“Oh, Mardi Gras. It’s quite a festival, I believe. In New Orleans each year to begin the season of Lent. Lots of fancy costumes and ball dresses. Apparently, the day before Ash Wednesday, before examining your sins and giving something up for forty days, you spend that ‘Fat Tuesday’—that’s the translation—to give yourself enough sins to examine.” He chuckled, cleared his throat. “At least that’s how I understand the tradition.” White shifted his weight. “This is quite a load, Alice. Let me get a bag for you to carry these in.”
“Thank you, sir. This will work just fine,” she said, folding the clothing into the cotton bag he had fetched for her. “You have no need to worry.” She tried a reassuring smile over her shoulder as she exited.
*
But Alice was wrong about there being no need to worry. The temperature had dropped. The icy wind hit her as she rounded the corner, and Alice pulled her dark woolen coat up around her neck. She should have worn a scarf. What had she been thinking? Or not thinking, in reality. She forged her way the few blocks back to the flat, holding herself as tight as possible to the sides of the buildings, hoping to shield herself from the wind. The never steady boards of the walk were in some places frozen to the ground, in others, sliding under the mud. Alice struggled to prevent her hat from flying away, to keep her coat around her neck, to keep the cloth bag steady and prevent the alterations from falling out. At the same time, eyes squinted against the wind, she tried to gauge the treacherous walkway and where to put her feet. It was like some childhood game, hopping from one point to another, avoiding the treacherous spots of mud and barely visible ice. Someone in the street yelled out from a wagon and lashed at the horse. Alice startled, turned to see the source of the commotion in mid-step. Her foot landed on a patch of ice; her face, her thinly gloved hands in the mud; her elbow on the edge of a plank. The pain shot through her. She tried to push herself upright, managed only to sink her hand deeper into the mud. Someone took hold of her arm to pull, and Alice cried out.
“I’m sorry,” she said to whoever was trying to assist. “It’s my elbow,” she said, propping herself up on the other arm, dragging her knees beneath her in an attempt to gain her footing.
She heard a babble of voices as a small crowd gathered around her. Simultaneously, she could see the feet of others scurry past. She could feel their need to escape the scene. Finally, she found enough footing to reach out her uninjured hand for help. An older man, a workman from all appearances, and a young one, only a boy, reached out to hold her up, get her on her feet and onto the wooden plank. The boy stepped into the mud with one foot to retrieve the bag of clothes; one trouser leg and the hem of the twill skirt dragged in the wet mud as he tugged it onto the wood.
“Are you hurt, ma’am?” the boy asked.
“Only my elbow,” Alice said, looking down, surveying the damage to herself. “Thank you,” she said to the boy, again to the workman, with gratitude more sincere than she had experienced in a very long time.
Alice took the bag from the boy. “I will be fine,” she said to them. “Yes, thank you. I am going to be fine.”
CHAPTER 15
In the flat at last, Alice removed her muddy outer clothes. She spread them over Howard’s chair and on the floor. Unlaced her corset and held her hands gently over her belly, where this new babe lay, becoming who it would be. She turned to the radiator, swiveled the knob to increase the heat, and warmed her hands against its ornamental metal. She unlaced her boots and slipped her toes onto the warm floor beneath it.
What am I doing? she thought. I am having his child. And he is in Memphis, perhaps with his mother. She remembered how touched she had been at his sheet of tidy notes with those measurements. She did not know now who he was or what he did. He was not the cotton broker he had presented himself to be. He clearly had legitimate work and a decent income. That she knew. Here was the flat, decently furnished, for which he had paid good rent. His clothing was that of a gentleman, and her own wardrobe had been well upgraded at his insistence. There had been the occasional dinners at various restaurants, not the finest, but fine enough. She remembered for a moment the dinner of their wedding night, the night itself, and an intense bitterness flooded through her. Where was he? How could he have abandoned her? Left her fearing him dead. Now Alice thought, Who was—who is—this man who is my husband? I must leave this place, not just this flat. I must leave this city, this uncertainty. My child depends on me, is trusting me. I cannot lose another. I cannot lose this child.
When Alice had regained herself somewhat, she bathed and washed her hair, donned her nightdress and a warm robe, actually one of Howard’s robes, because it was heavier, taking possession of it now as hers. She had washed the bulk of the mud from her clothes, rinsed it down the sink, a kind of quiet determination taking hold of her. When she had tended to herself, a sense of resolution guiding her, she examined the bag of clothes from the White Way. Only the one trouser leg and one side of the skirt were truly soiled.
Alice put some water on to boil. She would have a cup of tea. She would eat the bread and cheese that remained. She would clean the mud from the skirt, iron it dry, and set about turning the hem. She would do the same with the trouser leg. Thank goodness the fragile satin cape had not been soiled. All that was needed for it would be a close re-stitching of its remarkable gold filigree trimming, loose in several spots, all minor. She knew it would take her the bulk of the night, but then she would be shed of all this. She would return them to Mr. White in the morning, along with all the rest untouched. Her apology for leaving with work unfinished would be sincere. It was hard to think of it. In her life she had never left a job unfinished. But this part of her life was over now. By afternoon she would be on the train to Memphis.
*
Central Station should not have surprised Alice after her recent exposure to the Board of Trade building and her glimpses of the other palatial buildings near it, yet the nine-story building with its thirteen-story clock tower overwhelmed her. Perhaps it was not so much the building as what she was doing that overwhelmed her. Perhaps the scale of the building, its dwarfing of her, created an interior dwarfing of herself in relation to this determination to find the truth. With her ticket in hand, Alice sat on one of the long wooden double-sided benches to wait. She marveled at the design of them, felt a sense of unease sitting back-to-back with other passengers, whose conversations came into her ears as if directed right to her. Two women whom she could not see, but could hear clearly, settled on the bench behind her, laughing.
“I am so very eager to be home again in New Orleans,” said one.
“Indeed,” said the other. “This freezing weather will be the death of me if I have to remain in this place another hour. How can people actually live in such a clime?”
“Well, Mother, there are such people as Eskimos, who live in houses made of ice. There really can’t be a way to warm up even the home. Yet they live like that. It must be some accus-tomization in the blood. But not in mine. I will be so happy to see home, in spite of our lovely shopping.”
“Yes, dear, as will I. I’m not convinced the shopping, lovely as it is, or the city, lovely as it is not, are worth the effort. I am quite excited, though, to have plans in place well before next Mardi Gras, don’t you agree?”
“Indeed, I do, Mother. I am quite excited for this year’s plans and for the wonderfully unusual trims we have found. Now we simply need the right seamstress. I wasn’t altogether happy with repeating last year’s. Of course, so much of it is not in our control, but surely the committee might find a better one.”
“One would think, dear.” The older woman stood. “Believe I shall try to find a restroom before we board. Those on the train seem rather cramped to me.”
“I’ll go with you. I agree.”