[84-85]

Among the residents of the battery was an old white woman of the name Marguerite Lagoux. By her intimates called Rita, by familiar acquaintances, Morgoton, by those who despised her completely, she was known as Bitter Madame Margot. But, among the pale, wealthy residents of the South Battery, the most disliked was she. 

Marguerite was a horrid woman. She was short and stout with wrinkles covering every inch and a frown perpetually on her face. Her bitter glare was something others feared and many avoided her home at any cost. 

Men, seeing her for the first time, stopped to look, distracted by the hate seemingly radiating off her skin. There was something about her that seemed so utterly pessimistic, as if she could suck all of the pleasantness out of the air just by entering the room.

She dressed in only dark colors, usually in the form of long skirts or elegant black cloaks. She hid herself within the deep folds of her clothing at all times as if she were avoiding the outside world. She liked to block everything out, especially other people. 

She was a milliner and mantaumaker, her shop in King Street, on the western side, beyond Mignot’s Garden, a little above the bend. Its location is now altogether uncertain, for all that part of King Street was destroyed by fire. 

Her house was a large mansion on the edge of the Battery’s edge. It was a beautiful home that looked like it did not belong to her, as it was so decorated and ornate. The house was bordered by a narrow alley, known as Lilac Lane, from which two large melia azederach trees, Indian Lilacs, arched at its entrance. Most Charlestonians believed the house was what gave Marguerite her hatefulness. Nobody knew exactly where her wealth came from, but they  assumed this wealth and her home gave Madame Margot the ability to think so highly of herself that she thought she was above the rest of society. She likened herself greater than all, and had a specific dislike for people of color.

[mid 87]

When she was younger, It was thought inevitable that Marguerite would never marry. Nobody ever suspected that she would come to a full loveliness and be pursued by men. Yet, in her early thirties, she finally came across a man she could tolerate, one equally as wealthy and horrid as she. Nobody ever thought that she could become a loving mother, but when she became pregnant with her first child, everything changed. 

The baby, which the couple assumed would be a girl, was to be named Gabrielle. Marguerite immediately had so much love for this child, even before it was born. For the nine months she carried it, she felt it grow inside of her and thought about how great she would love her. She promised to be the best mother to her future newborn baby and would love it no matter what. 

Yet, when her baby was born, Madame Margot’s bitterness showed again. The baby she bore did not look like her. She did not have the same striking pale features or light hair. Rather, her beloved baby girl had dark skin, dark enough to be a child of a different set of parents. 

Marguerite couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw her child. She had waited nine long months for her precious baby to be born and yet she was left with one that did not fit the image in her head. The baby she held in her arm was the same one she had carried in her belly all that time, yet when she looked at it, the love she had once felt immediately fell away. Her bitterness was to return once again, and even more so than before. 

In my remake of “Madame Margot” I tried to do a spin-off where Margot was the complete opposite of what Bennett makes her to be in his short story. In his version, Madame Margot is a beautiful, sweet woman whom everyone loves. Yet, in my story, she is a bitter, distasteful woman that is disliked because of how awful she is. I tried to incorporate the issue of race in my remake. I wrote the new version so that Margot has a baby that changes her to become a better, loving person. Yet, race overruled all when she found out her baby did not look like what she had wanted. Even though her baby girl is the same one that she had love for during her pregnancy, her love is diminished due to the way her baby looks. This ties into the issues we have seen in some of the works from class. I tried to emphasize the hatred some wrongly felt towards African Americans simply because of their colored skin.