Ella awoke, hearing the sound of chimes or bells or something like that. They faded away as she pulled herself into consciousness, and she thought that she must have imagined the sound. She had been having a dream.
In her dream she was running—running in the dark, through a strange, dimly lit street, bordered on both sides by rough buildings, with the stars bright overhead, and the moon looming low on the horizon, so low and large and giving off such a bright, unreal light. She had been running, but to or from what she did not know—running so that her legs pumped and her heart beat in her throat and her lungs nearly burst. The pervasive theme of the dream had been help—she must find help, or get help. Why she had needed to find help in her dream she did not know, but it had seemed so real, so immediate, the sense of danger and harm, that sense of desperation and fear that she had felt were slow in leaving her as she woke, and pulled herself up, straightening her dress.
Her reticule was on the floor—it must have fallen there, rocked by the jolting of the train as it lurched along the flat bayou-land toward New Orleans. She pulled it to her and settled it back by her side.
There was a strange scent in her compartment, of horses and tobacco and whisky, smells she remembered from Tara, and they made her so suddenly homesick that she wanted to cry. Why had she come on this fool's journey? Why had she set out to find a mother who most likely didn't even want her? For her mother could not have left her if she had wanted her. A mother didn't leave her children.
Ella sighed, and reached into her basque to pull out the wad of bills she had hidden against her breast. She hadn't wanted to leave it in her reticule—suppose someone came along and picked her pocket? She had had a hundred dollars in Atlanta, less the five in gold she had given to Aunt Pitty. The ticket to New Orleans had cost forty dollars, and Ella had about sixty left. She counted it, just to make sure, and a surge of desperation came over her. Sixty dollars—it seemed so little, when, only a few days ago, a hundred dollars had been a sum almost too great for contemplation. She must make this small sum stretch—she must pay for a place to stay, and food to eat, during the time it took for her to find her mother. And then there was the question of train fare back to Atlanta. If she found her mother, she needn't worry about that. Her mother had money and could pay. Hadn't Rhett given her a great deal of money—thousands and thousands of dollars? But if she didn't find her mother…well, Ella thought, she would not think of that now. She'd think of it later—tomorrow. There was no use thinking about things that weren't even likely to happen. She knew where her mother was, and she would find her. And she could always sell Gerald's watch if she needed. It was safe in her reticule where she had tucked it when she left Tara.
"Next stop—New Orleans," came the bellow of the conductor as he walked the halls. Ella straightened herself and looked out of the window as the first of the city began to whiz by.
Why, look at all these old buildings! And the gray moss hanging from the trees. And that old cemetery, with the funny, strange little mausoleums in it. And all the wide, flat, swampy expanses inbetween. These were nothing like the yellow-watered swamps of north Georgia, but denser, deeper, and somehow more primeval.
Ella was so interested in everything that almost before she knew it the train had come to a halting stop, and a long whistle sounded as she gathered her reticule and made her way through the corridor. She dismounted into a steamy heat that oppressed her. She had never before felt such a damp, moist, smothering heat.
All around her was a crowd of people—ladies in light muslins and poplins, with veils wound around their hats to protect their faces from the bright, over-bearing sun. The men wore seersuckers in blue and pink and swung polished, black oak, gold-topped walking sticks jauntily. Even the Negros were outfitted fashionably, Ella thought, the bushy black locks of the ladies arranged in cascades of curls that tumbled down over fat, black shoulders.
Ahead of her she saw two tall men in wide-brimmed hats and she studied them curiously. They were rugged in a way that the rest of the folks weren't, and Ella knew, that, for the first time, she had seen a cowboy. Oh, how dashing a place New Orleans was! The air smelled of sugar and coffee and things baking and mingled scents of flower water, and far underneath that, was the smell of earth and the slow, still, algae-water of the swamp that carried on the breeze.
The crowd began to press around her, and people called to each other in Cajun accents that sounded strange and foreign to her ears, accents so slow and think she felt she could cut them with a knife. People surged all around her and Ella had to stick out her elbows and fight her way through to the front of the station.
Black hackney carriages were lined up, drivers waiting beside the horses expectantly, hoping for a fare. Ella fumbled in her bag for a quarter and approached the friendliest looking Negro driver, biting her lip. His eyes rolled and his red lips turned up in the simple friendliness of his race.
"Can—can…I wonder if you would be so kind as to drive me some where. Can you?" she asked him, holding out her quarter in her gloved hand.
"Well, missy," the strange, melodious, twangy accent that she had heard before came from his lips, "That all depend where it is you wants ter go."
