Clotilde, a step or two from home, dismissed her attendant, and as Aurora, with anxious haste, opened to her familiar knock, appeared before her pale and trembling.
"Ah, ma fille--"
The overwrought girl dropped her head and wept without restraint upon her mother's neck. She let herself be guided to a chair, and there, while Aurora nestled close to her side, yielded a few moments to reverie before she was called upon to speak. Then Aurora first quietly took possession of her hands, and after another tender pause asked in English, which was equivalent to whispering:
"Were you was,chérie?"
"'Sieur Frowenfel'--"
Aurora straightened up with angry astonishment and drew in her breath for an emphatic speech, but Clotilde, liberating her own hands, took Aurora's, and hurriedly said, turning still paler as she spoke:
"'E godd his 'ead strigue! 'Tis all knog in be'ine! 'E come in blidding--"
"In w'ere?" cried Aurora.
"In 'is shob."
"You was in dad shob of 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"
"I wend ad 'is shob to pay doze rend."
"How--you wend ad 'is shob to pay--"
Clotilde produced the bracelet. The two looked at each other in silence for a moment, while Aurora took in without further explanation Clotilde's project and its failure.
"An' 'Sieur Frowenfel'--dey kill 'im? Ah!Ma chère, fo' wad you mague me to hass all dose question?"
Clotilde gave a brief account of the matter, omitting only her conversation with Frowenfeld.
"Mais, oo strigue 'im?" demanded Aurora, impatiently.
"Addunno!" replied the other. "Bud I does know 'e is hinnocen'!"
A small scouting-party of tears reappeared on the edge of her eyes.
"Innocen' from wad?"
Aurora betrayed a twinkle of amusement.
"Hev'ryt'in', iv you pliz!" exclaimed Clotilde, with most uncalled-for warmth.
"An' you crah bic-ause 'e is nod guiltie?"
"Ah! foolish!"
"Ah, non, my chile, I know fo' wad you cryne: 't is h-only de sighd of de blood."
"Oh, sighd of blood!"
Clotilde let a little nervous laugh escape through her dejection.
"Well, then,"--Aurora's eyes twinkled like stars,--"id muz be bic-ause 'Sieur Frowenfel' bump 'is 'ead--ha, ha, ha!"
"'Tis nod tru'!" cried Clotilde; but, instead of laughing, as Aurora had supposed she would, she sent a double flash of light from her eyes, crimsoned, and retorted, as the tears again sprang from their lurking-place, "You wand to mague ligue you don't kyah! ButIknow! I know verrie well! You kyah fifty time' as mudge as me! I know you! I know you! I bin wadge you!"
"'Ma lill dotter, wad dad meggin you cry? Iv you will tell me wad dad mague you cry, I will tell you--on masecond word of honor'--she rolled up her fist--'juz wad I thing about dad 'Sieur Frowenfel!'".
Aurora was quite dumb for a moment, and gazed at Clotilde, wondering what could have made her so unlike herself. Then she half rose up, and, as she reached forward an arm, and laid it tenderly about her daughter's neck, said:
"Ma lill dotter, wad dad meggin you cry? Iv you will tell me wad dad mague you cry, I will tell you--on masecond word of honor"--she rolled up her fist--"juz wad I thing about dad 'Sieur Frowenfel'!"
"I don't kyah wad de whole worl' thing aboud 'im!"
"Mais, anny'ow, tell me fo' wad you cryne!"
Clotilde gazed aside for a moment and then confronted her questioner consentingly.
"I tole 'im I knowed 'e was h-innocen'."
"Eh, Men, dad was h-only de poli-i-idenez. Wad 'e said?"
"E said I din knowed 'im 'tall."
"An' you," exclaimed Aurora, "it is nod pozzyble dad you--"
"I tole 'im I know 'im bette'n 'e know annyt'in' 'boud id!"
The speaker dropped her face into her mother's lap.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Aurora, "an' wad of dad? I would say dad, me, fo' time' a day. I gi'e you my word 'e don godd dad sens' to know wad dad mean."
"Ah! don godd sens'!" cried Clotilde, lifting her head up suddenly with a face of agony. "'E reg--'e reggo-ni-i-ize me!"
Aurora caught her daughter's cheeks between her hands and laughed all over them.
"Mais, don you see 'ow dad was luggy? Now, you know?--'e goin' fall in love wid you an' you goin' 'ave dad sadizfagzion to rif-use de biggis' hand in Noo-'leans. An' you will be h-even, ha, ha! Bud me--you wand to know wad I thing aboud 'im? I thing 'e is one--egcellen' drug-cl--ah, ha, ha!"
Clotilde replied with a smile of grieved incredulity.
