his festivities and his ideas —’
    â€˜Just as well you didn’t, Maman,’ I interrupted. ‘Or you’d have gone on that foolish trip to Brazil and died with him.’
    She sighed and changed the subject. ‘Anyways, did I ever tell you about Nicolas Didier, a Creole aristocrat distantly related to the de Villeray family? Now there was a man who had some passion.’
    Normally, listening to one of Maman’s stories was my favourite way to pass time. But my mind was troubled and I only half paid attention to her tale about a French man and a beautiful quadroon woman back in the days when there were few white women in the colony. Maman spoke about the grand balls where mothers of mixed-blood women brought their daughters to meet prospective protectors in a system known as plaçage . The coloured women were given their own houses, and any offspring born of the union were formally educated. It was an arrangement that lasted until a suitably aristocratic wife was sent to the colony by the man’s family for an official and legally recognised marriage. Maman described the ball gowns and the women ‘with skin like butterscotch’ in elaborate detail, but all I could think about was money. How was I going to earn it now that I no longer had a