He was angered against other young women who passed him, because of their flowers and ribbons, when she wore none. He himself did not care, but he feared she might, and watched her narrowly to see if she did.
But it was plain that Lalie did not care. Her face, as she seated herself, settled into the same restful lines it had worn yesterday, when she sat in Père Antoine’s big chair. It seemed good to her to be there. Sometimes she looked up at the little colored panes through which the Easter sun was streaming; then at the flaming candles, like stars; or at the embowered figures of Joseph and Mary, flanking the central tabernacle which shrouded the risen Christ. Yet she liked just as well to watch the young girls in their spring freshness, or to sensuously inhale the mingled odor of flowers and incense that filled the temple.
Lalie was among the last to quit the church. When she walked down the clean pathway that led from it to the road, she looked with pleased curiosity towards the groups of men and maidens who were gayly matching their Easter-eggs under the shade of the China-berry trees.
Azenor was among them, and when he saw her coming solitary down the path, he approached her and, with a smile, extended his hat, whose crown was quite lined with the pretty colored eggs.
“You mus’ of forgot to bring aiggs,” he said. “Take some o’ mine.”
“Non, merci,” she replied, flushing and drawing back.
But he urged them anew upon her. Much pleased, then, she bent her pretty head over the hat, and was evidently puzzled to make a selection among so many that were beautiful.
He picked out one for her,—a pink one, dotted with white clover-leaves.
“Yere,” he said, handing it to her, “I think this is the pretties’; an’ it look’ strong too. I’m sho’ it will break all of the res’.” And he playfully held out another, half-hidden in his fist, for her to try its strength upon. But she refused to. She would not risk the ruin of her pretty egg. Then she walked away, without once having noticed that the girls, whom Azenor had left, were looking curiously at her.
When he rejoined them, he was hardly prepared for their greeting; it startled him.
“How come you talk to that girl? She ’s real canaille,4 her,” was what one of them said to him.
“Who say’ so? Who say she ’s canaille? If it’s a man, I ’ll smash ’is head!” he exclaimed, livid. They all laughed merrily at this.
“An’ if it ’s a lady, Azenor? W’at you goin’ to do ’bout it?” asked another, quizzingly.
“ ’T ain’ no lady. No lady would say that ’bout a po’ girl, w’at she don’t even know.”
He turned away, and emptying all his eggs into the hat of a little urchin who stood near, walked out of the churchyard. He did not stop to exchange another word with any one; neither with the men who stood all endimanchés5 before the stores, nor the women who were mounting upon horses and into vehicles, or walking in groups to their homes.
He took a short cut across the cotton-field that extended back of the town, and walking rapidly, soon reached his home. It was a pleasant house of few rooms and many windows, with fresh air blowing through from every side; his workshop was beside it. A broad strip of greensward, studded here and there with trees, sloped down to the road.
Azenor entered the kitchen, where an amiable old black woman was chopping onion and sage at a table.
“Tranquiline,”6 he said abruptly, “they ’s a young girl goin’ to pass yere afta a w’ile. She ’s got a blue dress an’ w’ite josie on, an’ a veil on her head. W’en you see her, I want you to go to the road an’ make her res’ there on the bench, an’ ask her if she don’t want a cup o’ coffee. I saw her go to communion, me; so she did n’t eat any breakfas’. Eve’ybody else f’om out o’ town, that went to communion, got invited somew’ere another. It ’s enough to make a person sick to see such meanness.”
“An’ you want me ter go down to de gate, jis’ so, an’ ax ’er pineblank ef she wants some coffee?” asked the bewildered Tranquiline.
“I don’t care if you ask her poin’ blank o’ not; but you do like I say.” Tranquiline was leaning over the gate when Lalie came along.
“Howdy,” offered the woman.
“Howdy,” the girl returned.
“Did you see a yalla calf wid black spots a t’arin’ down de lane, missy?”
“Non; not yalla, an’ not with black spot’. Mais I see one li’le w’ite calf tie by a rope, yonda ’roun’ the ben’.”