"De bez in de ciddy!" insisted the other. She crossed the forefinger of one hand upon that of the other and kissed them, reversed the cross and kissed them again. "Mais, ad de sem tam," she added, giving her daughter time to smile, "I thing 'e is onenoble gen'leman. Nod to sood me, of coze,mais, çà fait rien--daz nott'n; me, I am now a h'ole woman, you know, eh? Noboddie can' nevva sood me no mo', nod ivven dad Govenno' Cleb-orne."
She tried to look old and jaded.
"Ah, Govenno' Cleb-orne!" exclaimed Clotilde.
"Yass!--Ah, you!--you thing iv a man is nod a Creole 'e bown to be no 'coun'! I assu' you dey don' godd no boddy wad I fine a so nize gen'leman lag Govenno' Cleb-orne! Ah! Clotilde, you godd no lib'ral'ty!"
The speaker rose, cast a discouraged parting look upon her narrow-minded companion and went to investigate the slumbrous silence of the kitchen.
Not often in Aurora's life had joy and trembling so been mingled in one cup as on this day. Clotilde wept; and certainly the mother's heart could but respond; yet Clotilde's tears filled her with a secret pleasure which fought its way up into the beams of her eyes and asserted itself in the frequency and heartiness of her laugh despite her sincere participation in her companion's distresses and a fearful looking forward to to-morrow.
Why these flashes of gladness? If we do not know, it is because we have overlooked one of her sources of trouble. From the night of thebal masquéshe had--we dare say no more than that she had been haunted; she certainly would not at first have admitted even so much to herself. Yet the fact was not thereby altered, and first the fact and later the feeling had given her much distress of mind. Who he was whose image would not down, for a long time she did not know. This, alone, was torture; not merely because it was mystery, but because it helped to force upon her consciousness that her affections, spite of her, were ready and waiting for him and he did not come after them. That he loved her, she knew; she had achieved at the ball an overwhelming victory, to her certain knowledge, or, depend upon it, she never would have unmasked--never.
But with this torture was mingled not only the ecstasy of loving, but the fear of her daughter. This is a world that allows nothing without its obverse and reverse. Strange differences are often seen between the two sides; and one of the strangest and most inharmonious in this world of human relations is that coinage which a mother sometimes finds herself offering to a daughter, and which reads on one side, Bridegroom, and on the other, Stepfather.
Then, all this torture to be hidden under smiles! Worse still, when by and by Messieurs Agoussou, Assonquer, Danny and others had been appealed to and a Providence boundless in tender compassion had answered in their stead, she and her lover had simultaneously discovered each other's identity only to find that he was a Montague to her Capulet. And the source of her agony must be hidden, and falsely attributed to the rent deficiency and their unprotected lives. Its true nature must be concealed even from Clotilde. What a secret--for what a spirit--to keep from what a companion!--a secret yielding honey to her, but, it might be, gall to Clotilde. She felt like one locked in the Garden of Eden all alone--alone with all the ravishing flowers, alone with all the lions and tigers. She wished she had told the secret when it was small and had let it increase by gradual accretions in Clotilde's knowledge day by day. At first it had been but a garland, then it had become a chain, now it was a ball and chain; and it was oh! and oh! if Clotilde would only fall in love herself! How that would simplify matters! More than twice or thrice she had tried to reveal her overstrained heart in broken sections; but on her approach to the very outer confines of the matter, Clotilde had always behaved so strangely, so nervously, in short, so beyond Aurora's comprehension, that she invariably failed to make any revelation.
And now, here in the very central darkness of this cloud of troubles, comes in Clotilde, throws herself upon the defiant little bosom so full of hidden suffering, and weeps tears of innocent confession that in a moment lay the dust of half of Aurora's perplexities. Strange world! The tears of the orphan making the widow weep for joy, if she only dared.
The pair sat down opposite each other at their little dinner-table. They had a fixed hour for dinner. It is well to have a fixed hour; it is in the direction of system. Even if you have not the dinner, there is the hour. Alphonsina was not in perfect harmony with this fixed-hour idea. It was Aurora's belief, often expressed in hungry moments with the laugh of a vexed Creole lady (a laugh worthy of study), that on the day when dinner should really be served at the appointed hour, the cook would drop dead of apoplexy and she of fright. She said it to-day, shutting her arms down to her side, closing her eyes with her eyebrows raised, and dropping into her chair at the table like a dead bird from its perch. Not that she felt particularly hungry; but there is a certain desultoriness allowable at table more than elsewhere, and which suited the hither-thither movement of her conflicting feelings. This is why she had wished for dinner.
