TheAlcalde had stopped on the step with an exclamation at something in the darkness outside, and he backed, bowing, into the room again to make way for some one. A lady, slim, gowned and veiled in black and followed by a negress, swept past him. The lady lifted her veil and stood before us.
“Antoinette!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse, going to her.
The girl did not answer at once. Her suffering seemed to have brought upon her a certain acceptance of misfortune as inevitable. Her face, framed in the black veil, was never more beautiful than on that night.
“What is the Alcalde doing here?” she said.
The officer himself answered the question.
“I am leaving, Mademoiselle,” said he. He reached out his hands toward her, appealingly. “Do you not remember me, Mademoiselle? You brought the good sister to see my wife.”
“I remember you,” said Antoinette.
“Do not stay here, Mademoiselle!” he cried. “There is—there is yellow fever.”
“So that is it,” said Antoinette, unheeding him and looking at her cousin. “She has yellow fever, then?”
“I beg you to come away, Mademoiselle!” the man entreated.
“Please go,” she said to him. He looked at her, and went out silently, closing the doors after him. “Why was he here?” she asked again.
“He came to get Mr. Temple, my dear,” said the Vicomtesse. The girl's lips framed his name, but did not speak it.
“Where is he?” she asked slowly.
The Vicomtesse pointed towards the bedroom.
“In there,” she answered, “with his mother.”
“He came to her?” Antoinette asked quite simply.
The Vicomtesse glanced at me, and drew the veil gently from the girl's shoulders. She led her, unresisting, to a chair. I looked at them. The difference in their ages was not so great. Both had suffered cruelly; one had seen the world, the other had not, and yet the contrast lay not here. Both had followed the gospel of helpfulness to others, but one as areligieuse, innocent of the sin around her, though poignant of the sorrow it caused. The other, knowing evil with an insight that went far beyond intuition, fought with that, too.
“I will tell you, Antoinette,” began the Vicomtesse; “it was as you said. Mr. Ritchie and I found him at Lamarque's. He had not taken your money; he did not even know that Auguste had gone to see you. He did not even know,” she said, bending over the girl, “that he was on your father's plantation. When we told him that, he would have left it at once.”
“Yes,” she said.
“He did not know that his mother was still in New Orleans. And when we told him how ill she was he would have come to her then. It was as much as we could do to persuade him to wait until we had seen Monsieur de Carondelet. Mr. Ritchie and I came directly to town and saw his Excellency.”
It was characteristic of the Vicomtesse that she told this almost with a man's brevity, that she omitted the stress and trouble and pain of it all. These things were done; the tact and skill and character of her who had accomplished them were not spoken of. The girl listened immovable, her lips parted and her eyes far away. Suddenly, with an awakening, she turned to Hélène.
“You did this!” she cried.
“Mr. Ritchie and I together,” said the Vicomtesse.
Her next exclamation was an odd one, showing how the mind works at such a time.
“But his Excellency was having his siesta!” said Antoinette.
Again Hélène glanced at me, but I cannot be sure that she smiled.
“We thought the matter of sufficient importance to awake his Excellency,” said Hélène.
“And his Excellency?” asked Antoinette. In that moment all three of us seemed to have forgotten the tragedy behind the wall.
“His Excellency thought so, too, when we had explained it sufficiently,” Hélène answered.
The girl seemed suddenly to throw off the weight of her grief. She seized the hand of the Vicomtesse in both of her own.
“The Baron pardoned him?” she cried. “Tell me what his Excellency said. Why are you keeping it from me?”
“Hush, my dear,” said the Vicomtesse. “Yes, he pardoned him. Mr. Temple was to have come to the city to-night with an officer. Mr. Ritchie and I came to this house together, and we found—”
“Yes, yes,” said Antoinette.
“Mr. Ritchie wrote to Mr. Temple that his Excellency was to send for him to-night, but André told him of the fever, and he came here in the face of danger to see her before she died. He galloped past the sentry at the gate, and the Alcalde followed him from there.”
“And came here to arrest him?” cried Antoinette. Before the Vicomtesse could prevent her she sprang from her chair, ran to the door, and was peering out into the darkness. “Is the Alcalde waiting?”
“No, no,” said the Vicomtesse, gently bringing her back. “I wrote to his Excellency and we have his permission for Mr. Temple to remain here.”
Suddenly Antoinette stopped in the middle of the floor, facing the candle, her hands clasped, her eyes wide with fear. We started, Hélène and I, as we looked at her.
“What is it, my dear?” said the Vicomtesse, laying a hand on her arm.
“He will take it,” she said, “he will take the fever.”
A strange thing happened. Many, many times have I thought of it since, and I did not know its meaning then. I had looked to see the Vicomtesse comfort her. But Hélène took a step towards me, my eyes met hers, and in them reflected was the terror I had seen in Antoinette's. At that instant I, too, forgot the girl, and we turned to see that she had sunk down, weeping, in the chair. Then we both went to her, I through some instinct I did not fathom.
Hélène's hand, resting on Antoinette's shoulder, trembled there. It may well have been my own weakness which made me think her body swayed, which made me reach out as if to catch her. However marvellous her strength and fortitude, these could not last forever. And—Heaven help me—my own were fast failing. Once the room had seemed to me all in darkness. Then I saw the Vicomtesse leaning tenderly over her cousin and whispering in her ear, and Antoinette rising, clinging to her.
