“Yes, yes, and I’m sure we’re very sorry to lose you; that is, Mrs. Larimore—I should say Mrs. Hosmer. Isabella will certainly regret her departure, I see them always together, you know.”
“You cling to your old habit, I see, Mr. Worthington,” said Hosmer, indicating his meaning by a motion of the hand towards the book on the table.
“Yes, to a certain extent. Always within the forced limits, you understand. At this moment I am much interested in tracing the history of various religions which are known to us; those which have died out, as well as existing religions. It is curious, indeed, to note the circumstances of their birth, their progress and inevitable death; seeming to follow the course of nations in such respect. And the similitude which stamps them all, is also a feature worthy of study. You would perhaps be surprised, sir, to discover the points of resemblance which indicate in them a common origin. To observe the slight differences, indeed technical differences, distinguishing the Islam from the Hebrew, or both from the Christian religion. The creeds are obviously ramifications from the one deep-rooted trunk which we call religion. Have you ever thought of this, Mr. Hosmer?”
“No, I admit that I’ve not gone into it. Homeyer would have me think that all religions are but mythological creations invented to satisfy a species of sentimentality—a morbid craving in man for the unknown and undemonstrable.”
“That is where he is wrong; where I must be permitted to differ from him. As you would find, my dear sir, by following carefully the history of mankind, that the religious sentiment is implanted, a true and legitimate attribute of the human soul—with peremptory right to its existence. Whatever may be faulty in the creeds—that makes no difference, the foundation is there and not to be dislodged. Homeyer, as I understand him from your former not infrequent references, is an Iconoclast, who would tear down and leave devastation behind him; building up nothing. He would deprive a clinging humanity of the supports about which she twines herself, and leave her helpless and sprawling upon the earth.”
“No, no, he believes in a natural adjustment,” interrupted Hosmer. “In an innate reserve force of accommodation. What we commonly call laws in nature, he styles accidents—in society, only arbitrary methods of expediency, which, when they outlive their usefulness to an advancing and exacting civilization, should be set aside. He is a little impatient to always wait for the inevitable natural adjustment.”
“Ah, my dear Mr. Hosmer, the world is certainly to-day not prepared to stand the lopping off and wrenching away of old traditions. She must take her stand against such enemies of the conventional. Take religion away from the life of man—”
“Well, I knew it—I was just as sure as preaching,” burst out Mrs. Worthington, as she threw open the door and confronted the two men—resplendent in “baby blue” and much steel ornamentation. “As I tell Mr. Worthington, he ought to turn Christian Brother or something and be done with it.”
“No, no, my dear; Mr. Hosmer and I have merely been interchanging a few disjointed ideas.”
“I’ll be bound they were disjointed. I guess Fanny wants you, Mr. Hosmer. If you listen to Mr. Worthington he’ll keep you here till daylight with his ideas.”
Hosmer followed Mrs. Worthington down-stairs and into Mrs. Dawson’s. As he entered the parlor he heard Fanny laughing gaily, and saw that she stood near the sideboard in the dining-room, just clicking her glass of punch to Jack Dawson’s, who was making a gay speech on the occasion of her new marriage.
They did not leave when they had intended. Need the misery of that one day be told?
But on the evening of the following day, Fanny peered with pale, haggard face from the closed window of the Pullman car as it moved slowly out of Union depôt, to see Lou and Jack Dawson smiling and waving good-bye, Belle wiping her eyes and Mr. Worthington looking blankly along the line of windows, unable to see them without his spectacles, which he had left between the pages of his Schopenhauer on the kitchen table at home.[Back to Table of Contents]
The journey South had not been without attractions for Fanny. She had that consciousness so pleasing to the feminine mind of being well dressed; for her husband had been exceedingly liberal in furnishing her the means to satisfy her fancy in that regard. Moreover the change holding out a promise of novelty, irritated her to a feeble expectancy. The air, that came to her in puffs through the car window, was deliciously soft and mild; steeped with the rich languor of the Indian summer, that had already touched the tree tops, the sloping hill-side, and the very air, with russet and gold.
Hosmer sat beside her, curiously inattentive to his newspaper; observant of her small needs, and anticipating her timid half expressed wishes. Was there some mysterious power that had so soon taught the man such methods to a woman’s heart, or was he not rather on guard and schooling himself for the rôle which was to be acted out to the end? But as the day was approaching its close, Fanny became tired and languid; a certain mistrust was creeping into her heart with the nearing darkness. It had grown sultry and close, and the view from the car window was no longer cheerful, as they whirled through forests, gloomy with trailing moss, or sped over an unfamiliar country whose features were strange and held no promise of a welcome for her.
They were nearing Place-du-Bois, and Hosmer’s spirits had risen almost to the point of gaiety as he began to recognize the faces of those who loitered about the stations at which they stopped. At the Centerville station, five miles before reaching their own, he had even gone out on the platform to shake hands with the rather mystified agent who had not known of his absence. And he had waved a salute to the little French priest of Centerville who stood out in the open beside his horse, booted, spurred and all equipped for bad weather, waiting for certain consignments which were to come with the train, and who answered Hosmer’s greeting with a sober and uncompromising sweep of the hand. When the whistle sounded for Place-du-Bois, it was nearly dark. Hosmer hurried Fanny on to the platform, where stood Henry, his clerk. There were a great many negroes loitering about, some of whom offered him a cordial “how’dy Mr. Hosma,” and pushing through was Grégoire, meeting them with the ease of a courtier, and acknowledging Hosmer’s introduction of his wife, with a friendly hand shake.
“Aunt Thérèse sent the buggy down fur you,” he said, “we had rain this mornin’ and the road’s putty heavy. Come this way. Mine out fur that ba’el, Mrs. Hosma, it’s got molasses in. Hiurm bring that buggy ova yere.”
“What’s the news, Grégoire?” asked Hosmer, as they waited for Hiram to turn the horses about.
“Jus’ about the same’s ev’a. Miss Melicent wasn’t ver’ well a few days back; but she’s some betta. I reckon you’re all plum wore out,” he added, taking in Fanny’s listless attitude, and thinking her very pretty as far as he could discover in the dim light.
They drove directly to the cottage, and on the porch Thérèse was waiting for them. She took Fanny’s two hands and pressed them warmly between her own; then led her into the house with an arm passed about her waist. She shook hands with Hosmer, and stood for a while in cheerful conversation, before leaving them.