Boiled shrimps, rice, claret-and-water, bread--they were dining well the day before execution. Dining is hardly correct, either, for Clotilde, at least, did not eat; they only sat. Clotilde had, too, if not her unknown, at least her unconfessed emotions. Aurora's were tossed by the waves, hers were sunken beneath them. Aurora had a faith that the rent would be paid--a faith which was only a vapor, but a vapor gilded by the sun--that is, by Apollo, or, to be still more explicit, by Honoré Grandissime. Clotilde, deprived of this confidence, had tried to raise means wherewith to meet the dread obligation, or, rather, had tried to try and had failed. To-day was the ninth, to-morrow, the street. Joseph Frowenfeld was hurt; her dependence upon his good offices was gone. When she thought of him suffering under public contumely, it seemed to her as if she could feel the big drops of blood dropping from her heart; and when she recalled her own actions, speeches, and demonstrations in his presence, exaggerated by the groundless fear that he had guessed into the deepest springs of her feelings, then she felt those drops of blood congeal. Even if the apothecary had been duller of discernment than she supposed, here was Aurora on the opposite side of the table, reading every thought of her inmost soul. But worst of all was 'Sieur Frowenfel's indifference. It is true that, as he had directed upon her that gaze of recognition, there was a look of mighty gladness, if she dared believe her eyes. But no, she dared not; there was nothing there for her, she thought,--probably (when this anguish of public disgrace should by any means be lifted) a benevolent smile at her and her betrayal of interest. Clotilde felt as though she had been laid entire upon a slide of his microscope.
Aurora at length broke her reverie.
"Clotilde,"--she spoke in French--"the matter with you is that you have no heart. You never did have any. Really and truly, you do not care whether 'Sieur Frowenfel' lives or dies. You do not care how he is or where he is this minute. I wish you had some of my too large heart. I not only have the heart, as I tell you, to think kindly of our enemies, those Grandissime, for example"--she waved her hand with the air of selecting at random--"but I am burning up to know what is the condition of that poor, sick, noble 'Sieur Frowenfel', and I am going to do it!"
The heart which Clotilde was accused of not having gave a stir of deep gratitude. Dear, pretty little mother! Not only knowing full well the existence of this swelling heart and the significance, to-day, of its every warm pulsation, but kindly covering up the discovery with make-believe reproaches. The tears started in her eyes; that was her reply.
"Oh, now! it is the rent again, I suppose," cried Aurora, "always the rent. It is not the rent that worriesme, it is 'Sieur Frowenfel', poor man. But very well, Mademoiselle Silence, I will match you for making me do all the talking." She was really beginning to sink under the labor of carrying all the sprightliness for both. "Come," she said, savagely, "propose something."
"Would you think well to go and inquire?"
"Ah, listen! Go and what? No, Mademoiselle, I think not."
"Well, send Alphonsina."
"What? And let him know that I am anxious about him? Let me tell you, my little girl, I shall not drag upon myself the responsibility of increasing the self-conceit of any of that sex."
"Well, then, send to buy a picayune's worth of something."
"Ah, ha, ha! An emetic, for instance. Tell him we are poisoned on mushrooms, ha, ha, ha!"
Clotilde laughed too.
"Ah, no," she said. "Send for something he does not sell."
Aurora was laughing while Clotilde spoke; but as she caught these words she stopped with open-mouthed astonishment, and, as Clotilde blushed, laughed again.
"Oh, Clotilde, Clotilde, Clotilde!"--she leaned forward over the table, her face beaming with love and laughter--"you rowdy! you rascal! You are just as bad as your mother, whom you think so wicked! I accept your advice. Alphonsina!"
"Momselle!"
The answer came from the kitchen.
"Come go--or, rather,--vini 'ci courri dans boutique de l'apothecaire. Clotilde," she continued, in better French, holding up the coin to view, "look!"
"What?"
"The last picayune we have in the world--ha, ha, ha!"
"Comment çà va, Raoul?" said Honoré Grandissime; he had come to the shop according to the proposal contained in his note. "Where is Mr. Frowenfeld?"
He found the apothecary in the rear room, dressed, but just rising from the bed at sound of his voice. He closed the door after him; they shook hands and took chairs.
"You have fever," said the merchant. "I have been troubled that way myself, some, lately." He rubbed his face all over, hard, with one hand,' and looked at the ceiling. "Loss of sleep, I suppose, in both of us; in your case voluntary--in pursuit of study, most likely; in my case--effect of anxiety." He smiled a moment and then suddenly sobered as after a pause he said:
"But I hear you are in trouble; may I ask--"
Frowenfeld had interrupted him with almost the same words:
"May I venture to ask, Mr. Grandissime, what--"
And both were silent for a moment.