“I will go,” she faltered, “I will go. He must not know I have been here. You—you will not tell him?”
“No, I shall not tell him,” answered the Vicomtesse.
“And—you will send word to me, Hélène?”
“Yes, dear.”
Antoinette kissed her, and began to adjust her veil mechanically. I looked on, bewildered by the workings of the feminine mind. Why was she going? The Vicomtesse gave me no hint. But suddenly the girl's arms fell to her sides, and she stood staring, not so much as a cry escaping her. The bedroom doors had been opened, and between them was the tall figure of Nicholas Temple. So they met again after many years, and she who had parted them had brought them together once more. He came a step into the room, as though her eyes had drawn him so far. Even then he did not speak her name.
“Go,” he said. “Go, you must not stay here. Go!”
She bowed her head.
“I was going,” she answered. “I—I am going.”
“But you must go at once,” he cried excitedly. “Do you know what is in there?” and he pointed towards the bedroom.
“Yes, yes, I know,” she said, “I know.”
“Then go,” he cried. “As it is you have risked too much.”
She lifted up her head and looked at him. There was a new-born note in her voice, a tremulous note of joy in the midst of sorrow. It was of her he was thinking!
“And you?” she said. “You have come and remained.”
“She is my mother,” he answered. “God knows it was the least I could have done.”
Twice she had changed before our eyes, and now we beheld a new and yet more startling transformation. When she spoke there was no reproach in her voice, but triumph. Antoinette undid her veil.
“Yes, she is your mother,” she answered; “but for many years she has been my friend. I will go to her. She cannot forbid me now. Hélène has been with her,” she said, turning to where the Vicomtesse stood watching her intently. “Hélène has been with her. And shall I, who have longed to see her these many years, leave her now?”
“But you were going!” he cried, beside himself with apprehension at this new turning. “You told me that you were going.”
Truly, man is born without perception.
“Yes, I told you that,” she replied almost defiantly.
“And why were you going?” he demanded. Then I had a sudden desire to shake him.
Antoinette was mute.
“You yourself must find the answer to that question, Mr. Temple,” said the Vicomtesse, quietly.
He turned and stared at Hélène, and she seemed to smile. Then as his eyes went back, irresistibly, to the other, a light that was wonderful to see dawned and grew in them. I shall never forget him as he stood, handsome and fearless, a gentleman still, despite his years of wandering and adventure, and in this supreme moment unselfish. The wilful, masterful boy had become a man at last.
He started forward, stopped, trembling with a shock of remembrance, and gave back again.
“You cannot come,” he said; “I cannot let you take this risk. Tell her she cannot come, Madame,” he said to Hélène. “For the love of God send her home again.”
But there were forces which even Hélène could not stem. He had turned to go back, he had seized the door, but Antoinette was before him. Custom does not weigh at such a time. Had she not read his avowal? She had his hand in hers, heedless of us who watched. At first he sought to free himself, but she clung to it with all the strength of her love,—yet she did not look up at him.
“I will come with you,” she said in a low voice, “I will come with you, Nick.”
How quaintly she spoke his name, and gently, and timidly—ay, and with a supreme courage. True to him through all those numb years of waiting, this was a little thing—that they should face death together. A little thing, and yet the greatest joy that God can bestow upon a good woman. He looked down at her with a great tenderness, he spoke her name, and I knew that he had taken her at last into his arms.
“Come,” he said.
They went in together, and the doors closed behind them.
Antoinette's maid was on the step, and the Vicomtesse and I were alone once more in the little parlor. I remember well the sense of unreality I had, and how it troubled me. I remember how what I had seen and heard was turning, turning in my mind. Nick had come back to Antoinette. They were together in that room, and Mrs. Temple was dying—dying. No, it could not be so. Again, I was in the garden at Les Îles on a night that was all perfume, and I saw the flowers all ghostly white under the moon. And then, suddenly, I was watching the green candle sputter, and out of the stillness came a cry—theserenocalling the hour of the night. How my head throbbed! It was keeping time to some rhythm, I knew not what. Yes, it was the song my father used to sing:—
"I've faught on land? I've faught at sea,At hame I've faught my aunty, O!"
But New Orleans was hot, burning hot, and this could not be cold I felt. Ah, I had it, the water was cold going to Vincennes, so cold!
A voice called me. No matter where I had gone, I think I would have come back at the sound of it. I listened intently, that I might lose no word of what it said. I knew the voice. Had it not called to me many times in my life before? But now there was fear in it, and fear gave it a vibrant sweetness, fear gave it a quality that made it mine—mine.
“You are shivering.”
That was all it said, and it called from across the sea. And the sea was cold,—cold and green under the gray light. If she who called to me would only come with the warmth of her love! The sea faded, the light fell, and I was in the eternal cold of space between the whirling worlds. If she could but find me! Was not that her hand in mine? Did I not feel her near me, touching me? I wondered that I should hear myself as I answered her.
“I am not ill,” I said. “Speak to me again.”
She was pressing my hand now, I saw her bending over me, I felt her hair as it brushed my face. She spoke again. There was a tremor in her voice, and to that alone I listened. The words were decisive, of command, and with them some sense as of a haven near came to me. Another voice answered in a strange tongue, saying seemingly:—
"Oui, Madame—malé couri—bon djé—malé couri!"