The cottage was fully equipped for their reception, with Minervy in possession of the kitchen and the formerly reluctant Suze as housemaid: though Thérèse had been silent as to the methods which she had employed to prevail with these unwilling damsels.
Hosmer then went out to look after their baggage, and when he returned, Fanny sat with her head pillowed on the sofa, sobbing bitterly. He knelt beside her, putting his arm around her, and asked the cause of her distress.
“Oh it’s so lonesome, and dreadful, I don’t believe I can stand it,” she answered haltingly through her tears.
And here was he thinking it was so home-like and comforting, and tasting the first joy that he had known since he had gone away.
“It’s all strange and new to you, Fanny; try to bear up for a day or two. Come now, don’t be a baby—take courage. It will all seem quite different by and by, when the sun shines.”
A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a young colored boy carrying an armful of wood.
“Miss T’rèse sont me kin’le fiar fu’ Miss Hosma; ’low he tu’nin’ cole,” he said depositing his load on the hearth; and Fanny, drying her eyes, turned to watch him at his work.
He went very deliberately about it, tearing off thin slathers from the fat pine, and arranging them into a light frame-work, beneath a topping of kindling and logs that he placed on the massive brass andirons. He crawled about on hands and knees, picking up the stray bits of chips and moss that had fallen from his arms when he came in. Then sitting back on his heels he looked meditatively into the blaze which he had kindled and scratched his nose with a splinter of pine wood. When Hosmer presently left the room, he rolled his big black eyes towards Fanny, without turning his head, and remarked in a tone plainly inviting conversation “yo’ all come f’om way yonda?”
He was intensely black, and if Fanny had been a woman with the slightest sense of humor, she could not but have been amused at the picture which he presented in the revealing fire-light with his elfish and ape like body much too small to fill out the tattered and ill-fitting garments that hung about it. But she only wondered at him and his rags, and at his motive for addressing her.
“We’re come from St. Louis,” she replied, taking him with a seriousness which in no wise daunted him.
“Yo’ all brung de rain,” he went on sociably, leaving off the scratching of his nose, to pass his black yellow-palmed hand slowly through the now raging fire, a feat which filled her with consternation. After prevailing upon him to desist from this salamander like exhibition, she was moved to ask if he were not very poor to be thus shabbily clad.
“No ’um,” he laughed, “I got some sto’ close yonda home. Dis yere coat w’at Mista Grégor gi’me,” looking critically down at its length, which swept the floor as he remained on his knees. “He done all to’e tu pieces time he gi’ him tu me, whar he scuffle wid Joçint yonda tu de mill. Mammy ’low she gwine mek him de same like new w’en she kin kotch de time.”
The entrance of Minervy bearing a tray temptingly arranged with a dainty supper, served to silence the boy, who at seeing her, threw himself upon all fours and appeared to be busy with the fire. The woman, a big raw-boned field hand, set her burden awkwardly down on a table, and after staring comprehensively around, addressed the boy in a low rich voice, “Dar ain’t no mo’ call to bodda wid dat fiar, you Sampson; how come Miss T’rèse sont you lazy piece in yere tu buil’ fiar?”
“Don’ know how come,” he replied, vanishing with an air of the utmost self-depreciation.
Hosmer and Fanny took tea together before the cheerful fire and he told her something of methods on the plantation, and made her further acquainted with the various people whom she had thus far encountered. She listened apathetically; taking little interest in what he said, and asking few questions. She did express a little bewilderment at the servant problem. Mrs. Lafirme, during their short conversation, had deplored her inability to procure more than two servants for her; and Fanny could not understand why it should require so many to do the work which at home was accomplished by one. But she was tired—very tired, and early sought her bed, and Hosmer went in quest of his sister whom he had not yet seen.
Melicent had been told of his marriage some days previously, and had been thrown into such a state of nerves by the intelligence, as to seriously alarm those who surrounded her and whose experience with hysterical girls had been inadequate.
Poor Grégoire had betaken himself with the speed of the wind to the store to procure bromide, valerian, and whatever else should be thought available in prevailing with a malady of this distressing nature. But she was “some betta,” as he told Hosmer, who found her walking in the darkness of one of the long verandas, all enveloped in filmy white wool. He was a little prepared for a cool reception from her, and ten minutes before she might have received him with a studied indifference. But her mood had veered about and touched the point which moved her to fall upon his neck, and in a manner, condole with him; seasoning her sympathy with a few tears.
“Whatever possessed you, David? I have been thinking, and thinking, and I can see no reason which should have driven you to do this thing. Of course I can’t meet her; you surely don’t expect it?”
He took her arm and joined her in her slow walk.
“Yes, I do expect it, Melicent, and if you have the least regard for me, I expect more. I want you to be good to her, and patient, and show yourself her friend. No one can do such things more amiably than you, when you try.”
“But David, I had hoped for something so different.”
“You couldn’t have expected me to marry Mrs. Lafirme, a Catholic,” he said, making no pretense of misunderstanding her.
“I think that woman would have given up religion—anything for you.”
“Then you don’t know her, little sister.”
It must have been far in the night when Fanny awoke suddenly. She could not have told whether she had been awakened by the long, wailing cry of a traveler across the narrow river, vainly trying to rouse the ferryman; or the creaking of a heavy wagon that labored slowly by in the road and moved Hector to noisy enquiry. Was it not rather the pattering rain that the wind was driving against the window panes? The lamp burned dimly upon the high old-fashioned mantel-piece and her husband had thoughtfully placed an improvised screen before it, to protect her against its disturbance. He himself was not beside her, nor was he in the room. She slid from her bed and moved softly on her bare feet over to the open sitting-room door.
The fire had all burned away. Only the embers lay in a glowing heap, and while she looked, the last stick that lay across the andirons, broke through its tapering center and fell amongst them, stirring a fitful light by which she discovered her husband seated and bowed like a man who has been stricken. Uncomprehending, she stood a moment speechless, then crept back noiselessly to bed.[Back to Table of Contents]
Thérèse judged it best to leave Fanny a good deal to herself during her first days on the plantation, without relinquishing a certain watchful supervision of her comfort, and looking in on her for a few moments each day. The rain which had come with them continued fitfully and Fanny remained in doors, clad in a warm handsome gown, her small slippered feet cushioned before the fire, and reading the latest novel of one of those prolific female writers who turn out their unwholesome intellectual sweets so tirelessly, to be devoured by the girls and women of the age.
