It was the one thing which had saved him, and yet he felt no gratitude. The great love which had prompted the deed did not soften him. He could not believe that any man was worth loving to such length, or worth saving at such a price. She seemed, to his imagination, less a woman than a monster, capable of committing, in cold-blood, deeds which he himself could only accomplish in blind rage. For the first time, Gabriel wept. He threw himself down upon the ground in the deepening twilight and wept as he never had before in his life. A terrible sense of loss overpowered him; as if someone dearer than a mother had been taken out of the reach of his heart; as if a refuge had gone from him. The last spark of human affection was dead within him. He knew it as he was losing it. He wept at the loss which left him alone with his thoughts.
Seven
TANTE ELODIE WAS ALWAYS chilly. It was warm for the last of April, and the women at Madame Nicolas’ wedding were all in airy summer attire. All but Tante Elodie, who wore her black silk, her old silk with a white lace fichu,220 and she held an embroidered handkerchief and a fan in her hand.
Fifine Delonce had been over in the morning to take up the seams in the dress, for, as she expressed herself, it was miles too loose for Tante Elodie’s figure. She appeared to be shriveling away to nothing. She had not again been sick in bed since that little spell in February; but she was plainly wasting and was very feeble. Her eyes, though, were as bright as ever; sometimes they looked as hard as flint. The doctor, whom Madame Nicolas insisted upon her seeing occasionally, gave a name to her disease ; it was a Greek name and sounded convincing. She was taking a tonic especially prepared for her, from a large bottle, three times a day.
Fifine was a great gossip. When and how she gathered her news nobody could tell. It was always said she knew ten times more than the weekly paper would dare to print. She often visited Tante Elodie, and she told her news of everyone; among others of Gabriel.
It was she who told that he had abandoned the study of the law. She told Tante Elodie when he started for the city to look for work and when he came back from the fruitless search.
“Did you know that Gabriel is working on the railroad, now? Fireman! Think of it! What a comedown from reading law in Morrison’s office. If I were a man, I’d try to have more strength of character than to go to the dogs on account of a girl; an insignificant somebody from Kansas! Even if she is going to marry my brother, I must say it was no way to treat a boy—leading him on, especially a boy like Gabriel, that any girl would have been glad—Well, it’s none of my business; only I’m sorry he took it like he did. Drinking himself to death, they say.”
That morning, as she was taking up the seams of the silk dress, there was fresh news of Gabriel. He was tired of the railroad, it seemed. He was down on his father’s place herding cattle, breaking in colts, drinking like a fish.
“I wouldn’t have such a thing on my conscience! Goodness me! I couldn’t sleep at nights if I was that girl.”
Tante Elodie always listened with a sad, resigned smile. It did not seem to make any difference whether she had Gabriel or not. He had broken her heart and he was killing her. It was not his crime that had broken her heart; it was his indifference to her love and his turning away from her.
It was whispered about that Tante Elodie had grown indifferent to her religion. There was no truth in it. She had not been to confession for two months; but otherwise she followed closely the demands made upon her; redoubling her zeal in church work and attending mass each morning.
At the wedding she was holding quite a little reception of her own in the corner of the gallery. The air was mild and pleasant. Young people flocked about her and occasionally the radiant bride came out to see if she were comfortable and if there was anything she wanted to eat or drink.
A young girl leaning over the railing suddenly exclaimed “Tiens! some one is dead. I didn’t know any one was sick.” She was watching the approach of a man who was coming down the street, distributing, according to the custom of the country, a death notice from door to door.
He wore a long black coat and walked with a measured tread. He was as expressionless as an automaton; handing the little slips of paper at every door; not missing one. The girl, leaning over the railing, went to the head of the stairs to receive the notice when he entered Tante Elodie’s gate.
The small, single sheet, which he gave her, was bordered in black and decorated with an old-fashioned wood cut of a weeping willow beside a grave. It was an announcement on the part of Monsieur Justin Lucaze of the death of his only son, Gabriel, who had been instantly killed, the night before, by a fall from his horse.