I heard the doors close, and the sound of footsteps running and dying along the banquette, and after that my shoulders were raised and something wrapped about them. Then stillness again, the stillness that comes between waking and sleeping, between pain and calm. And at times when I felt her hand fall into mine or press against my brow, the pain seemed more endurable. After that I recall being lifted, being borne along. I opened my eyes once and saw, above a tile-crowned wall, the moon all yellow and distorted in the sky. Then a gate clicked, dungeon blackness, half-light again, ascent, oblivion.
I havestill sharp memories of the tortures of that illness, though it befell so long ago. At times, when my mind was gone from me, I cried out I know not what of jargon, of sentiment, of the horrors I had beheld in my life. I lived again the pleasant scenes, warped and burlesqued almost beyond cognizance, and the tragedies were magnified a hundred fold. Thus it would be: on the low, white ceiling five cracks came together, and that was a device. And the device would take on color, red-bronze like the sumach in the autumn and streaks of vermilion, and two glowing coals that were eyes, and above them eagles' feathers, and the cracks became bramble bushes. I was behind the log, and at times I started and knew that it was a hideous dream, and again Polly Ann was clutching me and praying me to hold back, and I broke from her and splashed over the slippery limestone bed of the creek to fight single-handed. Through all the fearful struggle I heard her calling me piteously to come back to her. When the brute got me under water I could not hear her, but her voice came back suddenly (as when a door opens) and it was like the wind singing in the poplars. Was it Polly Ann's voice?
Again, I sat with Nick under the trees on the lawn at Temple Bow, and the world was dark with the coming storm. I knew and he knew that the storm was brewing that I might be thrust out into it. And then in the blackness, when the air was filled with all the fair things of the earth torn asunder, a beautiful woman came through the noise and the fury, and we ran to her and clung toher skirts, thinking we had found safety. But she thrust us forth into the blackness with a smile, as though she were flinging papers out of the window. She, too, grew out of the design in the cracks of the ceiling, and a greater fear seized me at sight of her features than when the red face came out of the brambles.
My constant torment was thirst. I was in the prairie, and it was scorched and brown to the horizon. I searched and prayed pitifully for water,—for only a sip of the brown water with the specks in it that was in the swamp. There were no swamps. I was on the bed in the cabin looking at the shifts and hunting shirts on the pegs, and Polly Ann would bring a gourdful of clear water from the spring as far as the door. Nay, once I got it to my lips, and it was gone. Sometimes a young man in a hunting shirt, square-shouldered, clear-eyed, his face tanned and his fair hair bleached by the sun, would bring the water. He was the hero of my boyhood, and part of him indeed was in me. And I would have followed him again to Vincennes despite the tortures of the damned. But when I spoke his name he grew stouter before me, and his eyes lost their lustre and his hair turned gray; and his hand shook as he held out the gourd and spilled its contents ere I could reach them.
Sometimes another brought the water, and at sight of her I would tremble and grow faint, and I had not the strength to reach for it. She would look at me with eyes that laughed despite the resolution of the mouth. Then the eyes would grow pitiful at my helplessness, and she would murmur my name. There was some reason which I never fathomed why she could not give me the water, and her own suffering seemed greater than mine because of it. So great did it seem that I forgot my own and sought to comfort her. Then she would go away, very slowly, and I would hear her calling to me in the wind, from the stars to which I looked up from the prairie. It was she, I thought, who ordered the world. Who, when women were lost and men cried out in distress, came to them calmly, ministered to them deftly.
Once—perhaps a score of times, I cannot tell—was limned on the ceiling, where the cracks were, her miniature, and I knew what was coming and shuddered and cried aloud because I could not stop it. I saw the narrow street of a strange city deep down between high houses,—houses with gratings on the lowest windows, with studded, evil-looking doors, with upper stories that toppled over to shut out the light of the sky, with slated roofs that slanted and twisted this way and that and dormers peeping from them. Down in the street, instead of the King's white soldiers, was a foul, unkempt rabble, creeping out of its damp places, jesting, cursing, singing. And in the midst of the rabble a lady sat in a cart high above it unmoved. She was the lady of the miniature. A window in one of the jutting houses was flung open, a little man leaned out excitedly, and I knew him too. He was Jean Baptiste Lenoir, and he cried out in a shrill voice:—
“You must take off her ruff, citizens. You must take off her ruff!”
There came a blessed day when my thirst was gone, when I looked up at the cracks in the ceiling and wondered why they did not change into horrors. I watched them a long, long time, and it seemed incredible that they should still remain cracks. Beyond that I would not go, into speculation I dared not venture. They remained cracks, and I went to sleep thanking God. When I awoke a breeze came in cool, fitful gusts, and on it the scent of camellias. I thought of turning my head, and I remember wondering for a long time over the expediency of this move. What would happen if I did! Perhaps the visions would come back, perhaps my head would come off. Finally I decided to risk it, and the first thing that I beheld was a palm-leaf fan, moving slowly. That fact gave me food for thought, and contented me for a while. Then I hit upon the idea that there must be something behind the fan. I was distinctly pleased by this astuteness, and I spent more time in speculation. Whatever it was, it had a tantalizing elusiveness, keeping the fan between it and me. This was not fair.
I had an inspiration. If I feigned to be asleep, perhaps the thing behind the fan would come out. I shut my eyes. The breeze continued steadily. Surely no human being could fan as long as that without being tired! I opened my eyes twice, but the thing was inscrutable. Then I heard a sound that I knew to be a footstep upon boards. A voice whispered:—
“The delirium has left him.”