"Oh," said Honoré, with a gesture. "My trouble--I did not mean to mention it; 't is an old matter--in part. You know, Mr. Frowenfeld, there is a kind of tree not dreamed of in botany, that lets fall its fruit every day in the year--you know? We call it--with reverence--'our dead father's mistakes.' I have had to eat much of that fruit; a man who has to do that must expect to have now and then a little fever."
"I have heard," replied Frowenfeld, "that some of the titles under which your relatives hold their lands are found to be of the kind which the State's authorities are pronouncing worthless. I hope this is not the case."
"I wish they had never been put into my custody," said M. Grandissime.
Some new thought moved him to draw his chair closer.
"Mr. Frowenfeld, those two ladies whom you went to see the other evening--"
His listener started a little:
"Yes."
"Did they ever tell you their history?"
"No, sir; but I have heard it."
"And you think they have been deeply wronged, eh? Come, Mr. Frowenfeld, take right hold of the acacia-bush." M. Grandissime did not smile.
Frowenfeld winced. "I think they have."
"And you think restitution should be made them, no doubt, eh?"
"I do."
"At any cost?"
The questioner showed a faint, unpleasant smile, that stirred something like opposition in the breast of the apothecary.
"Yes," he answered.
The next question had a tincture even of fierceness:
"You think it right to sink fifty or a hundred people into poverty to lift one or two out?"
"Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld, slowly, "you bade me study this community."
"I adv--yes; what is it you find?"
"I find--it may be the same with other communities, I suppose it is, more or less--that just upon the culmination of the moral issue it turns and asks the question which is behind it, instead of the question which is before it."
"And what is the question before me?"
"I know it only in the abstract."
"Well?"
The apothecary looked distressed.
"You should not make me say it," he objected.
"Nevertheless," said the Creole, "I take that liberty."
"Well, then," said Frowenfeld, "the question behind is Expediency and the question in front, Divine Justice. You are asking yourself--"
He checked himself.
"Which I ought to regard," said M. Grandissime, quickly. "Expediency, of course, and be like the rest of mankind." He put on a look of bitter humor. "It is all easy enough for you, Mr. Frowenfeld, my-de'-seh; you have the easy part--the theorizing."
He saw the ungenerousness of his speech as soon as it was uttered, yet he did not modify it.
"True, Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld; and after a pause--"but you have the noble part--the doing."
"Ah, my-de'-seh!" exclaimed Honoré; "the noble part! There is the bitterness of the draught! The opportunity to act is pushed upon me, but the opportunity to act nobly has passed by."
He again drew his chair closer, glanced behind him and spoke low:
"Because for years I have had a kind of custody of all my kinsmen's property interests, Agricola's among them, it is supposed that he has always kept the plantation of Aurore Nancanou (or rather of Clotilde--who, you know, by our laws is the real heir). That is a mistake. Explain it as you please, call it remorse, pride, love--what you like--while I was in France and he was managing my mother's business, unknown to me he gave me that plantation. When I succeeded him I found it and all its revenues kept distinct--as was but proper--from all other accounts, and belonging to me. 'Twas a fine, extensive place, had a good overseer on it and--I kept it. Why? Because I was a coward. I did not want it or its revenues; but, like my father, I would not offend my people. Peace first and justice afterwards--that was the principle on which I quietly made myself the trustee of a plantation and income which you would have given back to their owners, eh?"
Frowenfeld was silent.
"My-de'-seh, recollect that to us the Grandissime name is a treasure. And what has preserved it so long? Cherishing the unity of our family; that has done it; that is how my father did it. Just or unjust, good or bad, needful or not, done elsewhere or not, I do not say; but it is a Creole trait. See, even now" (the speaker smiled on one side of his mouth) "in a certain section of the territory certain men, Creoles" (he whispered, gravely), "some Grandissimes among them, evading the United States revenue laws and even beating and killing some of the officials: well! Do the people at large repudiate those men? My-de'-seh, in no wise, seh! No; if they wereAméricains--but a Louisianian--is a Louisianian; touch him not; when you touch him you touch all Louisiana! So with us Grandissimes; we are legion, but we are one. Now, my-de'-seh, the thing you ask me to do is to cast overboard that old traditional principle which is the secret of our existence."
"Iask you?"
"Ah, bah! you know you expect it. Ah! but you do not know the uproar such an action would make. And no 'noble part' in it, my-de'-seh, either. A few months ago--when we met by those graves--if I had acted then, my action would have been one of pure--even violent--self-sacrifice. Do you remember--on the levee, by the Place d'Armes--me asking you to send Agricola to me? I tried then to speak of it. He would not let me. Then, my people felt safe in their land-titles and public offices; this restitution would have hurt nothing but pride. Now, titles in doubt, government appointments uncertain, no ready capital in reach for any purpose, except that which would have to be handed over with the plantation (for to tell you the fact, my-de'-seh, no other account on my books has prospered), with matters changed in this way, I become the destroyer of my own flesh and blood! Yes, seh! and lest I might still find some room to boast, another change moves me into a position where it suits me, my-de'-seh, to make the restitution so fatal to those of my name. When you and I first met, those ladies were as much strangers to me as to you--as far as Iknew. Then, if I had done this thing--but now--now, my-de'-seh, I find myself in love with one of them!"