“Dat warn’t hit. Dis heah one was yalla. I hope he done flung hisse’f down de bank an’ broke his nake. Sarve ’im right! But whar you come f’om, chile? You look plum wo’ out. Set down dah on dat bench, an’ le’ me fotch you a cup o’ coffee.”
Azenor had already in his eagerness arranged a tray, upon which was a smoking cup of café au lait. He had buttered and jellied generous slices of bread, and was searching wildly for something when Tranquiline reentered.
“W’at become o’ that half of chicken-pie, Tranquiline, that was yere in the garde manger7 yesterday?”
“W’at chicken-pie? W’at garde manger?” blustered the woman.
“Like we got mo’ ’en one garde manger in the house, Tranquiline!”
“You jis’ like ole Ma’ame Azenor use’ to be, you is! You ’spec’ chicken-pie gwine las’ etarnal? W’en some’ pin done sp’ilt, I flings it ’way. Dat’s me—dat ’s Tranquiline!”
So Azenor resigned himself,—what else could he do?—and sent the tray, incomplete, as he fancied it, out to Lalie.
He trembled at the thought of what he did; he whose nerves were usually as steady as some piece of steel mechanism.
Would it anger her if she suspected? Would it please her if she knew? Would she say this or that to Tranquiline? And would Tranquiline tell him truly what she said—how she looked?
As it was Sunday, Azenor did not work that afternoon. Instead, he took a book out under the trees, as he often did, and sat reading it, from the first sound of the Vesper bell, that came faintly across the fields, till the Angelus. All that time! He turned many a page, yet in the end did not know what he had read. With his pencil he had traced “Lalie” upon every margin, and was saying it softly to himself.
Another Sunday Azenor saw Lalie at mass—and again. Once he walked with her and showed her the short cut across the cotton-field. She was very glad that day, and told him she was going to work—her grandmother said she might. She was going to hoe, up in the fields with Monsieur Le Blôt’s hands. He entreated her not to; and when she asked his reason, he could not tell her, but turned and tore shyly and savagely at the elder-blossoms that grew along the fence.
Then they stopped where she was going to cross the fence from the field into the lane. He wanted to tell her that was his house which they could see not far away; but he did not dare to, since he had fed her there on the morning she was hungry.
“An’ you say yo’ gran’ma ’s goin’ to let you work? She keeps you f’om workin’, donc?” He wanted to question her about her grandmother, and could think of no other way to begin.
“Po’ ole grand’mère!” she answered. “I don’ b’lieve she know mos’ time w’at she ’s doin’. Sometime she say’ I ain’t no betta an’ one nigga, an’ she fo’ce me to work. Then she say she know I ’m goin’ be one canaille like maman, an’ she make me set down still, like she would want to kill me if I would move. Her, she on’y want’ to be out in the wood’, day an’ night, day an’ night. She ain’ got her right head, po’ grand’mère. I know she ain’t.”
Lalie had spoken low and in jerks, as if every word gave her pain. Azenor could feel her distress as plainly as he saw it. He wanted to say something to her—to do something for her. But her mere presence paralyzed him into inactivity—except his pulses, that beat like hammers when he was with her. Such a poor, shabby little thing as she was, too!
“I ’m goin’ to wait yere nex’ Sunday fo’ you, Lalie,” he said, when the fence was between them. And he thought he had said something very daring.
But the next Sunday she did not come. She was neither at the appointed place of meeting in the lane, nor was she at mass. Her absence—so unexpected—affected Azenor like a calamity. Late in the afternoon, when he could stand the trouble and bewilderment of it no longer, he went and leaned over Père Antoine’s fence. The priest was picking the slugs from his roses on the other side.
“That young girl from the Bon-Dieu,” said Azenor—“she was not at mass to-day. I suppose her grandmother has forgotten your warning.”
“No,” answered the priest. “The child is ill, I hear. Butrand tells me she has been ill for several days from overwork in the fields. I shall go out to-morrow to see about her. I would go to-day, if I could.”
“The child is ill,” was all Azenor heard or understood of Père Antoine’s words. He turned and walked resolutely away, like one who determines suddenly upon action after meaningless hesitation.
