that one's mistress had a brother who was a black man, whether or not that brother had saved her life. January didn't grudge it exactly. He was in fact moderately gratified to see how assiduous the fat man was of his mistress's comfort, fetching her pastries and lemonade and making sure she always had a seat in one of the olive velvet chairs around the three sides of the dance floor.
When Minou finally came over to the ivy-swagged dais, January explained what Hannibal and Uncle Bichet had told him. "You heard anything about that?" he asked his sister, under the soft strains of a Haydn air played to cover the between-dance gabble of flirting and champagne. "About someone wanting to have me blackballed? Starting rumors? Though God knows what they'd be about."
What were the rumors of Rose Vitrac about? The thought made him shiver.
"God knows what any rumor is ever about, p'tit."
Minou tapped his wrist with her lacy fan, concern for him in her eyes. After four months she'd put back a little of the flesh her illness had cost her; and though she still looked tired and brittle, her smile was just as lovely. "It will blow over, cher. I've heard nothing from Mama, and of course Henri wouldn't know-I'm not sure Henri knows Jackson was re-elected. Or was elected the first time, for that matter," she added thoughtfully, though the corners of her mouth tucked up, as they always did when she spoke of her lover, and her eyes sought out the enormous pink-and- blue satin shape by the buffet, like an omnivorous pillow devouring oysters with the other Creole gentlemen. "I'm not sure it would be best to ask him, for fear of making the situation worse. All one can do is... well!"
January didn't know how she did it, since she wasn't looking in the direction of the triple doorway into the ballroom's vestibule at the top of the stairway from below; but she caught sight of a mother and daughter entering, and turned her head. "She must want that poor little thing out of the house! I'd have said Marie-Neige was too young to come to balls for a year yet."
It was Agnes Pellicot, with Marie-Neige.
The poor girl looked painfully shy in her grown-up gown, green-striped satin cut low over small, lush breasts. Her face peeked shyly from an explosion of fluffy dark curls beneath a Circassian turban and pearls. Her two older sisters-the eldest of the four, Marie-Anne, was with her own protector in the cluster around the buffet tableswalked behind her. Marie-Louise wore an expression of miffed suspicion, but Marie-Therese seemed serene in the knowledge that no prospective suitor of hers-or Marie-Louise's, for that matter-was going to find the chubby fourteen-year-old any competition for the elder two. January knew better than to catch the girl's eye, though he suspected she'd be grateful to see a familiar face.
But he did say, "If you get a chance, Minou, would you ask Marie-Neige if she's heard from her schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Vitrac? Or if she knows where Mademoiselle might be found? I'd appreciate it."
"Mademoiselle Vitrac?" Minou's forehead wrinkled under the snailshell curls of her powdered wig. "That woman who stole all that money and let those poor girls all die of the fever?"
"That's a lie!" said January, shocked that the story had worked itself down to the pla??e demimonde.
"Who told you... "
"Hey, Maestro." Uncle Bichet set aside the champagne he'd been sharing with Hannibal during this exchange, and picked up his viol's beribboned bow. "Old Froissart squintin' this way. Looks like those folks out there startin' to die of no dancin'. Can't let that happen."
"Will you play a Basket Quadrille for the next dance?" urged Minou. "Hercule Lafr?nni?re promised me one..."
"I'll play one at the end of the set if you get Henri to dance with Marie-Neige." January felt a pang of pity for the girl. "She can't possibly be afraid of him."
"Well." Minou flirted her fan at him. "I'll see what I can do. But if Henri runs away with her I'll have you to blame."
January sank his concentration back into the musica waltz-cotillion and a delicate Mozart country dance-but his eyes returned a dozen times to the dancers, seeking out the shell hue of his sister's gown, or the multifarious greens and whites of Marie-Neige's. It was hard not to think about Rose; hard not to imagine her stumbling along the banquettes after her release from the Cabildo, frightened and wondering desperately what would become of