Another voice, a man's voice, answered:—
“Thank God! Let me fan him. You are tired.”
“I am not tired,” answered the first voice.
“I do not see how you have stood it,” said the man's voice. “You will kill yourself, Madame la Vicomtesse. The danger is past now.”
“I hope so, Mr. Temple,” said the first voice. “Please go away. You may come back in half an hour.”
I heard the footsteps retreating. Then I said: “I am not asleep.”
The fan stopped for a brief instant and then went on vibrating inexorably. I was entranced at the thought of what I had done. I had spoken, though indeed it seemed to have had no effect. Could it be that I hadn't spoken? I began to be frightened at this, when gradually something crept into my mind and drove the fear out. I did not grasp what this was at first, it was like the first staining of wine on the eastern sky to one who sees a sunrise. And then the thought grew even as the light grows, tinged by prismatic colors, until at length a memory struck into my soul like a shaft of light. I spoke her name, unblushingly, aloud.
“Hélène!”
The fan stopped. There was a silence that seemed an eternity as the palm leaf trembled in her hand, there was an answer that strove tenderly to command.
“Hush, you must not talk,” she said.
Never, I believe, came such supreme happiness with obedience. I felt her hand upon my brow, and the fan moved again. I fell asleep once more from sheer weariness of joy. She was there, beside me. She had beenthere, beside me, through it all, and it was her touch which had brought me back to life.
I dreamed of her. When I awoke again her image was in my mind, and I let it rest there in contemplation. But presently I thought of the fan, turned my head, and it was not there. A great fear seized me. I looked out of the open door where the morning sun threw the checkered shadows of the honeysuckle on the floor of the gallery, and over the railing to the tree-tops in the court-yard. The place struck a chord in my memory. Then my eyes wandered back into the room. There was a polished dresser, a crucifix and aprie-dieuin the corner, a fauteuil, and another chair at my bed. The floor was rubbed to an immaculate cleanliness, stained yellow, and on it lay clean woven mats. The room was empty!
I cried out, a yellow and red turban shot across the window, and I beheld in the door the spare countenance of the faithful Lindy.
“Marse Dave,” she cried, “is you feelin' well, honey?”
“Where am I, Lindy?” I asked.
Lindy, like many of her race, knew well how to assume airs of importance. Lindy had me down, and she knew it.
“Marse Dave,” she said, “doan yo' know better'n dat? Yo' know yo' ain't ter talk. Lawsy, I reckon I wouldn't be wuth pizen if she was to hear I let yo' talk.”
Lindy implied that there was tyranny somewhere.
“She?” I asked, “who's she?”
“Now yo' hush, Marse Dave,” said Lindy, in a shrill whisper, “I ain't er-gwine ter git mixed up in no disputation. Ef she was ter hear me er-disputin' wid yo', Marse Dave, I reckon I'd done git such er tongue-lashin'—” Lindy looked at me suspiciously. “Yo'-er allus was powe'rful cute, Marse Dave.”
Lindy set her lips with a mighty resolve to be silent. I heard some one coming along the gallery, and then I saw Nick's tall figure looming up behind her.
“Davy,” he cried.
Lindy braced herself up doggedly.
“Yo' ain't er-gwine to git in thar nohow, Marse Nick,” she said.
“Nonsense, Lindy,” he answered, “I've been in there as much as you have.” And he took hold of her thin arm and pulled her back.
“Marse Nick!” she cried, terror-stricken, “she'll done fin' out dat you've been er-talkin'.”
“Pish!” said Nick with a fine air, “who's afraid of her?”
Lindy's face took on an expression of intense amusement.
“Yo' is, for one, Marse Nick,” she answered, with the familiarity of an old servant. “I done seed yo' skedaddle when she comed.”
“Tut,” said Nick, grandly, “I run from no woman. Eh, Davy?” He pushed past the protesting Lindy into the room and took my hand.
“Egad, you have been near the devil's precipice, my son. A three-bottle man would have gone over.” In his eyes was all the strange affection he had had for me ever since we had been boys at Temple Bow together. “Davy, I reckon life wouldn't have been worth much if you'd gone.”
I did not answer. I could only stare at him, mutely grateful for such an affection. In all his wild life he had been true to me, and he had clung to me stanchly in this, my greatest peril. Thankful that he was here, I searched his handsome person with my eyes. He was dressed, as usual, with care and fashion, in linen breeches and a light gray coat and a filmy ruffle at his neck. But I thought there had come a change into his face. The reckless quality seemed to have gone out of it, yet the spirit and daring remained, and with these all the sweetness that was once in his smile. There were lines under his eyes that spoke of vigils.
“You have been sitting up with me,” I said.
“Of course,” he answered, patting my shoulder. “Of course I have. What did you think I would be doing?”
“What was the matter with me?” I asked.
“Nothing much,” he said lightly, “a touch of the sun,and a great deal of overwork in behalf of your friends. Now keep still, or I will be getting peppered.”
I was silent for a while, turning over this answer in my mind. Then I said:—
“I had yellow fever.”
He started.
“It is no use to lie to you,” he replied; “you're too shrewd.”
I was silent again for a while.
“Nick,” I said, “you had no right to stay here. You have—other responsibilities now.”
He laughed. It was the old buoyant, boyish laugh of sheer happiness, and I felt the better for hearing it.