If the automaton had had any sense of decency, he might have skipped the house of joy, in which there was a wedding feast, in which there was the sound of laughter, the click of glasses, the hum of merry voices, and a vision of sweet women with their thoughts upon love and marriage and earthly bliss. But he had no sense of decency. He was as indifferent and relentless as Death, whose messenger he was.
The sad news, passed from lip to lip, cast a shadow as if a cloud had flitted across the sky. Tante Elodie alone stayed in its shadow. She sank deeper down into the rocker, more shriveled than ever. They all remembered Tante Elodie’s romance and respected her grief.
She did not speak any more, or even smile, but wiped her forehead with the old lace handkerchief and sometimes closed her eyes. When she closed her eyes she pictured Gabriel dead, down there on the plantation, with his father watching beside him. He might have betrayed himself had he lived. There was nothing now to betray him. Even the shining gold watch lay deep in a gorged ravine where she had flung it when she once walked through the country alone at dusk.
She thought of her own place down there beside Justin’s, all dismantled, with bats beating about the eaves and negroes living under the falling roof.
Tante Elodie did not seem to want to go in doors again. The bride and groom went away. The guests went away, one by one, and all the little children. She stayed there alone in the corner, under the deep shadow of the oaks while the stars came out to keep her company.
A Little Country Girl
NINETTE WAS SCOURING THE tin milk-pail with sand and lye-soap, and bringing it to a high polish. She used for that purpose the native scrub-brush, the fibrous root of the palmetto,221 which she called latanier. The long table on which the tins were ranged, stood out in the yard under a mulberry tree. It was there that the pots and kettles were washed, the chickens, the meats and vegetables cut up and prepared for cooking.
Occasionally a drop of water fell with a faint splash on the shining surface of the tin; whereupon Ninette would wipe it away and carrying the corner of her checked apron up to her eyes, she would wipe them and proceed with her task. For the drops were falling from Ninette’s eyes; trickling down her cheeks and sometimes dropping from the end of her nose.
It was all because two disagreeable old people, who had long outlived their youth, no longer believed in the circus as a means of cheering the human heart; nor could they see the use of it.
Ninette had not even mentioned the subject to them. Why should she? She might as well have said: “Grandfather and Grandmother, with your permission and a small advance of fifty cents, I should like, after my work is done, to make a visit to one of the distant planets this afternoon.”
It was very warm and Ninette’s face was red with heat and ill-humor. Her hair was black and straight and kept falling over her face. It was an untidy length; her grandmother having decided to let it grow, about six months before. She was barefooted and her calico skirt reached a little above her thick, brown ankles.
Even the negroes were all going to the circus. Suzan’s daughter, who was known as Black-Gal, had lingered beside the table a moment on her way through the yard.
“You ain’t gwine to de suckus?” she inquired with condescension.
“No,” and bread-pan went bang on the table.
“We all’s goin’. Pap an’ Mammy an’ all us is goin’,” with a c
omplacent air and a restful pose against the table.
“Where you all goin’ to get the money, I like to know.”
“Oh, Mr. Ben advance’ Mammy a dollar on de crap;222 an’ Joe, he got six bits lef’ f‘om las’ pickin’; an’ pap sole a ole no‘count plow to Dennis. We all’s goin’.
“Joe say he seed ‘em pass yonder back Mr. Ben’s lane. Dey a elephant mos’ as big as dat corn-crib,223 walkin’ long des like he somebody. An’ a whole pa’cel wild critters shet up in a cage. An’ all kind o’ dogs an’ hosses; an’ de ladies rarin’ an’ pitchin’ in red skirts all fill’ up wid gole an’ diamonds.
“We all’s goin’. Did you ax yo’ gran’ma? How come you don’t ax yo’ gran’pap?”