M. Grandissime looked his friend straight in the eye with the frowning energy of one who asserts an ugly fact.
Frowenfeld, regarding the speaker with a gaze of respectful attention, did not falter; but his fevered blood, with an impulse that started him half from his seat, surged up into his head and face; and then--
M. Grandissime blushed.
In the few silent seconds that followed, the glances of the two friends continued to pass into each other's eyes, while about Honoré's mouth hovered the smile of one who candidly surrenders his innermost secret, and the lips of the apothecary set themselves together as though he were whispering to himself behind them, "Steady."
"Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, taking a sudden breath and waving a hand, "I came to ask aboutyourtrouble; but if you think you have any reason to withhold your confidence--"
"No, sir; no! But can I be no help to you in this matter?"
The Creole leaned back smilingly in his chair and knit his fingers.
"No, I did not intend to say all this; I came to offer my help to you; but my mind is full--what do you expect? My-de'-seh, the foam must come first out of the bottle. You see"--he leaned forward again, laid two fingers in his palm and deepened his tone--"I will tell you: this tree--'our dead father's mistakes'--is about to drop another rotten apple. I spoke just now of the uproar this restitution would make; why, my-de'-seh, just the mention of the lady's name at my house, when we lately held thefête de grandpère, has given rise to a quarrel which is likely to end in a duel."
"Raoul was telling me," said the apothecary.
M. Grandissime made an affirmative gesture.
"Mr. Frowenfeld, if you--if any one--could teach my people--I mean my family--the value of peace (I do not say the duty, my-de'-seh; a merchant talks of values); if you could teach them the value of peace, I would give you, if that was your price"--he ran the edge of his left hand knife-wise around the wrist of his right--"that. And if you would teach it to the whole community--well--I think I would not give my head; maybe you would." He laughed.
"There is a peace which is bad," said the contemplative apothecary.
"Yes," said the Creole, promptly, "the very kind that I have been keeping all this time--and my father before me!"
He spoke with much warmth.
"Yes," he said again, after a pause which was not a rest, "I often see that we Grandissimes are a good example of the Creoles at large; we have one element that makes for peace; that--pardon the self-consciousness--is myself; and another element that makes for strife--led by my uncle Agricola; but, my-de'-seh, the peace element is that which ought to make the strife, and the strife element is that which ought to be made to keep the peace! Mr. Frowenfeld, I propose to become the strife-maker; how then, can I be a peacemaker at the same time? There is my diffycultie."
"Mr. Grandissime," exclaimed Frowenfeld, "if you have any design in view founded on the high principles which I know to be the foundations of all your feelings, and can make use of the aid of a disgraced man, use me."
"You are very generous," said the Creole, and both were silent. Honoré dropped his eyes from Frowenfeld's to the floor, rubbed his knee with his palm, and suddenly looked up.
"You are innocent of wrong?"
"Before God."
"I feel sure of it. Tell me in a few words all about it. I ought to be able to extricate you. Let me hear it."
Frowenfeld again told as much as he thought he could, consistently with his pledges to Palmyre, touching with extreme lightness upon the part taken by Clotilde.
"Turn around," said M. Grandissime at the close; "let me see the back of your head. And it is that that is giving you this fever, eh?"
"Partly," replied Frowenfeld; "but how shall I vindicate my innocence? I think I ought to go back openly to this woman's house and get my hat. I was about to do that when I got your note; yet it seems a feeble--even if possible--expedient."
"My friend," said Honoré, "leave it to me. I see your whole case, both what you tell and what you conceal. I guess it with ease. Knowing Palmyre so well, and knowing (what you do not) that all the voudous in town think you a sorcerer, I know just what she would drop down and beg you for--aouangan, ha, ha! You see? Leave it all to me--and your hat with Palmyre, take a febrifuge and a nap, and await word from me."
"And may I offer you no help in your difficulty?" asked the apothecary, as the two rose and grasped hands.
"Oh!" said the Creole, with a little shrug, "you may do anything you can--which will be nothing."