“If you begin to preach, parson, I'll go; I vow I'll have no more sermonizing. Davy,” he cried, “isn't she just the dearest, sweetest, most beautiful person in the world?”
I smiled.
“Where is she?” I asked, temporizing. Nick was not a subtle person, and I was ready to follow him at great length in the praise of Antoinette. “I hope she is not here.”
“We made her go to Les Îles,” said he.
“And you risked your life and stayed here without her?” I said.
“As for risking life, that kind of criticism doesn't come well from you. And as for Antoinette,” he added with a smile, “I expect to see something of her later on.”
“Well,” I answered with a sigh of supreme content, “you have been a fool all your life, and I hope that she will make you sensible.”
“You never could make me so,” said Nick, “and besides, I don't think you've been so damned sensible yourself.”
We were silent again for a space.
“Davy,” he asked, “do you remember what I said when you had that miniature here?”
“You said a great many things, I believe.”
“I told you to consider carefully the masterful features of that lady, and to thank God you hadn't married her. I vow I never thought she'd turn up. Upon my oathI never thought I should be such a blind slave as I have been for the last fortnight. Faith, Monsieur de St. Gré is a strong man, but he was no more than a puppet in his own house when he came back here for a day. That lady could govern a province,—no, a kingdom. But I warrant you there would be no climbing of balconies in her dominions. I have never been so generalled in my life.”
I had no answer for these comments.
“The deuce of it is the way she does it,” he continued, plainly bent on relieving himself. “There's no noise, no fuss; but you must obey, you don't know why. And yet you may flay me if I don't love her.”
“Love her!” I repeated.
“She saved your life,” said Nick; “I don't believe any other woman could have done it. She hadn't any thought of her own. She has been here, in this room, almost constantly night and day, and she never let you go. The little French doctor gave you up—not she. She held on. Cursed if I see why she did it.”
“Nor I,” I answered.
“Well,” he said apologetically, “of course I would have done it, but you weren't anything to her. Yes, egad, you were something to be saved,—that was all that was necessary. She had you brought back here—we are in Monsieur de St. Gré's house, by the way—in a litter, and she took command as though she had nursed yellow fever cases all her life. No flurry. I said that you were in love with her once, Davy, when I saw you looking at the portrait. I take it back. Of course a man could be very fond of her,” he said, “but a king ought to have married her. As for that poor Vicomte she's tied up to, I reckon I know the reason why he didn't come to America. An ordinary man would have no chance at all. God bless her!” he cried, with a sudden burst of feeling, “I would die for her myself. She got me out of a barrel of trouble with his Excellency. She cared for my mother, a lonely outcast, and braved death herself to go to her when she was dying of the fever. God bless her!”
Lindy was standing in the doorway.
“Lan' sakes, Marse Nick, yo' gotter go,” she said.
He rose and pressed my fingers. “I'll go,” he said, and left me. Lindy seated herself in the chair. She held in her hand a bowl of beef broth. From this she fed me in silence, and when she left she commanded me to sleep informing me that she would be on the gallery within call.
But I did not sleep at once. Nick's words had brought back a fact which my returning consciousness had hitherto ignored. The birds sang in the court-yard, and when the breeze stirred it was ever laden with a new scent. I had been snatched from the jaws of death, my life was before me, but the happiness which had thrilled me was gone, and in my weakness the weight of the sadness which had come upon me was almost unbearable. If I had had the strength, I would have risen then and there from my bed, I would have fled from the city at the first opportunity. As it was, I lay in a torture of thought, living over again every part of my life which she had touched. I remembered the first long, yearning look I had given the miniature at Madame Bouvet's. I had not loved her then. My feeling rather had been a mysterious sympathy with and admiration for this brilliant lady whose sphere was so far removed from mine. This was sufficiently strange. Again, in the years of my struggle for livelihood which followed, I dreamed of her; I pictured her often in the midst of the darkness of the Revolution. Then I had the miniature again, which had travelled to her, as it were, and come back to me. Even then it was not love I felt, but an unnamed sentiment for one whom I clothed with gifts and attributes I admired: constancy, an ability to suffer and to hide, decision, wit, refuge for the weak, scorn for the false. So I named them at random and cherished them, knowing that these things were not what other men longed for in women. Nay, there was another quality which I believed was there—which I knew was there—a supreme tenderness that was hidden like a treasure too sacred to be seen.
I did not seek to explain the mystery which had broughther across the sea into that little garden of Mrs. Temple's and into my heart. There she was now enthroned, deified; that she would always be there I accepted. That I would never say or do anything not in consonance with her standards I knew. That I would suffer much I was sure, but the lees of that suffering I should hoard because they came from her.
What might have been I tried to put away. There was the moment, I thought, when our souls had met in the little parlor in the Rue Bourbon. I should never know. This I knew—that we had labored together to bring happiness into other lives.
Then came another thought to appall me. Unmindful of her own safety, she had nursed me back to life through all the horrors of the fever. The doctor had despaired, and I knew that by the very force that was in her she had saved me. She was here now, in this house, and presently she would be coming back to my bedside. Painfully I turned my face to the wall in a torment of humiliation—I had called her by her name. I would see her again, but I knew not whence the strength for that ordeal was to come.
I knewby the light that it was evening when I awoke. So prisoners mark the passing of the days by a bar of sun light. And as I looked at the green trees in the courtyard, vaguely troubled by I knew not what, some one came and stood in the doorway. It was Nick.