“That’s my business; ‘tain’t none o’ yo’s, Black-Gal. You better be get-tin’ yonder home, tendin’ to yo’ work, I think.”
“I ain’t got no work, ’cep’ iron out my pink flounce’ dress fo’ de suckus.” But she took herself off with an air of lofty contempt, swinging her tattered skirts. It was after that that Ninette’s tears began to drop and spatter.
Resentment rose and rose within her like a leaven,224 causing her to ferment with wickedness and to make all manner of diabolical wishes in regard to the circus. The worst of these was that she wished it would rain.
“I hope to goodness it’ll po’ down rain; po’ down rain; po’ down rain!” She uttered the wish with the air of a young Medusa pronouncing a blighting curse.
“I like to see ’em all drippin’ wet. Black-Gal with her pink flounces, all drippin’ wet.” She spoke these wishes in the very presence of her grandfather and grandmother, for they understood not a word of English; and she used that language to express her individual opinion on many occasions.
“What do you say, Ninette?” asked her grandmother. Ninette had brought in the last of the tin pails and was ranging them on a shelf in the kitchen.
“I said I hoped it would rain,” she answered, wiping her face and fanning herself with a pie pan as though the oppressive heat had suggested the desire for a change of weather.
“You are a wicked girl,” said her grandmother, turning on her, “when you know your grandfather has acres and acres of cotton ready to fall, that the rain would ruin. He’s angry enough, too, with every man, woman and child leaving the fields to-day to take themselves off to the village. There ought to be a law to compel them to pick their cotton; those trifling creatures! Ah! it was different in the good old days.”
Ninette possessed a sensitive soul, and she believed in miracles. For instance, if she were to go to the circus that afternoon she would consider it a miracle. Hope follows on the heels of Faith. And the white-winged goddess—which is Hope—did not leave her, but prompted her to many little surreptitious acts of preparation in the event of the miracle coming to pass.
She peeped into the clothes-press to see that her gingham dress was where she had folded and left it the Sunday before, after mass. She inspected her shoes and got out a clean pair of stockings which she hid beneath the pillow. In the tin basin behind the house, she scrubbed her face and neck till they were red as a boiled crawfish. And her hair, which was too short to plait, she plastered and tied back with a green ribbon; it stood out in a little bristling, stiff tail.
The noon hour had hardly passed, than an unusual agitation began to be visible throughout the surrounding country. The fields were deserted. People, black and white, began passing along the road in squads and detachments. Ponies were galloping on both sides of the river, carrying two and as many as three, on their backs. Blue and green carts with rampant mules; top-buggies and no-top buggies; family carriages that groaned with age and decrepitude; heavy wagons filled with piccaninnies225 made a passing procession that nothing short of a circus in town could have accounted for.
Grandfather Bézeau was too angry to look at it. He retired to the hall, where he sat gloomily reading a two-weeks-old paper. He looked about ninety years old; he was in reality, not more than seventy.
Grandmother Bézeau stayed out on the gallery, apparently to cast ridicule and contempt upon the heedless and extravagant multitude; in reality, to satisfy a womanly curiosity and a natural interest in the affairs of her neighbors.
As for Ninette, she found it difficult to keep her attention fixed upon her task of shelling peas and her inward supplications that something might happen.
Something did happen. Jules Perrault, with a family load in his big farm-wagon, stopped before their gate. He handed the reins to one of the children and he, himself, got down and came up to the gallery where Ninette and her grandmother were sitting.
“What’s this! what’s this!” he cried out in French, “Ninette not going to the circus? not even ready to go?”
“Par example!” exclaimed the old lady, looking daggers over her spectacles. She was binding the leg of a wounded chicken that squawked and fluttered with terror.
“‘Par example’ or no ’Par example’ she’s going and she’s going with me; and her grandfather will give her the money. Run in, little one; get ready; make haste, we shall be late.” She looked appealingly at her grandmother who said nothing, being ashamed to say what she felt in the face of her neighbor, Perrault, of whom she stood a little in awe. Ninette, taking silence for consent, darted into the house to get ready.