Frowenfeld turned away from the closing door, caught his head between his hands and tried to comprehend the new wildness of the tumult within. Honoré Grandissime avowedly in love with one of them--which one? Doctor Keene visibly in love with one of them--which one? And he! What meant this bounding joy that, like one gorgeous moth among innumerable bats, flashed to and fro among the wild distresses and dismays swarming in and out of his distempered imagination? He did not answer the question; he only knew the confusion in his brain was dreadful. Both hands could not hold back the throbbing of his temples; the table did not steady the trembling of his hands; his thoughts went hither and thither, heedless of his call. Sit down as he might, rise up, pace the room, stand, lean his forehead against the wall--nothing could quiet the fearful disorder, until at length he recalled Honoré's neglected advice and resolutely lay down and sought sleep; and, long before he had hoped to secure it, it came.
In the distant Grandissime mansion, Agricola Fusilier was casting about for ways and means to rid himself of the heaviest heart that ever had throbbed in his bosom. He had risen at sunrise from slumber worse than sleeplessness, in which his dreams had anticipated the duel of to-morrow with Sylvestre. He was trying to get the unwonted quaking out of his hands and the memory of the night's heart-dissolving phantasms from before his inner vision. To do this he had resort to a very familiar, we may say time-honored, prescription--rum. He did not use it after the voudou fashion; the voudous pour it on the ground--Agricola was an anti-voudou. It finally had its effect. By eleven o'clock he seemed, outwardly at least, to be at peace with everything in Louisiana that he considered Louisianian, properly so-called; as to all else he was ready for war, as in peace one should be. While in this mood, and performing at a sideboard the solemn rite oflas onze, news incidentally reached him, by the mouth of his busy second, Hippolyte, of Frowenfeld's trouble, and despite 'Polyte's protestations against the principal in a pending "affair" appearing on the street, he ordered the carriage and hurried to the apothecary's.
When Frowenfeld awoke, the fingers of his clock were passing the meridan. His fever was gone, his brain was calm, his strength in good measure had returned. There had been dreams in his sleep, too; he had seen Clotilde standing at the foot of his bed. He lay now, for a moment, lost in retrospection.
"There can be no doubt about it," said he, as he rose up, looking back mentally at something in the past.
The sound of carriage-wheels attracted his attention by ceasing before his street door. A moment later the voice of Agricola was heard in the shop greeting Raoul. As the old man lifted the head of his staff to tap on the inner door, Frowenfeld opened it.
"Fusilier to the rescue!" said the great Louisianian, with a grasp of the apothecary's hand and a gaze of brooding admiration.
Joseph gave him a chair, but with magnificent humility he insisted on not taking it until "Professor Frowenfeld" had himself sat down.
The apothecary was very solemn. It seemed to him as if in this little back room his dead good name was lying in state, and these visitors were coming in to take their last look. From time to time he longed for more light, wondering why the gravity of his misadventure should seem so great.
"H-m-h-y dear Professor!" began the old man. Pages of print could not comprise all the meanings of his smile and accent; benevolence, affection, assumed knowledge of the facts, disdain of results, remembrance of his own youth, charity for pranks, patronage--these were but a few. He spoke very slowly and deeply and with this smile of a hundred meanings. "Why did you not send for me, Joseph? Sir, whenever you have occasion to make a list of the friends who will stand by you,right or wrong--h-write the name of Citizen Agricola Fusilier at the top! Write it large and repeat it at the bottom! You understand me, Joseph?--and, mark me,--right or wrong!"
"Not wrong," said Frowenfeld, "at least not in defence of wrong; I could not do that; but, I assure you, in this matter I have done--"
"No worse than any one else would have done under the circumstances, my dear boy!--Nay, nay, do not interrupt me; I understand you, I understand you. H-do you imagine there is anything strange to me in this--at my age?"
"But I am--"
"--all right, sir! that iswhatyou are. And you are under the wing of Agricola Fusilier, the old eagle; that iswhereyou are. And you are one of my brood; that iswhoyou are. Professor, listen to your old father.The--man--makes--the--crime!The wisdom of mankind never brought forth a maxim of more gigantic beauty. If the different grades of race and society did not have corresponding moral and civil liberties, varying in degree as they vary--h-why!thiscommunity, at least, would go to pieces! See here! Professor Frowenfeld is charged with misdemeanor. Very well, who is he? Foreigner or native? Foreigner by sentiment and intention, or only by accident of birth? Of our mental fibre--our aspirations--our delights--our indignations? I answer for you, Joseph, yes!--yes! What then? H-why, then the decision! Reached how? By apologetic reasonings? By instinct, sir! h-h-that guide of the nobly proud! And what is the decision? Not guilty. Professor Frowenfeld,absolvo te!"