“You don't seem very cheerful,” said he; “a man ought to be who has been snatched out of the fire.”
“You seem to be rather too sure of my future,” I said, trying to smile.
“That's more like you,” said Nick. “Egad, you ought to be happy—we all ought to be happy—she's gone.”
“She!” I cried. “Who's gone?”
“Madame la Vicomtesse,” he replied, rubbing his hands as he stood over me. “But she's left instructions with me for Lindy as long as Monsieur de Carondelet'sBando de Buen Gobierno. You are not to do this, and you are not to do that, you are to eat such and such things, you are to be made to sleep at such and such times. She came in here about an hour ago and took a long look at you before she left.”
“She was not ill?” I said faintly.
“Faith, I don't know why she was not,” he said. “She has done enough to tire out an army. But she seems well and fairly happy. She had her joke at my expense as she went through the court-yard, and she reminded me that we were to send a report by André every day.”
Chagrin, depression, relief, bewilderment, all were struggling within me.
“Where did she go?” I asked at last.
“To Les Îles,” he said. “You are to be brought there as soon as you are strong enough.”
“Do you happen to know why she went?” I said.
“Now how the deuce should I know?” he answered. “I've done everything with blind servility since I came into this house. I never asked for any reason—it never would have done any good. I suppose she thought that you were well on the road to recovery, and she knew that Lindy was an old hand. And then the doctor is to come in.”
“Why didn't you go?” I demanded, with a sudden remembrance that he was staying away from happiness.
“It was because I longed for another taste of liberty, Davy,” he laughed. “You and I will have an old-fashioned time here together,—a deal of talk, and perhaps a little piquet,—who knows?”
My strength came back, bit by bit, and listening to his happiness did much to ease the soreness of my heart—while the light lasted. It was in the night watches that my struggles came—though often some unwitting speech of his would bring back the pain. He took delight in telling me, for example, how for hours at a time I had been in a fearful delirium.
“The Lord knows what foolishness you talked, Davy,” said he. “It would have done me good to hear you had you been in your right mind.”
“But you did hear me,” I said, full of apprehensions.
“Some of it,” said he. “You were after Wilkinson once, in a burrow, I believe, and you swore dreadfully because he got out of the other end. I can't remember all the things you said. Oh, yes, once you were talking to Auguste de St. Gré about money.”
“Money?” I repeated in a sinking voice.
“Oh, a lot of jargon. The Vicomtesse pushed me out of the room, and after that I was never allowed to be there when you had those flights. Curse the mosquitoes!” He seized a fan and began to ply it vigorously. “I remember. You were giving Auguste a lecture. Then I had to go.”
These and other reminiscences gave me sufficient food for reflection, and many a shudder over the possibilities of my ravings. She had put him out! No wonder.
After a while I was carried to the gallery, and there I would talk to the little doctor about the yellow fever which had swept the city. Monsieur Perrin was not much of a doctor, to be sure, and he had a heartier dread of the American invasion than of the scourge. He worshipped the Vicomtesse, and was so devoid of professional pride as to give her freely all credit for my recovery. He too, clothed her with the qualities of statesmanship.
“Ha, Monsieur,” he said, “if that lady had been King of France, do you think there would have been any States General, any red bonnets, any Jacobins or Cordeliers?Parbleu, she would have swept the vicemongers and traitors out of the Palais Royal itself. There would have been a house-cleaning there. I, who speak to you, know it.”
Every day Nick wrote a bulletin to be sent to the Vicomtesse, and he took a fiendish delight in the composition of these. He would come out on the gallery with ink and a blank sheet of paper and try to enlist my help. He would insert the most ridiculous statements, as for instance, “Davy is worse to-day, having bribed Lindy to give him a pint of Madeira against my orders.” Or, “Davy feigns to be sinking rapidly because he wishes to have you back.” Indeed, I was always in a torture of doubt to know what the rascal had sent.
His company was most agreeable when he was recounting the many adventures he had had during the five years after he had left New Orleans and been lost to me. These would fill a book, and a most readable book it would be if written in his own speech. His love for the excitement of the frontier had finally drawn him back to the Cumberland country near Nashville, and he had actually gone so far as to raise a house and till some of the land which he had won from Darnley. It was perhaps characteristic of him that he had named the place “Rattle-and-Snap” in honor of the game which had put him in possession of it, and “Rattle-and-Snap” it remains to this day. He wasgoing back there with Antoinette, so he said, to build a brick mansion and to live a respectable life the rest of his days.
There was one question which had been in my mind to ask him, concerning the attitude of Monsieur de St. Gré. That gentleman, with Madame, had hurried back from Pointe Coupée at a message from the Vicomtesse, and had gone first to Les Îles to see Antoinette. Then he had come, in spite of the fever, to his own house in New Orleans to see Nick himself. What their talk had been I never knew, for the subject was too painful to be dwelt upon, and the conversation had been marked by frankness on both sides. Monsieur de St. Gré was a just man, his love for his daughter was his chief passion, and despite all that had happened he liked Nick. I believe he could not wholly blame the younger man, and he forgave him.
Mrs. Temple, poor lady, had died on that first night of my illness, and it was her punishment that she had not known her son or her son's happiness. Whatever sins she had committed in her wayward life were atoned for, and by her death I firmly believe that she redeemed him. She lies now among the Temples in Charleston, and on the stone which marks her grave is cut no line that hints of the story of these pages.
