Free Gilded Needles (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Michael McDowell

nothing of coarseness in her face or her fashion; and her expression, as she listened with averted eyes to his stammered apology, was exactly that he had seen on his aunt’s face when she had herself been the victim of one of his clumsinesses. But as he passed on he reflected that he was surely mistaken, for no lady appeared unaccompanied at such an hour in such a neighborhood.
    As Benjamin pushed through the dawdling crowds on the sidewalk—dawdling, he was sure, so as to watch for opportunities to pick pockets or expedite other mischiefs—he glanced back at the clapboard front of Harry Hill’s. The sham lady no longer stood beneath the red and blue lantern and he could not identify her retreating figure—so he must suppose that she had entered the place.
    The woman who had passed beneath Benjamin Stallworth’s startled scrutiny was in fact fully a lady in the matters of deportment and dress, and fell short only in the matter of birth. She was an octoroon, her father’s mother having been a slave on one of the Georgia sea islands. Under all but the very closest inspection, Maggie Kizer was a white woman, and bore but two telltale traces of her mixed blood: a thin blue line under her thumbnail and a fleck of black pigment in each of her green eyes. Obsessed with these betraying blemishes, Maggie never appeared on the street or in strange company without a pair of the finest white gloves, so close-fitting that she put on her beautiful diamond and emerald rings over them; and in all but blackest night she wore a pair of round spectacles with smoked-amber lenses.
    Tonight, Maggie Kizer wore a light-blue dress beneath a long dark-blue cloak that was fastened with a gleaming silver chain across her neck. Her veiled hat was of blue velvet with black trim and her gloved hands were encased in a fur muff. She paused nervously in the passage of Harry Hill’s place to put on her amber spectacles, then quickly circling the dancers, Maggie made her way to the curtained door that led to the back. She withdrew one white-gloved hand from her muff and pressed a quarter dollar into the palm of the man standing guard there. Her manner, which had exhibited a certain haste and uneasiness of mind, suddenly altered when she stepped into the back room. Her countenance then was one of dignity and repose, her movement cautious but full of grace.
    Standing at the edge of the crowd, she beckoned to one of Harry Hill’s apprentices, who now wore a cap with a green feather, and purchased from him a slip of green paper for five dollars.
    “Don’t even know who you’ve bet on—” laughed a coarse female voice behind her.
    “No I don’t,” replied Maggie Kizer in a low melodious accent, and quite before she knew to whom she had spoken. Her parted lips warmed into a smile as she turned.
    Charlotta Kegoe, still leaning against the wall, sipped at a schooner of beer. Beside her stood all the Shanks family.
    “Maggie,” said Lena Shanks, “you don’t play this way with money.”
    “No,” replied Maggie, “I don’t. I’ve been searching for you these two hours at least.” She came up close to the group. Rob stared at the young woman in unreserved admiration; Ella surreptitiously lifted a corner of the blue cloak and peered beneath it. Maggie touched each of the children’s heads affectionately.
    “We’ve talking to do, Lena,” said Maggie quietly, “talking that wants doing tonight.”
    Maggie Kizer was married to Lena’s younger brother Alick, a hotel thief serving a nine-year sentence at Sing Sing.
    Lena nodded, took her cane from Ella, and slowly hobbled through the curtain. Maggie Kizer nodded to Louisa and Daisy, and presented Rob with her ticket. Then, with Ella at her side, she followed Lena out.
    Charlotta Kegoe rolled her eyes at what she imagined were Maggie Kizer’s pretensions to gentility, and then grabbed Louisa Shanks around the waist. Louisa fell back against the wall and her head knocked smartly against the