Redfern's Washington Hotel affair that summer, and could not rid himself of the sensation of being priced by the pound: Americans always made him uneasy. If nothing else, the volume of tobacco expectorated was enough to pollute the room with its stench. Madame Redfern, still in deep mourning, circulated among her guests with the vulpine Fraikes in attendance, and January could not but note the fashionable lines of her dress and the quantities of black lace and jet jewelry festooning her stubby person.
"It's a terrible city, terrible city," he heard a man say in English, over the general babble of talk between sets of polka and waltz. "Did you hear about poor Yates and his family? Found them all together in his wife's bedroom, all dead of the cholera... But opportunities?" The man, a thick-set Philadelphian-at least January thought the accent was Philadelphian-kissed his hand. "Speaking of opportunities, Gallagher, I've been meaning to ask you about renting slaves for the mill..."
"I think you have been very, very brave," a woman was saying, taking Emily Redfern's black-mitted hands in her own. A number of women, January noted, were still in mourning, but fewer than he'd seen at Creole functions last winter. The Americans tended to have more money, and to flee earlier; their relatives were in New York or Washington or Boston, not in New Orleans itself.
"I was lucky." Madame Redfern was not veiled now, and her square face assumed an expression of pious martyrdom. "My poor Otis! I will always blame myself for not being more insistent that he get rid of that wicked girl! Because, of course, I saw from the beginning what she was. But he never would." She sighed, a world of carefully manipulated wistfulness in her eyes, as if it was her belief that the lamented Otis had been too good-hearted to think ill of anyone.
"Did they ever catch her?"
The widow shook her head. "Poor soul. I can only pray that she will one day realize the error of her ways." She still had a voice like scale weights clacking in a pan: A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny... "I suppose I should hire men to pursue her wherever she flees, for, of course, her theft left me destitute; but I don't do badly now. Because of the way Papa tied it up in trust, at least they weren't able to distrain Black Oak. And the sale of the other slaves let me discharge Otis's debts at some percentage of their value. And Mr. Fraikes assures me that..."
They moved off, Madame Redfern relating yet again how Mr. Fraikes had made sure she would be no longer liable for the remaining seventy-five percent of her late husband's debt. January wondered how many people she had told this to. Still, given the quality of the chicken croquettes, quiche lorraine, bombe glacee, and eclairs ranged along the buffet table, and the obvious promise of money in the new red velvet side chairs and heavily gilded picture frames, everyone seemed more than willing to listen a second or third (or sixth) time.
"... wicked girl, to do that to poor Emily, who had been so good to her:..."
"... died in absolute agony..."
"... Mr. Fraikes simply told Fazende that he'd signed the paper expressing complete satisfaction with the discharge at the time..."
"... a trust fund in perpetuity, and not actually hers -and therefore not his to sell for debt, thank God-at all.
Mr. Bailey walked by, deep in conversation with a planter's son. The Magistrate glanced curiously at January, as if trying to recall his face, but failed and walked on.
A polka. A schottische. Flouncing laces and swirling silk. The memory of that small determined face under the red headscarf -You know how they do.
Why hadn't Redfern claimed the pearls?
When the Reverend Micajah Dunk made his appearance he was surrounded at once by nearly every woman in the room, and for some thirty minutes held a species of court under the skeptical eyes of the disgruntled men. Served them right, thought January, with a wry inner grin. He'd seen too many of these men sneak away to the quadroon balls, leaving their wives, their fiancees, to "make a tapestry," as the saying went. About time they found themselves with their noses out of joint.
And the Reverend Dunk, he had to admit, had a good deal of the messianic magnetism that frequently clings to preachers, particularly when they are physically powerful men in their prime.