Melicent, who always did the unexpected, crossed over early on the morning after Fanny’s arrival; penetrated to her sleeping room and embraced her effusively, even as she lay in bed, calling her “poor dear Fanny” and cautioning her against getting up on such a morning.
The tears which had come to Fanny on arriving, and which had dried on her cheek when she turned to gaze into the cheer of the great wood fire, did not return. Everybody seemed to be making much of her, which was a new experience in her life; she having always felt herself as of little consequence, and in a manner, overlooked. The negroes were overawed at the splendor of her toilettes and showed a respect for her in proportion to the money value which these toilettes reflected. Each morning Grégoire left at her door his compliments with a huge bouquet of brilliant and many colored crysanthemums, and enquiry if he could serve her in any way. And Hosmer’s time, that was not given to work, was passed at her side; not in brooding or pre-occupied silence, but in talk that invited her to friendly response.
With Thérèse, she was at first shy and diffident, and over watchful of herself. She did not forget that Hosmer had told her “The lady knows why I have come” and she resented that knowledge which Thérèse possessed of her past intimate married life.
Melicent’s attentions did not last in their ultra-effusiveness, but she found Fanny less objectionable since removed from her St. Louis surroundings; and the evident consideration with which she had been accepted at Place-du-Bois seemed to throw about her a halo of sufficient distinction to impel the girl to view her from a new and different stand-point.
But the charm of plantation life was letting go its hold upon Melicent. Grégoire’s adoration alone, and her feeble response to it were all that kept her.
“I neva felt anything like this befo’,” he said, as they stood together and their hands touched in reaching for a splendid rose that hung invitingly from its tall latticed support out in mid lawn. The sun had come again and dried the last drop of lingering moisture on grass and shrubbery.
“W’en I’m away f’om you, even fur five minutes, ’t seems like I mus’ hurry quick, quick, to git back again; an’ w’en I’m with you, everything ’pears all right, even if you don’t talk to me or look at me. Th’ otha day, down at the gin,” he continued, “I was figurin’ on some weights an’ wasn’t thinkin’ about you at all, an’ all at once I remember’d the one time I’d kissed you. Goodness! I couldn’t see the figures any mo’, my head swum and the pencil mos’ fell out o’ my han’. I neva felt anything like it: hones’, Miss Melicent, I thought I was goin’ to faint fur a minute.”
“That’s very unwise, Grégoire,” she said, taking the roses that he handed her to add to the already large bunch. “You must learn to think of me calmly: our love must be something like a sacred memory—a sweet recollection to help us through life when we are apart.”
“I don’t know how I’m goin’ to stan’ it. Neva to see you! neva—my God!” he gasped, paling and crushing between his nervous fingers the flower she would have taken from him.
“There is nothing in this world that one cannot grow accustomed to, dear,” spoke the pretty philosopher, picking up her skirts daintily with one hand and passing the other through his arm—the hand which held the flowers, whose peculiar perfume ever afterwards made Grégoire shiver through a moment of pain that touched very close upon rapture.
He was more occupied than he liked during those busy days of harvesting and ginning, that left him only brief and snatched intervals of Melicent’s society. If he could have rested in the comfort of being sure of her, such moments of separation would have had their compensation in reflective anticipation. But with his undisciplined desires and hot-blooded eagerness, her half-hearted acknowledgments and inadequate concessions, closed her about with a chilling barrier that staggered him with its problematic nature. Feeling himself her equal in the aristocracy of blood, and her master in the knowledge and strength of loving, he resented those half understood reasons which removed him from the possibility of being anything to her. And more, he was angry with himself for acquiescing in that self understood agreement. But it was only in her absence that these thoughts disturbed him. When he was with her, his whole being rejoiced in her existence and there was no room for doubt or dread.
He felt himself regenerated through love, and as having no part in that other Grégoire whom he only thought of to dismiss with unrecognition.
The time came when he could ill conceal his passion from others. Thérèse became conscious of it, through an unguarded glance. The unhappiness of the situation was plain to her; but to what degree she could not guess. It was certainly so deplorable that it would have been worth while to have averted it. Yet, she felt great faith in the power of time and absence to heal such wounds even to the extent of leaving no tell-tale scar.
“Grégoire, my boy,” she said to him, speaking in French, and laying her hand on his, when they were alone together. “I hope that your heart is not too deep in this folly.”
He reddened and asked, “What do you mean, aunt?”
“I mean, that unfortunately, you are in love with Melicent. I do not know how much longer she will remain here, but taking any possibility for granted, let me advise you to leave the place for a while; go back to your home, or take a little trip to the city.”
“No, I could not.”
“Force yourself to it.”
“And lose days, perhaps weeks, of being near her? No, no, I could not do that, aunt. There will be plenty time for that in the rest of my life,” he said, trying to speak calmly and forcing his voice to a harshness which the nearness of tears made needful.
“Does she know? Have you told her?”
“Oh yes, she knows how much I love her.”
“And she does not love you,” said Thérèse, seeming rather to assert than to question.
“No, she does not. No matter what she says—she does not. I can feel that here,” he answered, striking his breast. “Oh aunt, it is terrible to think of her going away; forever, perhaps; of never seeing her. I could not stand it.” And he stood the strain no longer, but sobbed and wept with his aunt’s consoling arms around him.
Thérèse, knowing that Melicent would not tarry much longer with them, thought it not needful to approach her on the subject. Had it been otherwise, she would not have hesitated to beg the girl to desist from this unprofitable amusement of tormenting a human heart.[Back to Table of Contents]
Day by day, Fanny threw off somewhat of the homesickness which had weighted her at coming. Not by any determined effort of the will, nor by any resolve to make the best of things. Outside influences meeting half-way the workings of unconscious inward forces, were the agents that by degrees were gently ridding her of the acute pressure of dissatisfaction, which up to the present, she had stolidly borne without any personal effort to cast it off.
Thérèse affected her forcibly. This woman so wholesome, so fair and strong; so un-American as to be not ashamed to show tenderness and sympathy with eye and lip, moved Fanny like a new and pleasing experience. When Thérèse touched her caressingly, or gently stroked her limp hand, she started guiltily, and looked furtively around to make sure that none had witnessed an exhibition of tenderness that made her flush, and the first time found her unresponsive. A second time, she awkwardly returned the hand pressure, and later, these mildly sensuous exchanges prefaced the outpouring of all Fanny’s woes, great and small.