He walked towards his home and past it, as if it were a spot that did not concern him. He went on down the lane and into the wood where he had seen Lalie disappear that day.
Here all was shadow, for the sun had dipped too low in the west to send a single ray through the dense foliage of the forest.
Now that he found himself on the way to Lalie’s home, he strove to understand why he had not gone there before. He often visited other girls in the village and neighborhood,—why not have gone to her, as well? The answer lay too deep in his heart for him to be more than half-conscious of it. Fear had kept him,—dread to see her desolate life face to face. He did not know how he could bear it.
But now he was going to her at last. She was ill. He would stand upon that dismantled porch that he could just remember. Doubtless Ma’ame Zidore would come out to know his will, and he would tell her that Père Antoine had sent to inquire how Mamzelle Lalie was. No! Why drag in Père Antoine? He would simply stand boldly and say, “Ma’ame Zidore, I learn that Lalie is ill. I have come to know if it is true, and to see her, if I may.”
When Azenor reached the cabin where Lalie dwelt, all sign of day had vanished. Dusk had fallen swiftly after the sunset. The moss that hung heavy from great live oak branches was making fantastic silhouettes against the eastern sky that the big, round moon was beginning to light. Off in the swamp beyond the bayou, hundreds of dismal voices were droning a lullaby. Upon the hovel itself, a stillness like death rested.
Oftener than once Azenor tapped upon the door, which was closed as well as it could be, without obtaining a reply. He finally approached one of the small unglazed windows, in which coarse mosquito-netting had been fastened, and looked into the room.
By the moonlight slanting in he could see Lalie stretched upon a bed; but of Ma’ame Zidore there was no sign. “Lalie!” he called softly. “Lalie!”
The girl slightly moved her head upon the pillow. Then he boldly opened the door and entered.
Upon a wretched bed, over which was spread a cover of patched calico, Lalie lay, her frail body only half concealed by the single garment that was upon it. One hand was plunged beneath her pillow; the other, which was free, he touched. It was as hot as flame; so was her head. He knelt sobbing upon the floor beside her, and called her his love and his soul. He begged her to speak a word to him,—to look at him. But she only muttered disjointedly that the cotton was all turning to ashes in the fields, and the blades of the corn were in flames.
If he was choked with love and grief to see her so, he was moved by anger as well; rage against himself, against Père Antoine, against the people upon the plantation and in the village, who had so abandoned a helpless creature to misery and maybe death. Because she had been silent—had not lifted her voice in complaint—they believed she suffered no more than she could bear.
But surely the people could not be utterly without heart. There must be one somewhere with the spirit of Christ. Père Antoine would tell him of such a one, and he would carry Lalie to her,—out of this atmosphere of death. He was in haste to be gone with her. He fancied every moment of delay was a fresh danger threatening her life.
He folded the rude bed-cover over Lalie’s naked limbs, and lifted her in his arms. She made no resistance. She seemed only loath to withdraw her hand from beneath the pillow. When she did, he saw that she held lightly but firmly clasped in her encircling fingers the pretty Easter-egg he had given her! He uttered a low cry of exultation as the full significance of this came over him. If she had hung for hours upon his neck telling him that she loved him, he could not have known it more surely than by this sign. Azenor felt as if some mysterious bond had all at once drawn them heart to heart and made them one.
No need now to go from door to door begging admittance for her. She was his. She belonged to him. He knew now where her place was, whose roof must shelter her, and whose arms protect her.
So Azenor, with his loved one in his arms, walked through the forest, surefooted as a panther. Once, as he walked, he could hear in the distance the weird chant which Ma’ame Zidore was crooning—to the moon, maybe—as she gathered her wood.
Once, where the water was trickling cool through rocks, he stopped to lave Lalie’s hot cheeks and hands and forehead. He had not once touched his lips to her. But now, when a sudden great fear came upon him because she did not know him, instinctively he pressed his lips upon hers that were parched and burning. He held them there till hers were soft and pliant from the healthy moisture of his own.
Then she knew him. She did not tell him so, but her stiffened fingers relaxed their tense hold upon the Easter bauble. It fell to the ground as she twined her arm around his neck; and he understood.