One bright morning, when Nick and I were playing cards, we heard some one mounting the stairs, and to my surprise and embarrassment I beheld Monsieur de St. Gré emerging on the gallery. He was in white linen and wore a broad hat, which he took from his head as he advanced. He had aged somewhat, his hair was a little gray, but otherwise he was the firm, dignified personage I had admired on this same gallery five years before.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in English; “ha, do not rise, sir” (to me). He patted Nick's shoulder kindly, but not familiarly, as he passed him, and extended his hand.
“Mr. Ritchie, it gives me more pleasure than I can express to see you so much recovered.”
“I am again thrown on your hospitality, sir,” I said, flushing with pleasure at this friendliness. For I admired and respected the man greatly. “And I fear I have been a burden and trouble to you and your family.”
He took my hand and pressed it. Characteristically, he did not answer this, and I remembered he was always careful not to say anything which might smack of insincerity.
“I had a glimpse of you some weeks ago,” he said, thus making light of the risk he had run. “You are a different man now. You may thank your Scotch blood and your strong constitution.”
“His good habits have done him some good, after all,” put in my irrepressible cousin.
Monsieur de St. Gré smiled.
“Nick,” he said (he pronounced the name quaintly, like Antoinette), “his good habits have turned out to be some advantage to you. Mr. Ritchie, you have a faithful friend at least.” He patted Nick's shoulder again. “And he has promised me to settle down.”
“I have every inducement, sir,” said Nick.
Monsieur de St. Gré became grave.
“You have indeed, Monsieur,” he answered.
“I have just come from Dr. Perrin's, David,”—he added, “May I call you so? Well, then, I have just come from Dr. Perrin's, and he says you may be moved to Les Îles this very afternoon. Why, upon my word,” he exclaimed, staring at me, “you don't look pleased. One would think you were going to thecalabozo.”
“Ah,” said Nick, slyly, “I know. He has tasted freedom, Monsieur, and Madame la Vicomtesse will be in command again.”
I flushed. Nick could be very exasperating.
“You must not mind him, Monsieur,” I said.
“I do not mind him,” answered Monsieur de St. Gré, laughing in spite of himself. “He is a sad rogue. As for Hélène—”
“I shall not know how to thank the Vicomtesse,” I said. “She has done me the greatest service one person can do another.”
“Hélène is a good woman,” answered Monsieur de St. Gré, simply. “She is more than that, she is a wonderful woman. I remember telling you of her once. I little thought then that she would ever come to us.”
He turned to me. “Dr. Perrin will be here this afternoon, David, and he will have you dressed. Between five and six if all goes well, we shall start for Les Îles. And in the meantime, gentlemen,” he added with a stateliness that was natural to him, “I have business which takes me to-day to my brother-in-law's, Monsieur de Beauséjour's.”
Nick leaned over the gallery and watched meditatively his prospective father-in-law leaving the court-yard.
“He got me out of a devilish bad scrape,” he said.
“How was that?” I asked listlessly.
“That fat little Baron, the Governor, was for deporting me for running past the sentry and giving him all the trouble I did. It seems that the Vicomtesse promised to explain matters in a note which she wrote, and never did explain. She was here with you, and a lot she cared about anything else. Lucky that Monsieur de St. Gré came back. Now his Excellency graciously allows me to stay here, if I behave myself, until I get married.”
I do not know how I spent the rest of the day. It passed, somehow. If I had had the strength then, I believe I should have fled. I was to see her again, to feel her near me, to hear her voice. During the weeks that had gone by I had schooled myself, in a sense, to the inevitable. I had not let my mind dwell upon my visit to Les Îles, and now I was face to face with the struggle for which I felt I had not the strength. I had fought one battle,—I knew that a fiercer battle was to come.
In due time the doctor arrived, and while he prepared me for my departure, the little man sought, with misplaced kindness, to raise my spirits. Was not Monsieur going to the country, to a paradise? Monsieur—so Dr. Perrin had noticed—had a turn for philosophy. Could two more able and brilliant conversationalists be found than Philippe de St. Gré and Madame la Vicomtesse? And there was the happiness of that strange but lovable youngman, Monsieur Temple, to contemplate. He was in luck,ce beau garçon, for he was getting an angel for his wife. Did Monsieur know that Mademoiselle Antoinette was an angel?
At last I was ready, arrayed in my best, on the gallery, when Monsieur de St. Gré came. André and another servant carried me down into the court, and there stood a painted sedan-chair with the St. Gré arms on the panels.
“My father imported it, David,” said Monsieur de St. Gré. “It has not been used for many years. You are to be carried in it to the levee, and there I have a boat for you.”
Overwhelmed by this kindness, I could not find words to thank him as I got into the chair. My legs were too long for it, I remember. I had a quaint feeling of unreality as I sank back on the red satin cushions and was borne out of the gate between the lions. Monsieur de St. Gré and Nick walked in front, the faithful Lindy followed, and people paused to stare at us as we passed. We crossed the Place d'Armes, the Royal Road, gained the willow-bordered promenade on the levee's crown, and a wide barge was waiting, manned by six negro oarsmen. They lifted me into its stern under the awning, the barge was cast off, the oars dipped, and we were gliding silently past the line of keel boats on the swift current of the Mississippi. The spars of the shipping were inky black, and the setting sun had struck a red band across the waters. For a while the three of us sat gazing at the green shore, each wrapped in his own reflections,—Philippe de St. Gré thinking, perchance, of the wayward son he had lost; Nick of the woman who awaited him; and I of one whom fate had set beyond me. It was Monsieur de St. Gré who broke the silence at last.