“I don’t say that I always done what was right, Mrs. Laferm, but I guess David’s told you just what suited him about me. You got to remember there’s always two sides to a story.”
She had been to the poultry yard with Thérèse, who had introduced her to its feathery tenants, making her acquainted with stately Brahmas and sleek Plymouth-Rocks and hardy little “Creole chickens”—not much to look at, but very palatable when converted intofricassée.
Returning, they seated themselves on the bench that encircled a massive cedar—spreading and conical. Hector, who had trotted attendance upon them during their visit of inspection, cast himself heavily down at his mistress’ feet and after glancing knowingly up into her face, looked placidly forth at Sampson, gathering garden greens on the other side of a low dividing fence.
“You see if David’d always been like he is now, I don’t know but things’d been different. Do you suppose he ever went any wheres with me, or even so much as talked to me when he came home? There was always that everlasting newspaper in his pocket, and he’d haul it out the first thing. Then I used to read the paper too sometimes, and when I’d go to talk to him about what I read, he’d never even looked at the same things. Goodness knows what he read in the paper, I never could find out; but here’d be the edges all covered over with figuring. I believe it’s the only thing he ever thought or dreamt about; that eternal figuring on every bit of paper he could lay hold of, till I was tired picking them up all over the house. Belle Worthington used to say it’d of took an angel to stand him. I mean his throwing papers around that way. For as far as his never talking went, she couldn’t find any fault with that; Mr. Worthington was just as bad, if he wasn’t worse. But Belle’s not like me; I don’t believe she’d let poor Mr. Worthington talk in the house if he wanted to.”
She gradually drifted away from her starting point, and like most people who have usually little to say, became very voluble, when once she passed into the humor of talking. Thérèse let her talk unchecked. It seemed to do her good to chatter about Belle and Lou, and Jack Dawson, and about her home life, of which she unknowingly made such a pitiable picture to her listener.
“I guess David never let on to you about himself,” she said moodily, having come back to the sore that rankled: the dread that Thérèse had laid all the blame of the rupture on her shoulders.
“You’re mistaken, Mrs. Hosmer. It was a knowledge of his own short-comings that prompted your husband to go back and ask your forgiveness. You must grant, there’s nothing in his conduct now that you could reproach him with. And,” she added, laying her hand gently on Fanny’s arm, “I know you’ll be strong, and do your share in this reconciliation—do what you can to please him.”
Fanny flushed uneasily under Thérèse’s appealing glance.
“I’m willing to do anything that David wants,” she replied, “I made up my mind to that from the start. He’s a mighty good husband now, Mrs. Laferm. Don’t mind what I said about him. I was afraid you thought that—”
“Never mind,” returned Thérèse kindly, “I know all about it. Don’t worry any farther over what I may think. I believe in you and in him, and I know you’ll both be brave and do what’s right.”
“There isn’t anything so very hard for David to do,” she said, depressed with a sense of her inadequate strength to do the task which she had set herself. “He’s got no faults to give up. David never did have any faults. He’s a true, honest man; and I was a coward to say those things about him.”
Melicent and Grégoire were coming across the lawn to join the two, and Fanny, seeing them approach, suddenly chilled and wrapt herself about in her mantle of reserve.
“I guess I better go,” she said, offering to rise, but Thérèse held out a detaining hand.
“You don’t want to go and sit alone in the cottage; stay here with me till Mr. Hosmer comes back from the mill.”
Grégoire’s face was a study. Melicent, who did what she wanted with him, had chosen this afternoon, for some inscrutable reason, to make him happy. He carried her shawl and parasol; she herself bearing a veritable armful of flowers, leaves, red berried sprigs, a tangle of richest color. They had been in the woods and she had bedecked him with garlands and festoons of autumn leaves, till he looked a very Satyr; a character which his flushed, swarthy cheeks, and glittering animal eyes did not belie.
They were laughing immoderately, and their whole bearing still reflected their exuberant gaiety as they joined Thérèse and Fanny.
“What a ‘Mater Dolorosa’ Fanny looks!” exclaimed Melicent, throwing herself into a picturesque attitude on the bench beside Thérèse, and resting her feet on Hector’s broad back.
Fanny offered no reply, but to look helplessly resigned; an expression which Melicent knew of old, and which had always the effect of irritating her. Not now, however, for the curve of the bench around the great cedar tree removed her from the possibility of contemplating Fanny’s doleful visage, unless she made an effort to that end, which she was certainly not inclined to do.
“No, Grégoire,” she said, flinging a rose into his face when he would have seated himself beside her, “go sit by Fanny and do something to make her laugh; only don’t tickle her; David mightn’t like it. And here’s Mrs. Lafirme looking almost as glum. Now, if David would only join us with that ‘pale cast of thought’ that he bears about usually, what a merry go round we’d have.”
“When Melicent looks at the world laughing, she wants it to laugh back at her,” said Thérèse, reflecting something of the girl’s gaiety.
“As in a looking-glass, well isn’t that square?” she returned, falling into slang, in her recklessness of spirit.
Endeavoring to guard her treasure of flowers from Thérèse, who was without ceremony making a critical selection among them of what pleased her, Melicent slid around the bench, bringing herself close to Grégoire and begging his protection against the Vandalism of his aunt. She looked into his eyes for an instant as though asking him for love instead of so slight a favor and he grasped her arm, pressing it till she cried out from the pain: which act, on his side, served to drive her again around to Thérèse.
“Guess what we are going to do to-morrow: you and I and all of us; Grégoire and David and Fanny and everybody?”
“Going to Bedlam along with you?” Thérèse asked.
“Mrs. Lafirme is in need of a rebuke, which I shall proceed to administer,” thrusting a crumpled handful of rose leaves down the neck of Thérèse’s dress, and laughing joyously in her scuffle to accomplish the punishment.
“No, madam; I don’t go to Bedlam; I drive others there. Ask Grégoire what we’re going to do. Tell them, Grégoire.”
“They ain’t much to tell. We’a goin’ hoss back ridin’.”
“Not me; I can’t ride,” wailed Fanny.
“You can get up Torpedo for Mrs. Hosmer, can’t you, Grégoire?” asked Thérèse.
“Certainly. W’y you could ride ole Torpedo, Mrs. Hosma, if you nova saw a hoss in yo’ life. A li’l chile could manage him.”
Fanny turned to Thérèse for further assurance and found all that she looked for.
