LaCroix examined the bill again. His finger scanned each line as he read. “Tan trousers”—he looked up at Gabriel—“with the dark blue pinstripe, of course.” Gabriel nodded, so the tailor continued. “One tan waistcoat and a black frock coat with pocket flaps at the hip.” He placed his hands on his hips and eyed Gabriel again, who nodded once more. “Oh, the frock coat shows flared open-cuff sleeves, and there are two white shirts. One with pleats, one without. And two silk cravats, one yellow and one dark blue, of course.” LaCroix stared at Gabriel as if waiting for applause.
“The payment?” This time it was Gabriel who pointed to a line, where the balance of almost two hundred dollars had been subtracted.
“Yes, yes. I will ask Etienne.” He walked off with bill in hand, toward the back of the store where Monsieur Cordeviolle held out a black tailcoat for a young man wearing a white waistcoat and black silk pants. The man’s long sideburns, mustache, and goatee had not disguised his protruding jaw and lower lip, which was heavier than the upper one. Tante Virgine would describe him as having une gueule de benitier, a mouth like a holy water font. And, no doubt, she would not be as discreet as Gabriel hoped LaCroix remained.
The tailor moved away from his customer to talk to LaCroix, their conversation peppered with a symphony of gestures. Gabriel examined a selection of silk top hats displayed on a nearby table while he waited. Next to him, a gentleman who should have been refitted for his frock coat forty pounds before spoke to one whose chin identified him as the father of Etienne’s customer. As Gabriel walked over to look at the wool felt bowlers, he overheard the LeClercs’ name mentioned in their conversation. He kept his head down, passing the brim of an ordinary derby hat through his hands with meticulous care. Not that he had to make an effort to appear invisible. As a homme de couleur libre among two white men, especially ones of wealth, Gabriel was already disregarded, unless, like LaCroix, he resurrected himself in a successful business.
The rounder of the two pointed his cane in the direction of the younger version of the man to whom he spoke. “So, Benjamin is being fitted with a new wardrobe. What does he think about this LeClerc soirée?”
Gabriel moved on to a bowler, treating it with the same painstaking interest. He looked in the men’s general direction, but only briefly and always with his head down.
The young man’s father yawned, adjusted his spectacles, and said, “Benjamin and I share a strong physical resemblance. Benjamin and his mother share a strong propensity for spending. He will be equally satisfied with a new wardrobe or a new wife.”
Equal fulfillment. Lottie and a set of clothes. If this is what fathers teach sons, then I’m grateful mine left before this lesson.
Indignation and restraint met Gabriel as a child after Rosette had explained to him that the word illegitimate and the one used to taunt him meant the same. “But people give the other word more power. Never forget, we decide the degree of power we allow words to have over us,” she said. Later that evening, he had sat next to his father, who went through the Bible and showed him passages about everyone being children of God. He never directly answered Gabriel’s question that night about whether he really was “the nicer word” those boys screamed at him after pitching handfuls of mud and telling him “that’s ya real color.” His father started talking about God’s laws and man’s laws, but Gabriel didn’t remember much. The next day, Rosette told him he’d fallen asleep. “And that’s why you never ask lawyers about the law.”
Ever since then, Gabriel understood that indignity might burrow into his gut at any time, and if he didn’t allow restraint to take over, that sick creature could win. Though, at this moment, I would welcome it. He clenched his hands and, when he felt the damp wool, realized he’d molded part of the brim into a felt tube.
Gabriel returned the hat to the table, turning the part he’d bent to resemble one of Alcee’s curls to the back. On his way to meet LaCroix, he walked past the two men, who did not pause their conversation as he went by. They might be blind to him, but he was not deaf to them. From Benjamin’s father he heard something about a front-runner by the name of Paul, the son of Emile, a prosperous ship-industry family.
Paul Bastion. That name seemed familiar to him.
Chapter Twelve
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“Monsieur Girod, I have the answer to your question.” LaCroix folded the bill in half and handed it to Gabriel. “However, according to my partner, the person does not want to be known.”