And when she came out, wonder of wonders! There was her grandfather taking his purse from his pocket. He was drawing it out slowly and painfully, with a hideous grimace, as though it were some vital organ that he was extracting. What arguments could Mons. Perrault have used! They were surely convincing. Ninette had heard them in wordy discussion as she nervously laced her shoes; dabbed her face with flour; hooked the gingham dress; and balanced upon her head a straw “flat”226 whose roses looked as though they had stayed out over night in a frost.
But no triumphant queen on her throne could have presented a more beaming and joyful countenance than did Ninette when she ascended and seated herself in the big wagon in the midst of the Perrault family. She at once took the baby from Mme. Perrault and held it and felt supremely happy.
The more the wagon jolted and bounced, the more did it convey to her a sense of reality; and less did it seem like a dream. They passed Black-Gal and her family in the road, trudging ankle-deep in dust. Fortunately the girl was barefooted; though the pink flounces were all there, and she carried a green parasol. Her mother was semi-décolletée227 and her father wore a heavy winter coat; while Joe had secured piecemeal, a species of cake-walk 228 costume for the occasion. It was with a feeling of lofty disdain that Ninette passed and left the Black-Gal family in a cloud of dust.
Even after they reached the circus grounds, which were just outside the the village, Ninette continued to carry the baby. She would willingly have carried three babies, had such a thing been possible. The infant took a wild and noisy interest in the merry-go-round with its hurdy-gurdy229 accompaniment. Oh! that she had had more money! that she might have mounted one of those flying horses and gone spinning round in a whirl of ecstasy!
There were side-shows, too. She would have liked to see the lady who weighed six hundred pounds and the gentleman who tipped the scales at fifty. She would have wanted to peep in at the curious monster, captured after a desperate struggle in the wilds of Africa. Its picture, in red and green on the flapping canvas, was surely not like anything she had ever seen or even heard of.
The lemonade was tempting: the pop-corn, the peanuts, the oranges were delights that she might only gaze upon and sigh for. Mons. Perrault took them straight to the big tent, bought the tickets and entered.
Ninette’s pulses were thumping with excitement. She sniffed the air, heavy with the smell of saw-dust and animals, and it lingered in her nostrils like some delicious odor. Sure enough! There was the elephant which Black-Gal had described. A chain was about his ponderous leg and he kept reaching out his trunk for tempting morsels. The wild creatures were all there in cages, and the people walked solemnly around, looking at t
hem; awed by the unfamiliarity of the scene.
Ninette never forgot that she had the baby in her arms. She talked to it, and it listened and looked with round, staring eyes. Later on she felt as if she were a person of distinction assisting at some royal pageant when the be-spangled Knights and Ladies in plumes and flowing robes went prancing round on their beautiful horses.
The people all sat on the circus benches and Ninette’s feet hung down, because an irritable old lady objected to having them thrust into the small of her back. Mme. Perrault offered to take the baby, but Ninette clung to it. It was something to which she might communicate her excitement. She squeezed it spasmodically when her emotions became uncontrollable.
“Oh! bébé! I believe I’m goin’ to split my sides! Oh, la! la! if gran‘ma could see that, I know she’d laugh herse’f sick.” It was none other than the clown who was producing this agreeable impression upon Ninette. She had only to look at his chalky face to go into contortions of mirth.
No one had noticed a gathering obscurity, and the ominous growl of thunder made every one start with disappointment or apprehension. A flash and a second clap, that was like a crash, followed. It came just as the ring-master was cracking his whip with a “hip-la! hip-la!” at the bare-back rider, and the clown was standing on his head. There was a sinister roar; a terrific stroke of the wind; the center pole swayed and snapped; the great canvas swelled and beat the air with bellowing resistance.