“We’ll go up on the hill and see that dear old Morico, and I shall take along a comb, and comb out that exquisite white hair of his and then I shall focus him, seated in his low chair and making one of those cute turkey fans.”
“Ole Morico ain’t goin’ to let you try no monkeyshines on him; I tell you that befo’ han’,” said Grégoire, rising and coming to Melicent to rid him of his sylvan ornamentations, for it was time for him to leave them. When he turned away, Melicent rose and flung all her flowery wealth into Thérèse’s lap, and following took his arm.
“Where are you going?” asked Thérèse.
“Going to help Grégoire feed the mules,” she called back looking over her shoulder; the sinking sun lighting her handsome mischievous face.
Thérèse proceeded to arrange the flowers with some regard to graceful symmetry; and Fanny did not regain her talkative spirit that Melicent’s coming had put to flight, but sat looking silent and listlessly into the distance.
As Thérèse glanced casually up into her face she saw it warmed by a sudden faint glow—an unusual animation, and following her gaze, she saw that Hosmer had returned and was entering the cottage.
“I guess I better be going,” said Fanny rising, and this time Thérèse no longer detained her.[Back to Table of Contents]
To shirk any serious duties of life would have been entirely foreign to Thérèse’s methods or even instincts. But there did come to her moments of rebellion—or repulsion, against the small demands that presented themselves with an unfailing recurrence; and from such, she at times indulged herself with the privilege of running away. When Fanny left her alone—a pathetic little droop took possession of the corners of her mouth that might not have come there if she had not been alone. She laid the flowers, only half arranged, on the bench beside her, as a child would put aside a toy that no longer interested it. She looked towards the house and could see the servants going back and forth. She knew if she entered, she would be met by appeals from one and the other. The overseer would soon be along, with his crib keys, and stable keys; his account of the day’s doings and consultations for to-morrow’s work, and for the moment, she would have none of it.
“Come, Hector—come, old boy,” she said rising abruptly; and crossing the lawn she soon gained the gravel path that led to the outer road. This road brought her by a mild descent to the river bank. The water, seldom stationary for any long period, was at present running low and sluggishly between its red banks.
Tied to the landing was a huge flat-boat, that was managed by the aid of a stout cable reaching quite across the river; and beside it nestled a small light skiff. In this Thérèse seated herself, and proceeded to row across the stream, Hector plunging into the water and swimming in advance of her.
The banks on the opposite shore were almost perpendicular; and their summit to be reached only by the artificial road that had been cut into them: broad and of easy ascent. This river front was a standing worry to Thérèse, for when the water was high and rapid, the banks caved constantly, carrying away great sections from the land. Almost every year, the fences in places had to be moved back, not only for security, but to allow a margin for the road that on this side followed the course of the small river.
High up and perilously near the edge, stood a small cabin. It had once been far removed from the river, which had now, however, eaten its way close up to it—leaving no space for the road-way. The house was somewhat more pretentious than others of its class, being fashioned of planed painted boards, and having a brick chimney that stood fully exposed at one end. A great rose tree climbed and spread generously over one side, and the big red roses grew by hundreds amid the dark green setting of their leaves.
At the gate of this cabin Thérèse stopped, calling out, “Grosse tante!—oh, Grosse tante!”
The sound of her voice brought to the door a negress—coal black and so enormously fat that she moved about with evident difficulty. She was dressed in a loosely hanging purple calico garment of the mother Hubbard type—known as avolanteamongst Louisiana Creoles; and on her head was knotted and fantastically twisted a brighttignon. Her glistening good-natured countenance illumined at the sight of Thérèse.
“Quo faire to pas woulez rentrer, Tite maîtresse?” and Thérèse answered in the same Creole dialect: “Not now,Grosse tante—I shall be back in half an hour to drink a cup of coffee with you.” No English words can convey the soft music of that speech, seemingly made for tenderness and endearment.
As Thérèse turned away from the gate, the black woman re-entered the house, and as briskly as her cumbersome size would permit, began preparations for her mistress’ visit. Milk and butter were taken from the safe; eggs, from the India rush basket that hung against the wall; and flour, from the half barrel that stood in convenient readiness in the corner: forTite maîtressewas to be treated to a dish ofcroquignoles. Coffee was always an accomplished fact at hand in the chimney corner.
Grosse tante, or more properly, Marie Louise, was a Creole—Thérèse’s nurse and attendant from infancy, and the only one of the family servants who had come with her mistress from New Orleans to Place-du-Bois at that lady’s marriage with Jérôme Lafirme. But her ever increasing weight had long since removed her from the possibility of usefulness, otherwise than in supervising her small farm yard. She had little use for “ces néges Américains,” as she called the plantation hands—a restless lot forever shifting about and changing quarters.
It was seldom now that she crossed the river; only two occasions being considered of sufficient importance to induce her to such effort. One was in the event of her mistress’ illness, when she would install herself at her bedside as a fixture, not to be dislodged by any less inducement than Thérèse’s full recovery. The other was when a dinner of importance was to be given: then Marie Louise consented to act aschef de cuisine, for there was no more famous cook than she in the State; her instructor having been no less a personage than old Lucien Santien—agourmetfamed for his ultra Parisian tastes.
Seated at the base of a great China-berry on whose gnarled protruding roots she rested an arm languidly, Thérèse looked out over the river and gave herself up to doubts and misgivings. She first took exception with herself for that constant interference in the concerns of other people. Might not this propensity be carried too far at times? Did the good accruing counterbalance the personal discomfort into which she was often driven by her own agency? What reason had she to know that a policy of non-interference in the affairs of others might not after all be the judicious one? As much as she tried to vaguely generalize, she found her reasoning applying itself to her relation with Hosmer.
The look which she had surprised in Fanny’s face had been a painful revelation to her. Yet could she have expected other, and should she have hoped for less, than that Fanny should love her husband and he in turn should come to love his wife?
Had she married Hosmer herself! Here she smiled to think of the storm of indignation that such a marriage would have roused in the parish. Yet, even facing the impossibility of such contingency, it pleased her to indulge in a short dream of what might have been.
If it were her right instead of another’s to watch for his coming and rejoice at it! Hers to call him husband and lavish on him the love that awoke so strongly when she permitted herself, as she was doing now, to invoke it! She felt what capability lay within her of rousing the man to new interests in life. She pictured the dawn of an unsuspected happiness coming to him: broadening; illuminating; growing in him to answer to her own big-heartedness.