“You feel no ill effects from your moving, David?” he asked, with an anxious glance at me.
“None, sir,” I said.
“The country air will do you good,” he said kindly.
“And Madame la Vicomtesse will put him on a diet,” added Nick, rousing himself.
“Hélène will take care of him,” answered Monsieur de St. Gré.
He fell to musing again. “Madame la Vicomtesse has seen more in seven years than most of us see in a lifetime,” he said. “She has beheld the glory of France, and the dishonor and pollution of her country. Had the old order lasted her salon would have been famous, and she would have been a power in politics.”
“I have thought that the Vicomtesse must have had a queer marriage,” Nick remarked.
Monsieur de St. Gré smiled.
“Such marriages were the rule amongst our nobility,” he said. “It was arranged while Hélène was still in the convent, though it was not celebrated until three years after she had been in the world. There was a romantic affair, I believe, with a young gentleman of the English embassy, though I do not know the details. He is said to be the only man she ever cared for. He was a younger son of an impoverished earl.”
I started, remembering what the Vicomtesse had said. But Monsieur de St. Gré did not appear to see my perturbation.
“Be that as it may, if Hélène suffered, she never gave a sign of it. The marriage was celebrated with great pomp, and the world could only conjecture what she thought of the Vicomte. It was deemed on both sides a brilliant match. He had inherited vast estates,Ivry-le-Tour, Montméry, Les Saillantes, I know not what else. She was heiress to the Château de St. Gré with its wide lands, to the château and lands of theCôte Rougein Normandy, to the hotel St. Gré in Paris. Monsieur le Vicomte was between forty and fifty at his marriage, and from what I have heard of him he had many of the virtues and many of the faults of his order. He was a bachelor, which does not mean that he had lacked consolations. He was reserved with his equals, and distant with others. He had served in the Guards, and did not lack courage. He dressed exquisitely, was inclined to the Polignac party, took his ease everywhere, had a knowledgeof cards and courts, and little else. He was cheated by his stewards, refused to believe that the Revolution was serious, and would undoubtedly have been guillotined had the Vicomtesse not contrived to get him out of France in spite of himself. They went first to the Duke de Ligne, at Bel Oeil, and thence to Coblentz. He accepted a commission in the Austrian service, which is much to his credit, and Hélène went with some friends to England. There my letter reached her, and rather than be beholden to strangers or accept my money there, she came to us. That is her story in brief, Messieurs. As for Monsieur le Vicomte, he admired his wife, as well he might, respected her for the way she served the gallants, but he made no pretence of loving her. One affair—a girl in the village of Montméry—had lasted. Hélène was destined for higher things than may be found in Louisiana,” said Monsieur de St. Gré, turning to Nick, “but now that you are to carry away my treasure, Monsieur, I do not know what I should have done without her.”
“And has there been any news of the Vicomte of late?”
It was Nick who asked the question, after a little. Monsieur de St. Gré looked at him in surprise.
“Eh,mon Dieu, have you not heard?” he said. “C'est vrai, you have been with David. Did not the Vicomtesse mention it? But why should she? Monsieur le Vicomte died in Vienna. He had lived too well.”
“The Vicomte is dead?” I said.
They both looked at me. Indeed, I should not have recognized my own voice. What my face betrayed, what my feelings were, I cannot say. My heart beat no faster, there was no tumult in my brain, and yet—my breath caught strangely. Something grew within me which is beyond the measure of speech, and so it was meant to be.
“I did not know this myself until Hélène returned to Les Îles,” Monsieur de St. Gré was saying to me. “The letter came to her the day after you were taken ill. It was from the Baron von Seckenbrück, at whose house the Vicomte died. She took it very calmly, for Hélène is not a woman to pretend. How much better, after all, if shehad married her Englishman for love! And she is much troubled now because, as she declares, she is dependent upon my bounty. That is my happiness, my consolation,” the good man added simply, “and her father, the Marquis, was kind to me when I was a young provincial and a stranger. God rest his soul!”
We were drawing near to Les Îles. The rains had come during my illness, and in the level evening light the forest of the shore was the tender green of spring. At length we saw the white wooden steps in the levee at the landing, and near them were three figures waiting. We glided nearer. One was Madame de St. Gré, another was Antoinette,—these I saw indeed. The other was Hélène, and it seemed to me that her eyes met mine across the waters and drew them. Then we were at the landing. I heard Madame de St. Gré's voice, and Antoinette's in welcome—I listened for another. I saw Nick running up the steps; in the impetuosity of his love he had seized Antoinette's hand in his, and she was the color of a red rose. Creole decorum forbade further advances. André and another lifted me out, and they gathered around me,—these kind people and devoted friends,—Antoinette calling me, with exquisite shyness, by name; Madame de St. Gré giving me a grave but gentle welcome, and asking anxiously how I stood the journey. Another took my hand, held it for the briefest space that has been marked out of time, and for that instant I looked into her eyes. Life flowed back into me, and strength, and a joy not to be fathomed. I could have walked; but they bore me through the well-remembered vista, and the white gallery at the end of it was like the sight of home. The evening air was laden with the scent of the sweetest of all shrubs and flowers.