Mignon (12 page)

“I know no
demi-mondaine
.” And then, pretty solemn myself, I added: “If a certain
grande dame
could love, then an engineer could, too.”

“She could venture twenty-five thousand bucks.”

She called it
bocks
, very funny, and my heart gave quite a twitch. Then the full force of what she meant to say hit me, and my heart gave a real, shaking thump, which caused a lump in my throat. I said: “For that I’d owe you some kisses.”

“And—anything else,
petit?
”

“Are you talking about marriage, Marie?”

“To
demi-mondaine
it means much.”

“Consider yourself proposed to.”

“I am
Episcopalienne
, as you are.”

“And not Jewish, as I thought you said.”

Recollection of that made her laugh, and suddenly she kissed me and jumped up. “But, kisses first,
petit!
May I look at my chin in your bath?”

“Help yourself, it’s right in there.”

She went in and a minute or two later came out without a stitch on, holding her shoes and things in one hand. Blowing a kiss at me, she went on into the bedroom. I started gathering the rest of her clothes; for all I knew someone might come, and at least I’d have the sitting room clear of telltale duds. And then suddenly there she was, still with no clothes on but walking like an old woman, and slumped down in a chair. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Marie, what in the name of God is it?”

“... Guillaume, you lied to me.”

“I didn’t, I swear!”

In my heart I hadn’t been lying, at least to be conscious of it, as I’d made tremendous decisions, and in the light of them what had happened the previous day, which was all I’d really omitted, hadn’t seemed important. Or, if it had been important once, it wasn’t any more. So I went right on talking, saying the same things over, and she kept sitting there, paying not the slightest attention. Then she got her things from the bedroom, came back, and put them on. Pretty soon she was all dressed, pulling her veil in place. Then, very dignified, she said: “Guillaume, I was happy to go to your bed, and thought only of the kisses I meant to give. Then her scent came as a
coup
. I mistake not the Russian Leather, it is as her
marque de fabrique
, and your bed is full of it. It has made me
malade
, for example. I suppose I understand why you lied—but how can one speak of the scent? It is too much, I must go.”

“She quarreled with me over you.”

“And—you protected me, as I know.”

“They wanted your name. I refused it.”

“There spoke my
chevalier
.” And then, very quietly: “To him I must keep my word. You shall have the twenty-five thousand—”

“Will you forget the goddam tin?”

“My banker shall call. And now,
adieu
.”

S
O HE DID, THE NEXT MORNING
, a Mr. Dumont, connected with the Louisiana Bank, but I wouldn’t let him in and talked through a crack in the door, telling him come some other time. That was because by then my face looked like liver—purple, blue, black, and yellow all at the same time—as well as being swollen twice its size. So I wasn’t seeing anyone, even waiters bringing my food. I had them leave it outside the door, then pulled the tray in after they’d gone. So I put Mr. Dumont off, and wasn’t any too sure, I admit, I wanted to see him at all. But at night I’d go downstairs, and without going through the lobby, slip out the back way, up Gravier to Carondelet, over to Canal, then down to Royal and on to the Landry flat. I’d skulk around outside, trying to see Mignon, torturing myself by spying on what she was doing. I found out all right. One night, as I stood in the shadows across the street, a cab drove up, and out of it popped Burke. Then he handed her down, and told the cabman to wait. She was laughing gaily, and the two of them went in. How long he stayed I don’t know, whether alone with her I don’t know. I slunk back to the hotel and in by Gravier again, like some cur hit with a whip. But next night I was out there as usual, seeing nothing.

In four or five days, call it a week after Mardi Gras, here came Marie, tapping on the door, saying she had to see me. I let her in, and she asked if Emil could “excuse him,” as “he feels very bad, and wants to be friends with you.” I said I’d accept his apologies through her, and she called in French through the crack.

“
Bon
,” she said. “He is gone—and feels better now.” She held my face to the light, and made little whistling noises. But when she sat down I asked her: “Yes? What do you want, Marie, that you ‘had’ to see me?”

“You might say you are glad I am here.”

“I might—if I was sure I am.”

“La-la. La-la.”