Were Fanny, and her own prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her; that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a weakness with Thérèse, for the effect which it left upon her strong nature was one of added courage and determination.
When she reached Marie Louise’s cabin again, twilight, which is so brief in the South, was giving place to the night.
Within the cabin, the lamp had already been lighted, and Marie Louise was growing restless at Thérèse’s long delay.
“AhGrosse tante, I’m so tired,” she said, falling into a chair near the door; not relishing the warmth of the room after her quick walk, and wishing to delay as long as possible the necessity of sitting at table. At another time she might have found the dish of golden browncroquignolesvery tempting with its accessory of fragrant coffee; but not to-day.
“Why do you run about so much,Tite maîtresse? You are always going this way and that way; on horseback, on foot—through the house. Make those lazy niggers work more. You spoil them. I tell you if it was old mistress that had to deal with them, they would see something different.”
She had taken all the pins from Thérèse’s hair which fell in a gleaming, heavy mass; and with her big soft hands she was stroking her head as gently as if those hands had been of the whitest and most delicate.
“I know that look in your eyes, it means headache. It’s time for me to make you some moreeau sédative—I am sure you haven’t any more; you’ve given it away as you give away every thing.”
“Grosse tante,” said Thérèse seated at table and sipping her coffee;Grosse tantealso drinking her cup—but seated apart, “I am going to insist on having your cabin moved back; it is silly to be so stubborn about such a small matter. Some day you will find yourself out in the middle of the river—and what am I going to do then?—no one to nurse me when I am sick—no one to scold me—nobody to love me.”
“Don’t say that,Tite maîtresse, all the world loves you—it isn’t only Marie Louise. But no. You must remember the last time poor Monsieur Jérôme moved me, and said with a laugh that I can never forget, ‘well,Grosse tante, I know we have got you far enough this time out of danger,’ away back in Dumont’s field you recollect? I said then, Marie Louise will move no more; she’s too old. If the good God does not want to take care of me, then it’s time for me to go.”
“Ah but,Grosse tante, remember—God does not want all the trouble on his own shoulders,” Thérèse answered humoring the woman, in her conception of the Deity. “He wants us to do our share, too.”
“Well, I have done my share. Nothing is going to harm Marie Louise. I thought about all that, do not fret. So the last time Père Antoine passed in the road—going down to see that poor Pierre Pardou at the Mouth—I called him in, and he blessed the whole house inside and out, with holy water—notice how the roses have bloomed since then—and gave me medals of the holy Virgin to hang about. Look over the door,Tite maîtresse, how it shines, like a silver star.”
“If you will not have your cabin removed,Grosse tante, then come live with me. Old Hatton has wanted work at Place-du-Bois, the longest time. We will have him build you a room wherever you choose, a pretty little house like those in the city.”
“Non—non, Tite maîtresse, Marie Louise ’prè créver icite avé tous son butin, si faut” (no, no,Tite maîtresse, Marie Louise will die here with all her belongings if it must be).
The servants were instructed that when their mistress was not at home at a given hour, her absence should cause no delay in the household arrangements. She did not choose that her humor or her movements be hampered by a necessity of regularity which she owed to no one. When she reached home supper had long been over.
Nearing the house she heard the scraping of Nathan’s violin, the noise of shuffling feet and unconstrained laughter. These festive sounds came from the back veranda. She entered the dining-room, and from its obscurity looked out on a curious scene. The veranda was lighted by a lamp suspended from one of its pillars. In a corner sat Nathan; serious, dignified, scraping out a monotonous but rhythmic minor strain to which two young negroes from the lower quarters—famous dancers—were keeping time in marvelous shuffling and pigeon-wings; twisting their supple joints into astonishing contortions and the sweat rolling from their black visages. A crowd of darkies stood at a respectful distance an appreciative and encouraging audience. And seated on the broad rail of the veranda were Melicent and Grégoire, patting Juba and singing a loud accompaniment to the breakdown.
Was this the Grégoire who had only yesterday wept such bitter tears on his aunt’s bosom?
Thérèse turning away from the scene, the doubt assailed her whether it were after all worth while to strive against the sorrows of life that can be so readily put aside.[Back to Table of Contents]
Whatever may have been Torpedo’s characteristics in days gone by, at this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing traits was a propensity for grazing which he was prone to indulge at inopportune moments. Such points taken in conjunction with a gait closely resembling that of the camel in the desert, might give much cause to wonder at Thérèse’s motive in recommending him as a suitable mount for the unfortunate Fanny, were it not for his wide-spread reputation of angelic inoffensiveness.
The ride which Melicent had arranged and in which she held out such promises of a “lark” proved after all but a desultory affair. For with Fanny making but a sorry equestrian debut and Hosmer creeping along at her side; Thérèse unable to hold Beauregard within conventional limits, and Melicent and Grégoire vanishing utterly from the scene, sociability was a feature entirely lacking to the excursion.
“David, I can’t go another step: I just can’t, so that settles it.”
The look of unhappiness in Fanny’s face and attitude, would have moved the proverbial stone.
“I think if you change horses with me, Fanny, you’ll find it more comfortable, and we’ll turn about and go home.”
“I wouldn’t get on that horse’s back, David Hosmer, if I had to die right here in the woods, I wouldn’t.”
“Do you think you could manage to walk back that distance then? I can lead the horses,” he suggested as apis aller.
“I guess I’ll haf to; but goodness knows if I’ll ever get there alive.”
They were far up on the hill, which spot they had reached by painfully slow and labored stages, each refraining from mention of a discomfort that might interfere with the supposed enjoyment of the other, till Fanny’s note of protest.
Hosmer cast about him for some expedient that might lighten the unpleasantness of the situation, when a happy thought occurred to him.
“If you’ll try to bear up, a few yards further, you can dismount at old Morico’s cabin and I’ll hurry back and get the buggy. It can be driven this far anyway: and it’s only a short walk from here through the woods.”
So Hosmer set her down before Morico’s door: her long riding skirt, borrowed for the occasion, twisting awkwardly around her legs, and every joint in her body aching.
Partly by pantomimic signs interwoven with a few French words which he had picked up within the last year, Hosmer succeeded in making himself understood to the old man, and rode away leaving Fanny in his care.