It was in vain that the apothecary repeatedly tried to interrupt this speech. "Citizen Fusilier, do you know me no better?"--"Citizen Fusilier, if you will but listen!"--such were the fragments of his efforts to explain. The old man was not so confident as he pretended to be that Frowenfeld was that complete proselyte which alone satisfies a Creole; but he saw him in a predicament and cast to him this life-buoy, which if a man should refuse, he would deserve to drown.
Frowenfeld tried again to begin.
"Mr. Fusilier--"
"Citizen Fusilier!"
"Citizen, candor demands that I undeceive--"
"Candor demands--h-my dear Professor, let me tell you exactly what she demands. She demands that in here--within this apartment--we understand each other. That demand is met."
"But--" Frowenfeld frowned impatiently.
"That demand, Joseph, is fully met! I understand the whole matter like an eye-witness! Now there is another demand to be met, the demand of friendship! In here, candor; outside, friendship; in here, one of our brethren has been adventurous and unfortunate; outside"--the old man smiled a smile of benevolent mendacity--"outside, nothing has happened."
Frowenfeld insisted savagely on speaking; but Agricola raised his voice, and gray hairs prevailed.
"At least, whathashappened? The most ordinary thing in the world; Professor Frowenfeld lost his footing on a slippery gunwale, fell, cut his head upon a protruding spike, and went into the house of Palmyre to bathe his wound; but finding it worse than he had at first supposed it, immediately hurried out again and came to his store. He left his hat where it had fallen, too muddy to be worth recovery. Hippolyte Brahmin-Mandarin and others, passing at the time, thought he had met with violence in the house of the hair-dresser, and drew some natural inferences, but have since been better informed; and the public will please understand that Professor Frowenfeld is a white man, a gentleman, and a Louisianian, ready to vindicate his honor, and that Citizen Agricola Fusilier is his friend!"
The old man looked around with the air of a bull on a hill-top.
Frowenfeld, vexed beyond degree, restrained himself only for the sake of an object in view, and contented himself with repeating for the fourth or fifth time,--
"I cannot accept any such deliverance."
"Professor Frowenfeld, friendship--society--demands it; our circle must be protected in all its members. You have nothing to do with it. You will leave it with me, Joseph."
"No, no," said Frowenfeld, "I thank you, but--"
"Ah! my dear boy, thank me not; I cannot help these impulses; I belong to a warm-hearted race. But"--he drew back in his chair sidewise and made great pretence of frowning--"you decline the offices of that precious possession, a Creole friend?"
"I only decline to be shielded by a fiction."
"Ah-h!" said Agricola, further nettling his victim by a gaze of stagy admiration. "'Sans peur et sans reproche'--and yet you disappoint me. Is it for naught, that I have sallied forth from home, drawing the curtains of my carriage to shield me from the gazing crowd? It was to rescue my friend--my vicar--my coadjutor--my son--from the laughs and finger-points of the vulgar mass. H-I might as well have stayed at home--or better, for my peculiar position to-day rather requires me to keep in--"
"No, citizen," said Frowenfeld, laying his hand upon Agricola's arm, "I trust it is not in vain that you have come out. Thereisa man in trouble whom only you can deliver."
The old man began to swell with complacency.
"H-why, really--"
"He, Citizen, is truly of your kind--"
"He must be delivered, Professor Frowenfeld--"
"He is a native Louisianian, not only by accident of birth but by sentiment and intention," said Frowenfeld.
The old man smiled a benign delight, but the apothecary now had the upper hand, and would not hear him speak.
"His aspirations," continued the speaker, "his indignations--mount with his people's. His pulse beats with yours, sir. He is a part of your circle. He is one of your caste."
Agricola could not be silent.
"Ha-a-a-ah! Joseph, h-h-you make my blood tingle! Speak to the point; who--"
"I believe him, moreover, Citizen Fusilier, innocent of the charge laid--"
"H-innocent? H-of course he is innocent, sir! We willmakehim inno--"
"Ah! Citizen, he is already under sentence of death!"
"What?A Creole under sentence!" Agricola swore a heathen oath, set his knees apart and grasped his staff by the middle. "Sir, we will liberate him if we have to overturn the government!"
Frowenfeld shook his head.
"You have got to overturn something stronger than government."
"And pray what--"
"A conventionality," said Frowenfeld, holding the old man's eye.
"Ha, ha! my b-hoy, h-you are right. But we will overturn--eh?"
"I say I fear your engagements will prevent. I hear you take part to-morrow morning in--"
Agricola suddenly stiffened.
"Professor Frowenfeld, it strikes me, sir, you are taking something of a liberty."
"For which I ask pardon," exclaimed Frowenfeld. "Then I may not expect--"
The old man melted again.
"But who is this person in mortal peril?"
Frowenfeld hesitated.