Actually I wasn’t, as those nights had warned me my success in the root-out operation had fallen short of what I’d assumed it was, and that all my bitter decisions weren’t so final as they might have been. Still, there was no doubt in my mind that they ought to be final at any rate, so I gave her a little pat. That wasn’t difficult; she looked most fetching in a little blue silk dress, red straw hat, red shoes, red gloves, and red shawl, obviously put on to please me. I said: “All right, I’m glad.”

“Guillaume, I have spent some dark nights.”

“With me, it’s been just the opposite—the bright days are what I minded, the way they lit up my face. By night I looked better.”

She went to a wall mirror, touched her chin with one finger. It had a black-and-blue spot on it where my fist had clipped her, though a dab of rice powder hid it. She said: “I too have a face, but at night one communes with the heart.”

“If I bruised that I didn’t mean to.”

“...
Donc
, you have not seen her.”

“Oh? You’ve been keeping track?”

“Keeping track, Guillaume, is easy for me in my business—I send Emil, he speaks with some night maid, he pays a bock, he learns what I wish to know. ... She sees Burke—much, every night.”

“It’s a free country, Marie.”

“Perhaps you have not lied.”

“Let’s not start that up again. I lied.”

“...
Alors
,
alors
. You lied.”

“But, my reasons were not unfriendly—to you, I’m talking about—and if you still feel friendly to me, then——”

I went over and lifted her face to kiss it, having by that time arrived once more in my mind at the inescapable conclusion that she meant salvation to me. But she pulled away abruptly, and I backed off, sitting down on the sofa. I said: “I’m sorry, Marie—I keep forgetting this face, and how unappetizing it must be.”

She took off her hat, shawl, and gloves, and tossed them on the table. Then she came over, knelt on the sofa beside me, took my face in both hands, and covered it with soft, quick kisses. She said: “The face
could
not unappetize me! I-I-I-loave your face.”

“Red-white-and-blue and all? And yellow?”

“And green.”

She kissed a spot under one eye.

“Hold still!” I said. “
I
want some kisses,
too!
”

“
Non
,
non
,
non!
” she whispered, holding me off at arm’s length. “Your kisses,
petit
, must wait. They must! It devolves!”

“Devolves? On what?”

“Many things—my heart, for example. And one must know—if one has business partner—in which case
les affaires
must prevail—or if one has something more—in which case—”

“An affair might be in order?”

“
Petit
, it cannot be!”

“My mistake, it was just an idea.”

“After these dark nights I have had—”

“It devolves that we know where we’re at?”

“It is what brings me today,
petit
.”

“All right, but how?”

“... You received some invitation to the
bal?
”

“
Bal?
What ball?”

“That the General gives next week?”

“Oh—this Washington’s Birthday thing? To commemorate the election he’s holding that day? Yes—some kind of bid came in. Apparently I got put on the list by a friend before he decided my name was mud. It’s around here some place. Why?”

“
Alors
. You ask me why?”

“You’d like to go? Is that it?”

“If you are ashamed of some
demi-mondaine
——” She got up, her face twisting, and started pulling on her gloves.

“
Will you stop talking like that?
”

I reached out, grabbed her arm and yanked it, pulling her back to her place on the sofa. I said: “How can you say such a thing?”

“You hesitate,
pourtant?
”

“I certainly do—in the first place, I don’t dance very well, and in the second place, I don’t get the connection—what it proves, that’s all.”

“It is not that someone may turn me away?”

“How, turn you away?”

“From the door?”

“If so, he won’t live until dawn.”

Suddenly she folded me in her arms, pressed her mouth to mine, whispered: “One little kiss you may have! ... For this, one little kiss I must have!”

“Is that how we go about proving it? With pistols for two? In—where’s the dueling ground here?”

“No,
petit
, I forbid! You might hang, and this would be too much. But I love this spirit, that might kill someone for me.”

“All right, but get to the point.”

“She will be there,
petit
.”

“... Who?”

“Mignon. With Burke.”

“I see. I see. I see.”

“Already ice fills your heart,
petit?
”

“No—I see what you mean, that’s all.”

“You may renege, if you wish.”