Morico fussily preceded her into the house and placed a great clumsy home-made rocker at her disposal, into which she cast herself with every appearance of bodily distress. He then busied himself in tidying up the room out of deference to his guest; gathering up the scissors, waxen thread and turkey feathers which had fallen from his lap in his disturbance, and laying them on the table. He knocked the ashes from his corn-cob pipe which he now rested on a projection of the brick chimney that extended into the room and that served as mantel-piece. All the while he cast snatched glances at Fanny, who sat pale and tired. Her appearance seemed to move him to make an effort towards relieving it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocking a side of thegarde manger, drew forth a small flask of whisky. Fanny had closed her eyes and was not aware of his action, till she heard him at her elbow saying in his feeble quavering voice:—
“Tenez madame; goutez un peu: ça va vous faire du bien,” and opening her eyes she saw that he held a glass half filled with strong “toddy” for her acceptance.
She thrust out her hand to ward it away as though it had been a reptile that menaced her with its sting.
Morico looked nonplussed and a little abashed: but he had much faith in the healing qualities of his remedy and urged it on her anew. She trembled a little, and looked away with rather excited eyes.
“Je vous assure madame, ça ne peut pas vous faire du mal.”
Fanny took the glass from his hand, and rising went and placed it on the table, then walked to the open door and looked eagerly out, as though hoping for the impossibility of her husband’s return.
She did not seat herself again, but walked restlessly about the room, intently examining its meager details. The circuit of inspection bringing her again to the table, she picked up Morico’s turkey fan, looking at it long and critically. When she laid it down, it was to seize the glass of “toddy” which she unhesitatingly put to her lips and drained at a draught. All uneasiness and fatigue seemed to leave her on the instant as though by magic. She went back to her chair and reseated herself composedly. Her eyes now rested on her old host with a certain quizzical curiosity strange to them.
He was plainly demoralized by her presence, and still made pretense of occupying himself with the arrangement of the room.
Presently she said to him: “Your remedy did me more good than I’d expected,” but not understanding her, he only smiled and looked at her blankly.
She laughed good-humoredly back at him, then went to the table and poured from the flask which he had left standing there, liquor to the depth of two fingers, this time drinking it more deliberately. After that she tried to talk to Morico and thought it very amusing that he could not understand her.
Presently Joçint came home and accepted her presence there very indifferently. He went to thegarde mangerto stay his hunger, much as he had done on the occasion of Thérèse’s visit; talked in grum abrupt utterances to his father, and disappeared into the adjoining room where Fanny could hear him and occasionally see him polishing and oiling his cherished rifle.
Morico, more accustomed to foreign sounds in the woods than she, was the first to detect the approach of Grégoire, whom he went out hurriedly to meet, glad of the relief from the supposed necessity of entertaining his puzzling visitor. When he was fairly out of the room, she arose quickly, approached the table and reaching for the flask of liquor, thrust it hastily into her pocket, then went to join him. At the moment that Grégoire came up, Joçint issued from a side door and stood looking at the group.
“Well, Mrs. Hosma, yere I am. I reckon you was tired waitin’. The buggy’s yonda in the road.”
He shook hands cordially with Morico saying something to him in French which made the old man laugh heartily.
“Why didn’t David come? I thought he said he was coming; that’s the way he does,” said Fanny complainingly.
“That’s a po’ compliment to me, Mrs. Hosrma. Can’t you stan’ my company for that li’le distance?” returned Grégoire gallantly. “Mr. Hosma had a good deal to do w’en he got back, that’s w’y he sent me. An’ we betta hurry up if we expec’ to git any suppa’ to-night. Like as not you’ll fine your kitchen cleaned out.”
Fanny looked her inquiry for his meaning.
“Why, don’t you know this is ‘Tous-saint’ eve—w’en the dead git out o’ their graves an’ walk about? You wouldn’t ketch a nigga out o’ his cabin to-night afta dark to save his soul. They all gittin’ ready now to hustle back to the quartas.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Fanny, drawing on her gloves, “you ought to have more sense than to repeat such things.”
Grégoire laughed, looking surprised at her unusual energy of speech and manner. Then he turned to Joçint, whose presence he had thus far ignored, and asked in a peremptory tone:
“W’at did Woodson say ’bout watchin’ at the mill to-night? Did you ask him like I tole you?”
“Yaas, me ax um: ee’ low ee an’ goin’. Say how Sylveste d’wan’ watch lak alluz. Say ee an’ goin’. Me don’ blem ’im neida, don’ ketch me out de ’ouse night lak dat fu no man.”
“Sacré imbécile,” muttered Grégoire, between his teeth, and vouchsafed him no other answer, but nodded to Morico and turned away. Fanny followed with a freedom of movement quite unlike that of her coming.
Morico went into the house and coming back hastily to the door called to Joçint:
“Bring back that flask of whisky that you took off the table.”
“You’re a liar: you know I have no use for whisky. That’s one of your damned tricks to make me buy you more.” And he seated himself on an over-turned tub and with his small black eyes half closed, looked moodily out into the solemn darkening woods. The old man showed no resentment at the harshness and disrespect of his son’s speech, being evidently used to such. He passed his hand slowly over his white long hair and turned bewildered into the house.
“Is it just this same old thing year in and year out, Grégoire? Don’t any one ever get up a dance, or a card party or anything?”
“Jus’ as you say; the same old thing f’om one yea’s en’ to the otha. I used to think it was putty lonesome myse’f w’en I firs’ come yere. Then you see they’s no neighbo’s right roun’ yere. In Natchitoches now; that’s the place to have a right down good time. But see yere; I didn’ know you was fon’ o’ dancin’ an’ such things.”
“Why, of course, I just dearly love to dance. But it’s as much as my life’s worth to say that before David; he’s such a stick; but I guess you know that by this time,” with a laugh, as he had never heard from her before—so unconstrained; at the same time drawing nearer to him and looking merrily into his face.
“The little lady’s been having a ‘toddy’ at Morico’s, that makes her lively,” thought Grégoire. But the knowledge did not abash him in the least. He accommodated himself at once to the situation with that adaptability common to the American youth, whether of the South, North, East or West.
“Where abouts did you leave David when you come away?” she asked with a studied indifference.
“Hol’ on there, Buckskin—w’ere you takin’ us? W’y, I lef’ him at the sto’ mailin’ lettas.”
“Had the others all got back? Mrs. Laferm? Melicent? did they all stop at the store, too?”
