CHAPTER XXV
AURORA AS A HISTORIAN
Alas! the phonograph was invented three-quarters of a century too late.If type could entrap one-half the pretty oddities of Aurora'sspeech,--the arch, the pathetic, the grave, the earnest, thematter-of-fact, the ecstatic tones of her voice,--nay, could it butreproduce the movement of her hands, the eloquence of her eyes, or theshapings of her mouth,--ah! but type--even the phonograph--is such aninadequate thing! Sometimes she laughed; sometimes Clotilde,unexpectedly to herself, joined her; and twice or thrice she provoked asimilar demonstration from the ox-like apothecary,--to her own intenseamusement. Sometimes she shook her head in solemn scorn; and, whenFrowenfeld, at a certain point where Palmyre's fate locked hands for atime with that of Bras-Coupe, asked a fervid question concerning thatstrange personage, tears leaped into her eyes, as she said:
"Ah! 'Sieur Frowenfel', iv I tra to tell de sto'y of Bras-Coupe, I goin'to cry lag a lill bebby."
The account of the childhood days upon the plantation at Cannes Bruleesmay be passed by. It was early in Palmyre's fifteenth year that thatKentuckian, 'mutual friend' of her master and Agricola, prevailed withM. de Grapion to send her to the paternal Grandissime mansion,--acomplimentary gift, through Agricola, to Mademoiselle, hisniece,--returnable ten years after date.
The journey was made in safety; and, by and by, Palmyre was presented toher new mistress. The occasion was notable. In a great chair in thecentre sat the _grandpere_, a Chevalier de Grandissime, whose businesshad narrowed down to sitting on the front veranda and wearing hisdecorations,--the cross of St. Louis being one; on his right, ColonelNuma Grandissime, with one arm dropped around Honore, then a boy ofPalmyre's age, expecting to be off in sixty days for France; and on theleft, with Honore's fair sister nestled against her, "Madame Numa," asthe Creoles would call her, a stately woman and beautiful, a greatadmirer of her brother Agricola. (Aurora took pains to explain that shereceived these minutiae from Palmyre herself in later years.) One othermember of the group was a young don of some twenty years' age, not aninmate of the house, but only a cousin of Aurora on her deceasedmother's side. To make the affair complete, and as a seal to this tacitGrandissime-de-Grapion treaty, this sole available representative of the"other side" was made a guest for the evening. Like the true Spaniardthat he was, Don Jose Martinez fell deeply in love with Honore's sister.Then there came Agricola leading in Palmyre. There were others, for theGrandissime mansion was always full of Grandissimes; but this was thecentral group.
In this house Palmyre grew to womanhood, retaining without interruptionthe place into which she seemed to enter by right of indisputablesuperiority over all competitors,--the place of favorite attendant tothe sister of Honore. Attendant, we say, for servant she never seemed.She grew tall, arrowy, lithe, imperial, diligent, neat, thorough,silent. Her new mistress, though scarcely at all her senior, was yetdistinctly her mistress; she had that through her Fusilier blood;experience was just then beginning to show that the Fusilier Grandissimewas a superb variety; she was a mistress one could wish to obey. Palmyreloved her, and through her contact ceased, for a time, at least, to bethe pet leopard she had been at the Cannes Brulees.
Honore went away to Paris only sixty days after Palmyre entered thehouse. But even that was not soon enough.
"'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, in her recital, "Palmyre, she nevertole me dad, _mais_ I am shoe, _shoe_ dad she fall in love wid HonoreGrandissime. 'Sieur Frowenfel', I thing dad Honore Grandissime is onebad man, ent it? Whad you thing, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?"
"I think, as I said to you the last time, that he is one of the best, asI know that he is one of the kindest and most enlightened gentlemen inthe city," said the apothecary.
"Ah, 'Sieur Frowenfel'! ha, ha!"
"That is my conviction."
The lady went on with her story.
"Hanny'ow, I know she _con_tinue in love wid 'im all doze ten year'w'at 'e been gone. She baig Mademoiselle Grandissime to wrad dad ledderto my papa to ass to kip her two years mo'."
Here Aurora carefully omitted that episode which Doctor Keene hadrelated to Frowenfeld,--her own marriage and removal to Fausse Riviere,the visit of her husband to the city, his unfortunate and finally fatalaffair with Agricola, and the surrender of all her land and slaves tothat successful duellist.
M. de Grapion, through all that, stood by his engagement concerningPalmyre; and, at the end of ten years, to his own astonishment,responded favorably to a letter from Honore's sister, irresistible forits goodness, good sense, and eloquent pleading, asking leave to detainPalmyre two years longer; but this response came only after the oldmaster and his pretty, stricken Aurora had wept over it until they wereweak and gentle,--and was not a response either, but only asilent consent.
Shortly before the return of Honore--and here it was that Aurora took upagain the thread of her account--while his mother, long-widowed, reignedin the paternal mansion, with Agricola for her manager, Bras-Coupeappeared. From that advent, and the long and varied mental sufferingswhich its consequences brought upon her, sprang that second change inPalmyre, which made her finally untamable, and ended in a manumission,granted her more for fear than for conscience' sake. When Auroraattempted to tell those experiences, even leaving Bras-Coupe as much asmight be out of the recital, she choked with tears at the very start,stopped, laughed, and said:
"_C'est tout_--daz all. 'Sieur Frowenfel', oo you fine dad pigtu' toloog lag, yonnah, hon de wall?"
She spoke as if he might have overlooked it, though twenty times, atleast, in the last hour, she had seen him glance at it.
"It is a good likeness," said the apothecary, turning to Clotilde, yetshowing himself somewhat puzzled in the matter of the costume.
The ladies laughed.
"Daz ma grade-gran'-mamma," said Clotilde.
"Dass one _fille a la cassette_," said Aurora, "my gran'-muzzah; _mais_,ad de sem tarn id is Clotilde." She touched her daughter under the chinwith a ringed finger. "Clotilde is my gran'-mamma."
Frowenfeld rose to go.
"You muz come again, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said both ladies, in a breath.
What could he say?