"Citizen Fusilier," he said, looking first down at the floor and then up into the inquirer's face, "on my assurance that he is not only a native Creole, but a Grandissime--"
"It is not possible!" exclaimed Agricola.
"--a Grandissime of the purest blood, will you pledge me your aid to liberate him from his danger, 'right or wrong'?"
"WillI? H-why, certainly! Who is he?"
"Citizen--it is Sylves--"
Agricola sprang up with a thundering oath.
The apothecary put out a pacifying hand, but it was spurned.
"His head was bowed, a heavy grizzled lock fell down upon his dark, frowning brow, one hand clenched the top of his staff, the other his knee, and both trembled violently".
"Let me go! How dare you, sir? How dare you, sir?" bellowed Agricola.
He started toward the door, cursing furiously and keeping his eye fixed on Frowenfeld with a look of rage not unmixed with terror.
"Citizen Fusilier," said the apothecary, following him with one palm uplifted, as if that would ward off his abuse, "don't go! I adjure you, don't go! Remember your pledge, Citizen Fusilier!"
Agricola did not pause a moment; but when he had swung the door violently open the way was still obstructed. The painter of "Louisiana refusing to enter the Union" stood before him, his head elevated loftily, one foot set forward and his arm extended like a tragedian's.
"Stan' bag-sah!"
"Let me pass! Let me pass, or I will kill you!"
Mr. Innerarity smote his bosom and tossed his hand aloft.
"Kill me-firse an' pass aftah!"
"Citizen Fusilier," said Frowenfeld, "I beg you to hear me."
"Go away! Go away!"
The old man drew back from the door and stood in the corner against the book-shelves as if all the horrors of the last night's dreams had taken bodily shape in the person of the apothecary. He trembled and stammered:
"Ke--keep off! Keep off! My God! Raoul, he has insulted me!" He made a miserable show of drawing a weapon. "No man may insult me and live! If you are a man, Professor Frowenfeld, you will defend yourself!"
Frowenfeld lost his temper, but his hasty reply was drowned by Raoul's vehement speech.
"'Tis not de trute!" cried Raoul. "He try to save you from hell-'n'-damnation w'en 'e h-ought to give you a good cuss'n!"--and in the ecstasy of his anger burst into tears.
Frowenfeld, in an agony of annoyance, waved him away and he disappeared, shutting the door.
Agricola, moved far more from within than from without, had sunk into a chair under the shelves. His head was bowed, a heavy grizzled lock fell down upon his dark, frowning brow, one hand clenched the top of his staff, the other his knee, and both trembled violently. As Frowenfeld, with every demonstration of beseeching kindness, began to speak, he lifted his eyes and said, piteously:
"Stop! Stop!"
"Citizen Fusilier, it is you who must stop. Stop before God Almighty stops you, I beg you. I do not presume to rebuke you. Iknowyou want a clear record. I know it better to-day than I ever did before. Citizen Fusilier, I honor your intentions--"
Agricola roused a little and looked up with a miserable attempt at his habitual patronizing smile.
"H-my dear boy, I overlook"--but he met in
Frowenfeld's eyes a spirit so superior to his dissimulation that the smile quite broke down and gave way to another of deprecatory and apologetic distress. He reached up an arm.
"I could easily convince you, Professor, of your error"--his eyes quailed and dropped to the floor--"but I--your arm, my dear Joseph; age is creeping upon me." He rose to his feet. "I am feeling really indisposed to-day--not at all bright; my solicitude for you, my dear b--"
He took two or three steps forward, tottered, clung to the apothecary, moved another step or two, and grasping the edge of the table stumbled into a chair which Frowenfeld thrust under him. He folded his arms on the edge of the board and rested his forehead on them, while Frowenfeld sat down quickly on the opposite side, drew paper and pen across the table and wrote.
"Are you writing something, Professor?" asked the old man, without stirring. His staff tumbled to the floor. The apothecary's answer was a low, preoccupied one. Two or three times over he wrote and rejected what he had written.
Presently he pushed back his chair, came around the table, laid the writing he had made before the bowed head, sat down again and waited.
After a long time the old man looked up, trying in vain to conceal his anguish under a smile.
"I have a sad headache."
He cast his eyes over the table and took mechanically the pen which Frowenfeld extended toward him.
"What can I do for you, Professor? Sign something? There is nothing I would not do for Professor Frowenfeld. What have you written, eh?"
He felt helplessly for his spectacles.
Frowenfeld read:
"Mr. Sylvestre Grandissime: I spoke in haste."
He felt himself tremble as he read. Agricola fumbled with the pen, lifted his eyes with one more effort at the old look, said, "My dear boy, I do this purely to please you," and to Frowenfeld's delight and astonishment wrote:
"Your affectionate uncle, Agricola Fusilier."