“Stay close by her, Tranquiline,” said Azenor, when he had laid Lalie upon his own couch at home. “I’m goin’ for the doctor en’ for Père Antoine. Not because she is goin’ to die,” he added hastily, seeing the awe that crept into the woman’s face at mention of the priest. “She is goin’ to live! Do you think I would let my wife die, Tranquiline?”
Loka
SHE was a half-breed Indian girl, with hardly a rag to her back. To the ladies of the Band of United Endeavor who questioned her, she said her name was Loka, and she did not know where she belonged, unless it was on Bayou Choctaw.
She had appeared one day at the side door of Frobissaint’s “oyster saloon” in Natchitoches, asking for food. Frobissaint, a practical philanthropist, engaged her on the spot as tumbler-washer.
She was not successful at that; she broke too many tumblers. But, as Frobissaint charged her with the broken glasses, he did not mind, until she began to break them over the heads of his customers. Then he seized her by the wrist and dragged her before the Band of United Endeavor, then in session around the corner. This was considerate on Frobissaint’s part, for he could have dragged her just as well to the police station.
Loka was not beautiful, as she stood in her red calico rags before the scrutinizing band. Her coarse, black, unkempt hair framed a broad, swarthy face without a redeeming feature, except eyes that were not bad; slow in their movements, but frank eyes enough. She was big-boned and clumsy.
She did not know how old she was. The minister’s wife reckoned she might be sixteen. The judge’s wife thought that it made no difference. The doctor’s wife suggested that the girl have a bath and change before she be handled, even in discussion. The motion was not seconded. Loka’s ultimate disposal was an urgent and difficult consideration.
Some one mentioned a reformatory. Every one else objected.
Madame Laballière, the planter’s wife, knew a respectable family of ’Cadians living some miles below, who, she thought, would give the girl a home, with benefit to all concerned. The ’Cadian woman was a deserving one, with a large family of small children, who had all her own work to do. The husband cropped in a modest way. Loka would not only be taught to work at the Padues’, but would receive a good moral training beside.
That settled it. Every one agreed with the planter’s wife that it was a chance in a thousand; and Loka was sent to sit on
the steps outside, while the band proceeded to the business next in order.
Loka was afraid of treading upon the little Padues when she first got amongst them,—there were so many of them,—and her feet were like leaden weights, encased in the strong brogans with which the band had equipped her.
Madame Padue, a small, black-eyed, aggressive woman, questioned her in a sharp, direct fashion peculiar to herself.
“How come you don’t talk French, you?” Loka shrugged her shoulders.
“I kin talk English good ’s anybody; an’ lit’ bit Choctaw, too,” she offered, apologetically.
“Ma foi,1 you kin fo’git yo’ Choctaw. Soona the betta for me. Now if you willin’, an’ ent too lazy an’ sassy, we ’ll git ’long somehow. Vrai sauvage ça,”2 she muttered under her breath, as she turned to initiate Loka into some of her new duties.
She herself was a worker. A good deal more fussy one than her easy-going husband and children thought necessary or agreeable. Loka’s slow ways and heavy motions aggravated her. It was in vain Monsieur Padue expostulated:—
“She ’s on’y a chile, rememba, Tontine.”
“She ’s vrai sauvage, that ’s w’at. It ’s got to be work out of her,” was Tontine’s only reply to such remonstrance.
The girl was indeed so deliberate about her tasks that she had to be urged constantly to accomplish the amount of labor that Tontine required of her. Moreover, she carried to her work a stolid indifference that was exasperating. Whether at the wash-tub, scrubbing the floors, weeding the garden, or learning her lessons and catechism with the children on Sundays, it was the same.
It was only when intrusted with the care of little Bibine, the baby, that Loka crept somewhat out of her apathy. She grew very fond of him. No wonder; such a baby as he was! So good, so fat, and complaisant! He had such a way of clasping Loka’s broad face between his pudgy fists and savagely biting her chin with his hard, toothless gums! Such a way of bouncing in her arms as if he were mounted upon springs! At his antics the girl would laugh a wholesome, ringing laugh that was good to hear.