“Not at all. I think we’d better go.”

“This confrontation shall tell me.”

“To say nothing of me.”

So we did go. It was held in the French Opera House, a big theater in the Quarter, and everyone was there, not only the Union officers and their ladies, but New Orleans society too, especially the ones cozening up to the North—of whom there were more than you’d think. I went in full evening regalia, which Marie rented for me at a costume place on Poydras, around the corner from Lavadeau’s: clawhammer suit, puff-bosom shirt, cape, and silk hat. But from the way she was got up, no question could arise that she would be turned away. She looked like the Duchess of El Dorado in a white ermine cloak, scarlet satin gown, cut so low she was bare halfway to her navel, gold shoes, gold purse, and gold fillet on her hair. In addition, she wore diamonds wherever you looked—at her neck in a pendant, on her wrists in bracelets, and on her fingers with various rings. She glittered like an igloo in the midnight sun; I was proud of her in a way, yet I wanted to laugh. She caught my look, and instead of being angry, started to laugh too. “
Alors?
” she said, as our cab pulled away from the gambling house. “Am I
grande dame
now?”

“So grand I feel like a pigmy.”

“I hope I am creditable.”

What was causing my stomach to twitch wasn’t concern at her being thrown out, but who would be waiting for us once we were let in. For some time, though I searched the place with my eye, taking in flags, bunting, smilax, and the band up on the stage, I didn’t see her. We got into the receiving line and I had a bad moment when we came to Dan Dorsey, who was presenting the guests. He was in dress uniform, with epaulets, braid, sword, knots, and white gloves, and when he saw Marie his face turned to stone. But he didn’t hesitate, and sang out loud and clear: “Mr. William Cresap, Miss Marie Tremaine!” The General’s lady, I imagine, had never heard of Marie; she smiled graciously and offered her hand. Marie, after dropping a graceful, comic little continental curtsey, took it. I took it. We shook hands with the General, passed on, and that was that. “
Voilà
, I am in!” said Marie, pleased as a child.

“The honor is theirs,” I assured her.

We stood around and I kept on looking. The band struck up the Grand March, and after we had sashayed around there came a long intermission while programs were filled out. All kinds of people wanted to dance with Marie, but she kept saying: “Lancers and quadrilles only—I care not for polkas and galops.” That touched me, as it really meant she knew I couldn’t dance round dances, and was willing to pretend she preferred to sit them out. So I marked them all X on her card, but accepted quite a few couples to make up sets for the square dances. And then, in the middle of it, I saw by the change in her face, from little French dancing partner to cold, calculating gambler, that Mignon had entered the room. I turned, and she was just crossing to the receiving stand on Burke’s arm, Mr. Landry on the other side. She had on a black dress, whether left over from her palmier days or lent her by Lavadeau’s I didn’t know and don’t know now. Over her shoulders was a mantilla, with a pattern of small gold spangles, and I remember a twinge of relief that her big, beautiful bulges wouldn’t be seen by everyone. When the three of them had been received, Mr. Landry went skipping off and then reappeared in a box near the stage, where Mignon and Burke went to keep him company, though they stayed out on the floor. “
Alors
,” whispered Marie. “I must speak; it devolves, let us go.”

Her grip on my arm meant business, and for my part I steeled myself, feeling I might just as well get it over with. “Mignon,” called Marie brightly as she rustled over the floor, “
bon jour
,
bon chance
,
salut
.”

“Marie,” said Mignon, “
comment ça va?
”

She said it very coldly, staring down at Marie’s bare shoulders, and then Burke took notice of us. “Why,” he said, “if it isn’t the sneak thieves themselves—the girl who enticed me gippo to her bed, the sly minx—and the boy—”

“Burke,” I said, “retract.”

His eyes moved around in their rheum as he took in my grip on the stick, and he said: “I may have spoken in haste.”

“Apologize.”

“I regret me impulsive words.”

“Then fine. Hereafter speak when you’re spoken to.”

Marie’s hand on my arms gave a quick, grateful squeeze, and then she went on: “Mignon, I have business with you, we have an
affaire
—but first may I present my fiancé, M’sieu Guillaume Cresap?”