Mounting the horseless carriage was a novel experience for Constance. An exhilarating one. She settled herself on the gleaming black leather seat, tufted and finely crafted as any parlor divan, and as comfortable. A marvelous wine-red plush covered the floor and dash. Dorothea pulled the hand throttle. The engine hummed. She drew the tiller toward her, and they were on their way.
“I have had a lesson or two from my neighbor, Mr. Mont-morissey. Even before the car arrived,” Dorothea said. “Now I am an efficient pilot, am I not?”
Constance nodded her head at Dorothea’s glance.
“I’m dumbfounded, Dorothea. How on earth—”
“I am an independent woman, Constance. My husband left me with a more than reasonable inheritance. Why should I depend on a man to keep horses and hitch a carriage? Or need to wait by the street, trying to hail a carriage? Or even puzzle myself over the tangle of streetcar lines? Now I am free. I am able to go where I please when I please. At a handy speed, too, I might add. Fifteen miles an hour, if I’ve a mind to. But that’s a bit reckless for New Orleans streets.” As she talked, Dorothea managed the tiller and throttle through the tangle of horses, carriages, and streetcars. “We’ll be there soon enough. And you, my dear, may find your life altered for the better.”
Constance bit her lower lip. Not only was she unused to such a ride, but she also worried at the decision she would now be called upon to make once she met this young seamstress. Dorothea had described her as a bit lost but inventive in finding her way in the world. Her resourcefulness seemed to have impressed both Mrs. Guidry at the orphanage and Dorothea. Mrs. Guidry had presented Alice as gifted in her sewing skills and generous spirited with the girls at the asylum. She had observed not only the level of the young woman’s skills but also her patience as she demonstrated beginning stitches again and again. Mrs. Guidry admired Alice’s quiet urging of the older girls into imaginative techniques. The orphanage was fortunate indeed to have found a teacher like Alice, Dorothea had proclaimed. Without the orphanage, Alice would be homeless. The complication: Alice was with child.
Mrs. Guidry welcomed the two familiar visitors into the sitting room of the asylum. A young girl appeared with a tea tray and set it before them, curtsied, and disappeared. Mrs. Guidry declined to join them and stood as she poured the tea. Fidgeting, with little to say past welcome, she was clearly ill at ease. After stepping to an open door across the room, she brought a young woman into the light.
Constance stood, while Dorothea stirred her tea and smiled.
“This is Alice,” Mrs. Guidry said. “Mrs. Alice Butterworth. And this is Mrs. Halstead. I believe you already know Mrs. Richard.”
“Hello, Alice. I’m delighted to see you again. I hope you are well. Please, sit down. Let me pour you some tea.” Dorothea was busy with her polite ministrations.
As they sat, Mrs. Guidry took her leave and disappeared. The three sat in silence. Constance could not think what to say.
“Well, now,” said Dorothea, speaking in Alice’s direction. “I desired to introduce the two of you because I believe you have needs that can be mutually satisfied. Constance is a recent widow, in need of a ball gown for Mardi Gras.” She turned to Constance. “Alice is a skilled seamstress in need of shelter, board, and work.” She stood between the two women, turning to first one, then the other. “Is this not a match, now?”
Alice watched as Dorothea rose to go to the tall window, where she studied the girls lining up in the courtyard. Her cup clinked as she set it in its saucer and placed both back on the tray.
“Ah, there is the very person I’ve been needing to speak with,” Dorothea said. “I’ll leave you two to yourselves for a moment. You will excuse me, won’t you?”
As Constance nodded, Alice found herself in the silence of the room, and she was relieved when this elegant stranger spoke first.
“Where are you from, Alice?”
“The Midwest plains originally. Then Chicago. I came here from there.” She omitted the useless detail of Memphis and her spontaneous decision to give up the pursuit of the unknown husband who had abandoned her, and his perhaps fictitious mother.
“Overnight?”
“Yes.” Alice hesitated, unsure how much to reveal about herself. “Yes, sitting up. Not the most comfortable.” There, she would be as open as she dared. After all, this woman must have a hint of her economic woes by the fact that she was living in the orphanage. She would test the waters with this young widow Dorothea had brought to her.
“You are comfortably installed here?”
“Yes, quite. Mrs. Guidry is a saint. Her sewing teacher left to be married, and she happened to have an empty room on the second. So, I have my own space, at least temporarily. And the girls to teach. The sewing room is quite well fitted out.” Where was this conversation going? Alice wondered.
“Yes, I am familiar with it. I do a bit of volunteering for the orphanage. Perhaps Dorothea told you that.” Constance seemed ill at ease now. “I hear there are new machines and arrangements for a new cutting table.”
“Yes. We are rather well equipped. That’s a great advantage.”
“Dorothea praises your skills.”
Alice glanced out the window. “I have some experience,” she said.
“Yes, Dorothea has praised that, too.”
An awkward silence ensued.
“I’m wondering . . . ,” Constance said.
“I’m quite . . . ,” Alice began at the same time. Then, embarrassed, added, “Excuse me. Please. Go on.”
After another moment of uncomfortable silence, Constance said, “As you already know, I am a recent widow with two little girls to raise. Dorothea has invited me to participate in an all-women’s Mardi Gras ball. I’m not sure, since you are recently arrived, if you know how unprecedented that possibility is.”
Alice nodded and waited. No, she was not at all familiar with the customs of New Orleans society and certainly not Mardi Gras, which was an utterly unfamiliar concept to her. Yet her curiosity about its sewing opportunities was what had brought her here.
“Historic, in fact. This is a leap year, or purportedly so, and will be only the second time in our history that an all-female krewe will organize a ball. It simply flies in the face of convention.” Constance glanced out the window. “Well,” she said, “mine is very recent widowhood—but you know that—and widowhood has its own conventions.” Constance hesitated. “I don’t seem to know where to go with this conversation.”
If this sophisticated woman had no idea, how was Alice possibly to conceive its course? Alice waited.
“Well, perhaps I should just get directly to the point. I’m learning such forthrightness from Dorothea. So here it is, Alice. Dorothea is in charge, the captain, and she is insistent that I participate in spite of my widowhood. She assures me I can be veiled in such a way that no one will know me. Mystery is, in fact, the very nature of the krewe Les Mysterieuses. So, if I follow her insistence, I will need a fairly simple ball gown made for this affair. One to disguise and not attract too much attention. Dorothea believes you are the one who can create it for me.”
“I’d like to think my skills equal to such an endeavor.”
“I—I’m a bit hesitant, but Dorothea seems so certain that this will do me good, help me find a new approach to life.”
The phrase sent chills through Alice. Another woman here, one with a life that might be envied, struggling to create a new life for herself.
“Perhaps that is her purpose in bringing us together.” Had she overstepped in her reply?
“Yes, well, here is my difficulty, Alice. I might as well be totally honest. My husband”—Constance struggled for words—“was killed in a terrible fall from a train.”
Alice gasped, her hand clasped over her mouth. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
“It was . . . it was unfortunate. And very grim.” Constance stood abruptly. “At any rate, I have been left with unexpected financial difficulties. Yet Dorothea seems bent on my not declining the ball invitation.”
“And Dorothea told you that I am also a widow in my own quite difficult circumstances?”