“Who? Aunt Thrérèse? no, she was up at the house w’en I lef’—I reckon Miss Melicent was there too. Talkin’ ’bout fun,—it’s to git into one o’ them big spring wagons on a moonlight night, like they do in Centaville sometimes; jus’ packed down with young folks—and start out fur a dance up the coast. They ain’t nothin’ to beat it as fah as fun goes.”
“It must be just jolly. I guess you’re a pretty good dancer, Grégoire?”
“Well—’taint fur me to say. But they ain’t many can out dance me: not in Natchitoches pa’ish, anyway. I can say that much.”
If such a thing could have been, Fanny would have startled Grégoire more than once during the drive home. Before its close she had obtained a promise from him to take her up to Natchitoches for the very next entertainment,—averring that she didn’t care what David said. If he wanted to bury himself that was his own look out. And if Mrs. Laferm took people to be angels that they could live in a place like that, and give up everything and not have any kind of enjoyment out of life, why, she was mistaken and that’s all there was to it. To all of which freely expressed views Grégoire emphatically assented.
Hosmer had very soon disembarrassed himself of Torpedo, knowing that the animal would unerringly find his way to the corn crib by supper time. He continued his own way now untrammelled, and at an agreeable speed which soon brought him to the spring at the road side. Here he found Thérèse, half seated against a projection of rock, in her hand a bunch of ferns which she had evidently dismounted to gather, and holding Beauregard’s bridle while he munched at the cool wet tufts of grass that grew everywhere.
As Hosmer rode up at a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat, mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and turned to answer the enquiry with which Thérèse met him.
“Left her at Morico’s. I’ll have to send the buggy back for her.”
“I can’t forgive myself for such a blunder,” said Thérèse regretfully, “indeed I had no idea of that miserable beast’s character. I never was on him you know—only the little darkies, and they never complained: they’d as well ride cows as not.”
“Oh, it’s mainly from her being unaccustomed to riding, I believe.”
This was the first time that Hosmer and Thérèse had met alone since his return from St. Louis. They looked at each other with full consciousness of what lay in the other’s mind. Thérèse felt that however adroitly another woman might have managed the situation, for herself, it would have been a piece of affectation to completely ignore it at this moment.
“Mr. Hosmer, perhaps I ought to have said something before this, to you—about what you’ve done.”
“Oh, yes, congratulated me—complimented me,” he replied with a pretense at a laugh.
“Well, the latter, perhaps. I think we all like to have our good and right actions recognized for their worth.”
He flushed, looked at her with a smile, then laughed out-right—this time it was no pretense.
“So I’ve been a good boy; have done as my mistress bade me and now I’m to receive a condescending little pat on the head—and of course must say thank you. Do you know, Mrs. Lafirme—and I don’t see why a woman like you oughtn’t to know it—it’s one of those things to drive a man mad, the sweet complaisance with which women accept situations, or inflict situations that it takes the utmost of a man’s strength to endure.”
“Well, Mr. Hosmer,” said Thérèse plainly discomposed, “you must concede you decided it was the right thing to do.”
“I didn’t do it because I thought it was right, but because you thought it was right. But that makes no difference.”
“Then remember your wife is going to do the right thing herself—she admitted as much to me.”
“Don’t you fool yourself, as Melicent says, about what Mrs. Hosmer means to do. I take no account of it. But you take it so easily; so as a matter of course. That’s what exasperates me. That you, you, you, shouldn’t have a suspicion of the torture of it; the loathsomeness of it. But how could you—how could any woman understand it? Oh forgive me, Thérèse—I wouldn’t want you to. There’s no brute so brutal as a man,” he cried, seeing the pain in her face and knowing he had caused it. “But you know you promised to help me—oh I’m talking like an idiot.”
“And I do,” returned Thérèse, “that is, I want to, I mean to.”
“Then don’t tell me again that I have done right. Only look at me sometimes a little differently than you do at Hiram or the gate post. Let me once in a while see a look in your face that tells me that you understand—if it’s only a little bit.”
Thérèse thought it best to interrupt the situation; so, pale and silently she prepared to mount her horse. He came to her assistance of course, and when she was seated she drew off her loose riding glove and held out her hand to him. He pressed it gratefully, then touched it with his lips; then turned it and kissed the half open palm.
She did not leave him this time, but rode at his side in silence with a frown and little line of thought between her blue eyes.
As they were nearing the store she said diffidently: “Mr. Hosmer, I wonder if it wouldn’t be best for you to put the mill in some one else’s charge—and go away from Place-du-Bois.”
“I believe you always speak with a purpose, Mrs. Lafirme: you have somebody’s ultimate good in view, when you say that. Is it your own, or mine or whose is it?”
“Oh! not mine.”
“I will leave Place-du-Bois, certainly, if you wish it.”
As she looked at him she was forced to admit that she had never seen him look as he did now. His face, usually serious, had a whole unwritten tragedy in it. And she felt altogether sore and puzzled and exasperated over man’s problematic nature.
“I don’t think it should be left entirely to me to say. Doesn’t your own reason suggest a proper course in the matter?”
“My reason is utterly unable to determine anything in which you are concerned. Mrs. Lafirme,” he said checking his horse and laying a restraining hand on her bridle, “let me speak to you one moment. I know you are a woman to whom one may speak the truth. Of course, you remember that you prevailed upon me to go back to my wife. To you it seemed the right thing—to me it seemed certainly hard—but no more nor less than taking up the old unhappy routine of life, where I had left it when I quitted her. I reasoned much like a stupid child who thinks the colors in his kaleidoscope may fall twice into the same design. In place of the old, I found an entirely new situation—horrid, sickening, requiring such a strain upon my energies to live through it, that I believe it’s an absurdity to waste so much moral force for so poor an aim—there would be more dignity in putting an end to my life. It doesn’t make it any the more bearable to feel that the cause of this unlooked for change lies within myself—my altered feelings. But it seems to me that I have the right to ask you not to take yourself out of my life; your moral support; your bodily atmosphere. I hope not to give way to the weakness of speaking of these things again: but before you leave me, tell me, do you understand a little better why I need you?”
“Yes, I understand now; and I thank you for talking so openly to me. Don’t go away from Place-du-Bois: it would make me very wretched.”
She said no more and he was glad of it, for her last words held almost the force of action for him; as though she had let him feel for an instant her heart beat against his own with an echoing pain.
Their ways now diverged. She went in the direction of the house and he to the store where he found Grégoire, whom he sent for his wife.[Back to Table of Contents]