Again, Ella cursed her impetuosity. The next time she formed a plan, oh! She would think it all through before she set forth on it. She had no idea where to go, where she should ask to go. She did not even know the name of a hotel in town and she did not think to ask the darky driver to provide the name of one. She thought back—her mind went swiftly over all its memories to try and find some flash of information. Her mother had often talked of her honeymoon to New Orleans. Her mother had brought her a coral bracelet as a souvenir. She had talked of it proudly, for so few Atlantans had had the means to go to that place after the war, and it was a badge of distinction. If Ella could only remember what it was her mother had said…
And I got the nicest convent-made underwear, all hand-made…silk stockings…heels three inches high, with paste buckles…
Gumboes and shrimp Creole and doves in wine…oysters and wines and liquers and champagne…
And we stayed at...we stayed at the finest hotel…it was called…it was called…
Good heavens, what had it been called?
It was called the…
"The Bourbon Orleans!" said Ella with a flourish, having found what she was looking for. She thanked her long memory and her mother's frequent bragging, for without both she would not have known what to do in this minute. She handed the driver her quarter, and clambored aboard.
She did not know it was the most fashionable hotel in the French quarter, and that two nights' stay would exhaust completely her finances. She only knew that she had found the answer, for now, and that tomorrow or the day after that she would find her mother. New Orleans was not so big a place, and after all, Ella thought, fingering the letter, she knew just what street on which her mother lived. Peach Street. She would go to the hotel and have a nice nap, and then get some dinner, and tomorrow morning, bright and early, she would find her mother.
Suppose you don't find her? asked a nagging voice in the back of her head, but Ella pushed it away into a corner and sat back to watch the sights and hear the sounds of the city as they drove. "I will find her," she told herself. "And if don't—if I don't—well, I won't think about that now. I'll think about it tomorrow—I can stand it then."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kin stood against the counter as Buck paid for their rooms, his eyes moving restlessly over the throng of finely dressed people that milled about. He was uncomfortable, as he always was in the midst of such finery. He hadn't wanted to stay here—he would have been far happier in one of the little boarding houses in the Bywater, or the Fabourg Treme. He did not like to stay in the French Quarter. It had too many memories for him, and besides, he had spent too much of his life being miserable here.
But Buck would not be persuaded.
"If we're going to do New Orleans, we're going to do it right," he said. "When I'm in town I stay at the Bourbon. Closer to the pleasures of the nightlife."
"Closer to the whorehouses, you mean," said Kin scathingly.
"Well, they are one of the pleasures of the nightlife," said Buck complacently. "And its closer to the gambling houses, as well. Say, Kin, I'll loan you ten dollars for a game, but you better make it back and them some, you hear? I'm getting tired of supporting you. You're like to clean me out in a few days, if you have a run of luck like the one you had in 'Lanta, and I got to keep a little money. I want to go see that French girl a few times before hitting the trail. You remember, that big girl, with the red hair?"
Buck finished the transaction, and signed the hotel register as 'Aloyisius Carlton Eddystone Wilder' with a flourish. He was proud of his long name and drew out the letters so that they covered about half the page, which made the clerk scowl angrily. Kin picked up the pen and signed, 'R.X. Kinnicut,' wasting very little space, which restored the clerk to his previous bad humor. The clerk did not like cowboys and he had a positive contempt for Buck's yellow moustache that was plain to see from the way he had bristled up the moment it came into view.
"Well, let's go up and get settled," said Buck, picking up his rucksack and slinging it over the shoulder. "I'm longing for a bath. And I suppose I'll have to have one, for the girls in New Orleans are real fastidious 'bout such things as bathing, and likely wouldn't have a man with grit and grime on him—even such a pretty one as me."
Kin slung his own rucksack and followed him, but stopped as his eye fell on a tall, pale girl in the foyer. She was wearing a pink dress and her bonnet was perched slightly askew on her head as she counted and recounted a roll of bills in her hands. She looked up and bit her lip, and counted the bills again.
His heart twisted in sympathy, for he had so often counted his money in the same, furious, desperate way, when faced with an unexpected expense—counting the bills over and over, hoping the whole time that perhaps two of the notes were stuck together, that there had been a miscount, there was actually more money there than there had been a moment before. With a sudden shock, he realized that it was the girl from the train.
Her pink silk dress was not as nice as he had thought when he had seen it before—it was crumpled, and the hem was grimy, and the bustle a little flattened. She counted the money again and looked down at it in such utter bewilderment that his heart squeezed hard in his chest. Her eyes ventured up and scanned the room absently, and she started as she noticed his eyes upon her. They locked—the hazel eyes and the bright, bright blue—for a moment, before Buck called out,
"Hey-o! You comin' or what?"
With some difficulty, Kin turned away, and followed his friend, but looked over his shoulder one last time at the girl. She was counting her money again, rifling the bills with her lower lip caught between her teeth. He reached into his pocket and slipped his hand around the watch he had taken. It felt cold and sharp and heavy, and he wrapped his fingers about it so tightly that the cool metal cut into his skin.
