“Actually, Mrs. Richard, I don’t know how to answer your question.” Constance toyed with a bit of asparagus before she laid her fork down. She put her hands in her lap and faced Dorothea Richard. “There are times when I feel quite free, and others when I fret and worry a great deal.”
“You’ve never had anyone ask you such a question, have you, my dear?”
“No.” Constance picked up her fork. “No, never.”
“So, you are nonplussed that I am so straightforward?” Dorothea dabbed her napkin at her lips. “Well, after today, I assume you will become accustomed. In truth, I believe you will find it liberating. Much as I find it liberating not to wear a corset, especially these current ones with the pigeon breast, wasp waist, and heifer hips.” She laughed at Constance’s expression. “And you’ll get used to my saying what I think.”
Dessert finished, the women gathered in the simple but elegant parlor. They were here to be who they were, in place of who they were told they should be. An inventive, infectious group of women intent on determining who they might be if it pleased them, with a name to suit their purpose: Les Mysterieuses, the first ever female krewe for Mardi Gras four years ago. Everything had been turned on its head that previous leap year: women had asked men for a dance or a dinner date, and one woman had even asked a man to marry her. The whole endeavor had been not only outrageously unseemly, but in the end acceptably so, as well. Now another leap year—or ostensibly so—another ball, an expanded one, and Constance’s invitation to participate had become part of her own expansion. Nothing depended on men except what these daring women deemed was theirs for the asking.
The discussion ran the gamut, from the location (all agreed upon the French Opera House), the committees, and the committee chairs, to the captain in charge and the choice of a queen, the foremost concern. Just as this female krewe had turned the table on men, now they turned the table on convention. Not one queen, they agreed. No. Why should there be only one? “Let us have four, one for each point of the compass, to include the whole of womanhood. One each of the various symbols of female identity—Semiramis, Pocahontas, Juliet, and Brunhilda. All womanhood included in royalty!” they declared.
Constance left the house with a tangled sense of uncertain despair and a slant of hope she had not known since her infant, David, died. It was not until she reached the corner to board the streetcar that she realized the depth of that truth. How long it had been since she had felt anything other than grief. The loss of her boy had immobilized her, left her without energy, almost without purpose. But not entirely. She rose each day from dreams that left her depleted to a morning whose purpose belonged to her girls, who were more precious to her now than ever before. The grief snarled her with constant fear, but today something new had crept in, something small, the smallest bit of light, of newborn expectancy.
Riding in the falsely cooling gale of the streetcar’s movement, Constance held one hand over her abdomen, which tightened in an alternate seesaw of shock and exuberance. How might she be seen by this new group? She lived on the lower boundary of the upper echelons of New Orleans society. Benton had been determined to rise to the top. She had despised his relentless ambition and all he demanded of her to assist him in achieving his aspirations. Constance was simple in her desires: family, comfort—both physical and emotional—children, friends, and a purpose to her life. Her children and the work at the orphanage provided her that purpose. She did not care to entertain or to be entertained. Fine clothing held little draw for her, though she loved creative surprises, not necessarily ones in vogue. Les Mysterieuses offered her that. Now she was opening herself to an experience she had no way of truly anticipating, while still carrying with her all the fear and uncertainty of yesterday, in the stranglehold of her gruesome experience.
Had Benton stumbled? Yes, yes, of course. Had he simply fallen? Had her hand knocked him from the train? Who was that man? Had he pushed Benton or startled him more, as he had her? Where was Benton now? At home, waiting, knowing? Would he shake her to death?
The fear, the uncertainty, the memories dazed her. Constance could not bear to return to her own house. Instead, at the next stop, she descended from the streetcar. A man on a bicycle came near to hitting her as she bolted across the tracks to the other side of the street. She barely missed a woman pushing a pram. She rounded the corner and was relieved to find a small coach, its driver flicking the reins slightly at his knee in boredom, apparently in need of a hire. She shook her head as the driver started to jump down and assist her. Gripping the handlebar of the carriage, she mounted and gave him the address of the orphanage.
CHAPTER 7
Day after day Alice paced about the flat, plying first one task and then another, only to abandon each unfinished. She went through Howard’s clothing again, collecting a few dollars of loose change from his pockets. She was tempted to search his bureau drawers, of which she had opened only the top two to restack his ironed and folded handkerchiefs and underwear. After drawing his stilted wrath when she had once taken it upon herself to reorganize a few items in the other drawers, she had dared not violate his privacy by opening them again. Now she was desperate. She needed any odd dollars, quarters, dimes, and even pennies he was sometimes wont to drop beside his neatly organized accessories. She had even noticed him drop a roll of bills in a drawer now and then, and from these he would unroll and count out enough to cover their groceries and miscellaneous expenses, such as his endless cleaning bills. She was hungry, and the cool of autumn had commenced at last. She would soon need heat for the flat. Perhaps there was money there in the drawers even now, and his privacy be damned.
Alice had just reached for one of the lower knobs when she was startled by a knock at the door. Her throat caught and would not let her breath pass. But then it did. It could not be Howard. Her mind raced. Unless somehow there had been an assault on him. He had been attacked and had been in some hospital, unable to communicate. Now he was recovered enough to return home, and he had no key. Rationality stepped in. The police would have found him. Her sudden imaginative hope sent her heart racing. She quelled the thought. She rushed toward the door but stopped short of throwing it wide. No one ever knocked at this door, not even the landlord. Alice slid her palms down her skirt and tried to ask who was there. Her voice emerged in a hoarse whisper.
Whoever was on the other side evidently heard something, for there was a second knock and a man’s voice said, “It’s Sergeant Ames, ma’am. I need to speak with you about Mr. Butterworth.”
He is dead, she thought. They have come to tell me he is dead. Alice slid the latch and cracked open the door. Indeed, there was a policeman there. She opened the door wider.
“Mrs. Butterworth?”
She nodded, again slid her sweaty palms down her skirt.
“May I come in, please, ma’am?”
She nodded but failed to step back. He waited. When it struck her that she was blocking the way, she mumbled and retreated three steps. As he entered the flat, squeezing between her and the doorframe, the policeman peered around, taking in what details she could only guess.
“No need for alarm, Mrs. Butterworth. I’ve come to do some checking on your missing person report. Well, on your missing husband. Have you had any word of him?”