CHAPTER XI.
FACE TO FACE.
Madame Delphine found her house neither burned nor rifled.
"_Ah! ma, piti sans popa_! Ah I my little fatherless one!" Her fadedbonnet fell back between her shoulders, hanging on by the strings, andher dropped basket, with its "few lill' _becassines-de-mer_" danglingfrom the handle, rolled out its okra and soup-joint upon the floor. "_Mapiti_! kiss!--kiss!--kiss!"
"But is it good news you have, or bad?" cried the girl, a fourth orfifth time.
"_Dieu sait, ma cere; mo pas conne!_"--God knows, my darling; I cannottell!
The mother dropped into a chair, covered her face with her apron, andburst into tears, then looked up with an effort to smile, and weptafresh.
"What have you been doing?" asked the daughter, in a long-drawn,fondling tone. She leaned forward and unfastened her mother'sbonnet-strings. "Why do you cry?"
"For nothing at all, my darling; for nothing--I am such a fool."
The girl's eyes filled. The mother looked up into her face and said:
"No, it is nothing, nothing, only that"--turning her head from side toside with a slow, emotional emphasis, "Miche Vignevielle is thebest--_best_ man on the good Lord's earth!"
Olive drew a chair close to her mother, sat down and took the littleyellow hands into her own white lap, and looked tenderly into her eyes.Madame Delphine felt herself yielding; she must make a show of tellingsomething:
"He sent you those birds!"
The girl drew her face back a little. The little woman turned away,trying in vain to hide her tearful smile, and they laughed together,Olive mingling a daughter's fond kiss with her laughter.
"There is something else," she said, "and you shall tell me."
"Yes," replied Madame Delphine, "only let me get composed."
But she did not get so. Later in the morning she came to Olive with thetimid yet startling proposal that they would do what they could tobrighten up the long-neglected front room. Olive was mystified andtroubled, but consented, and thereupon the mother's spirits rose.
The work began, and presently ensued all the thumping, the trundling,the lifting and letting down, the raising and swallowing of dust, andthe smells of turpentine, brass, pumice and woollen rags that go tocharacterize a housekeeper's _emeute_; and still, as the workprogressed, Madame Delphine's heart grew light, and her little blackeyes sparkled.
"We like a clean parlor, my daughter, even though no one is ever comingto see us, eh?" she said, as entering the apartment she at last satdown, late in the afternoon. She had put on her best attire.
Olive was not there to reply. The mother called but got no answer. Sherose with an uneasy heart, and met her a few steps beyond the door thatopened into the garden, in a path which came up from an old latticedbower. Olive was approaching slowly, her face pale and wild. There wasan agony of hostile dismay in the look, and the trembling and appealingtone with which, taking the frightened mother's cheeks between herpalms, she said:
"_Ah! ma mere, qui vini 'ci ce soir_?"--Who is coming here this evening?
"Why, my dear child, I was just saying, we like a clean"--
But the daughter was desperate:
"Oh, tell me, my mother, _who_ is coming?"
"My darling, it is our blessed friend, Miche Vignevielle!"
"To see me?" cried the girl.
"Yes."
"Oh, my mother, what have you done?"
"Why, Olive, my child," exclaimed the little mother, bursting intotears, "do you forget it is Miche Vignevielle who has promised toprotect you when I die?"
The daughter had turned away, and entered the door; but she faced aroundagain, and extending her arms toward her mother, cried:
"How can--he is a white man--I am a poor"--
"Ah! _cherie_," replied Madame Delphine, seizing the outstretched hands,"it is there--it is there that he shows himself the best man alive! Hesees that difficulty; he proposes to meet it; he says he will find you asuitor!"
Olive freed her hands violently, motioned her mother back, and stoodproudly drawn up, flashing an indignation too great for speech; but thenext moment she had uttered a cry, and was sobbing on the floor.
The mother knelt beside her and threw an arm about her shoulders.
"Oh, my sweet daughter, you must not cry! I did not want to tell you atall! I did not want to tell you! It isn't fair for you to cry so hard.Miche Vignevielle says you shall have the one you wish, or none at all,Olive, or none at all."
"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"
"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with himto-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."
Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went aloneto their chamber in the half-story.
Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window todoor, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemeddismal beyond degree. There was a great Argand lamp in one corner. Howshe had labored that day to prepare it for evening illumination! Alittle beyond it, on the wall, hung a crucifix. She knelt under it, withher eyes fixed upon it, and thus silently remained until its outline wasindistinguishable in the deepening shadows of evening.
She arose. A few minutes later, as she was trying to light the lamp, anapproaching step on the sidewalk seemed to pause. Her heart stood still.She softly laid the phosphorus-box out of her hands. A shoe gratedsoftly on the stone step, and Madame Delphine, her heart beating ingreat thuds, without waiting for a knock, opened the door, bowed low,and exclaimed in a soft perturbed voice:
"Miche Vignevielle!"
He entered, hat in hand, and with that almost noiseless tread which wehave noticed. She gave him a chair and closed the door; then hastened,with words of apology, back to her task of lighting the lamp. But herhands paused in their work again,--Olive's step was on the stairs; thenit came off the stairs; then it was in the next room, and then there wasthe whisper of soft robes, a breath of gentle perfume, and a snowyfigure in the door. She was dressed for the evening.
"Maman?"
Madame Delphine was struggling desperately with the lamp, and at thatmoment it responded with a tiny bead of light.
"I am here, my daughter."
She hastened to the door, and Olive, all unaware of a third presence,lifted her white arms, laid them about her mother's neck, and, ignoringher effort to speak, wrested a fervent kiss from her lips. The crystalof the lamp sent out a faint gleam; it grew; it spread on every side;the ceiling, the walls lighted up; the crucifix, the furniture of theroom came back into shape.
"Maman!" cried Olive, with a tremor of consternation.
"It is Miche Vignevielle, my daughter"--
The gloom melted swiftly away before the eyes of the startled maiden, adark form stood out against the farther wall, and the light, expandingto the full, shone clearly upon the unmoving figure and quiet face ofCapitaine Lemaitre.