CHAPTER LIII
FROWENFELD AT THE GRANDISSIME MANSION
One afternoon--it seems to have been some time in June, and consequentlyearlier than Doctor Keene's return--the Grandissimes were set alla-tremble with vexation by the discovery that another of their numberhad, to use Agricola's expression, "gone over to the enemy,"--a phrasefirst applied by him to Honore.
"What do you intend to convey by that term?" Frowenfeld had asked onthat earlier occasion.
"Gone over to the enemy means, my son, gone over to the enemy!" repliedAgricola. "It implies affiliation with Americains in matters of businessand of government! It implies the exchange of social amenities with arace of upstarts! It implies a craven consent to submit the sacredestprejudices of our fathers to the new-fangled measuring-rods of pert,imported theories upon moral and political progress! It implies alistening to, and reasoning with, the condemners of some of our mosttime-honored and respectable practices! Reasoning with? N-a-hay! butHonore has positively sat down and eaten with them! What?--and h-walkedout into the stre-heet with them, arm in arm! It implies in his case anact--two separate and distinct acts--so base that--that--I simply do notunderstand them! _H-you_ know, Professor Frowenfeld, what he has done!You know how ignominiously he has surrendered the key of a moralposition which for the honor of the Grandissime-Fusilier name we havefelt it necessary to hold against our hereditary enemies!And--you--know--" here Agricola actually dropped all artificiality andspoke from the depths of his feelings, without figure--"h-h-he hasjoined himself in business h-with a man of negro blood! What can we do?What can we say? It is Honore Grandissime. We can only say, 'Farewell!He is gone over to the enemy.'"
The new cause of exasperation was the defection of Raoul Innerarity.Raoul had, somewhat from a distance, contemplated such part as he couldunderstand of Joseph Frowenfeld's character with ever-broadeningadmiration. We know how devoted he became to the interests and fame of"Frowenfeld's." It was in April he had married. Not to divide hisgenerous heart he took rooms opposite the drug-store, resolved that"Frowenfeld's" should be not only the latest closed but the earliestopened of all the pharmacies in New Orleans.
This, it is true, was allowable. Not many weeks afterward his bride fellsuddenly and seriously ill. The overflowing souls of Aurora and Clotildecould not be so near to trouble and not know it, and before Raoul wasnearly enough recovered from the shock of this peril to remember that hewas a Grandissime, these last two of the De Grapions had hastened acrossthe street to the small, white-walled sick-room and filled it as full ofuniversal human love as the cup of a magnolia is full of perfume. MadameInnerarity recovered. A warm affection was all she and her husband couldpay such ministration in, and this they paid bountifully; the fourbecame friends. The little madame found herself drawn most towardClotilde; to her she opened her heart--and her wardrobe, and showed herall her beautiful new underclothing. Raoul found Clotilde to be, forhim, rather--what shall we say?--starry; starrily inaccessible; butAurora was emphatically after his liking; he was delighted with Aurora.He told her in confidence that "Profess-or Frowenfel'" was the best manin the world; but she boldly said, taking pains to speak with atear-and-a-half of genuine gratitude,--"Egcep' Monsieur HonoreGrandissime," and he assented, at first with hesitation and then withardor. The four formed a group of their own; and it is not certain thatthis was not the very first specimen ever produced in the Crescent Cityof that social variety of New Orleans life now distinguished asUptown Creoles.
Almost the first thing acquired by Raoul in the camp of the enemy was acertain Aurorean audacity; and on the afternoon to which we allude,having told Frowenfeld a rousing fib to the effect that themultitudinous inmates of the maternal Grandissime mansion had insistedon his bringing his esteemed employer to see them, he and his bride hadthe hardihood to present him on the front veranda.
The straightforward Frowenfeld was much pleased with his reception. Itwas not possible for such as he to guess the ire with which his presencewas secretly regarded. New Orleans, let us say once more, was small, andthe apothecary of the rue Royale locally famed; and what with curiosityand that innate politeness which it is the Creole's boast that he cannotmortify, the veranda, about the top of the great front stair, was wellcrowded with people of both sexes and all ages. It would be mostpleasant to tarry once more in description of this gathering of nobilityand beauty; to recount the points of Creole loveliness in midsummerdress; to tell in particular of one and another eye-kindling face,form, manner, wit; to define the subtle qualities of Creole air and skyand scene, or the yet more delicate graces that characterize the musicof Creole voice and speech and the light of Creole eyes; to set forththe gracious, unaccentuated dignity of the matrons and the ravishingarchness of their daughters. To Frowenfeld the experience seemed allunreal. Nor was this unreality removed by conversation on gravesubjects; for few among either the maturer or the younger beauty coulddo aught but listen to his foreign tongue like unearthly strangers inthe old fairy tales. They came, however, in the course of their talk tothe subject of love and marriage. It is not certain that they entereddeeper into the great question than a comparison of its attendantAnglo-American and Franco-American conventionalities; but sure it isthat somehow--let those young souls divine the method who can--everyunearthly stranger on that veranda contrived to understand Frowenfeld'sEnglish. Suddenly the conversation began to move over the ground ofinter-marriage between hostile families. Then what eyes and ears! Acertain suspicion had already found lodgement in the universalGrandissime breast, and every one knew in a moment that, to all intentsand purposes, they were about to argue the case of Honore and Aurora.
The conversation became discussion, Frowenfeld, Raoul and Raoul's littleseraph against the whole host, chariots, horse and archery. Ah! suchstrokes as the apothecary dealt! And if Raoul and "Madame Raoul" playedparts most closely resembling the blowing of horns and breaking ofpitchers, still they bore themselves gallantly. The engagement wasshort; we need not say that nobody surrendered; nobody ever gives up theship in parlor or veranda debate: and yet--as is generally the case insuch affairs--truth and justice made some unacknowledged headway. Ifanybody on either side came out wounded--this to the credit of theCreoles as a people--the sufferer had the heroic good manners not to sayso. But the results were more marked than this; indeed, in more than oneor two candid young hearts and impressible minds the wrongs and rightsof sovereign true love began there on the spot to be more generouslyconceded and allowed. "My-de'-seh," Honore had once on a time said toFrowenfeld, meaning that to prevail in conversational debate one shouldnever follow up a faltering opponent, "you mus' _crack_ the egg, notsmash it!" And Joseph, on rising to take his leave, could the moreamiably overlook the feebleness of the invitation to call again, sincehe rejoiced, for Honore's sake, in the conviction that the eggwas cracked.
Agricola, the Grandissimes told the apothecary, was ill in his room, andMadame de Grandissime, his sister--Honore's mother--begged to be excusedthat she might keep him company. The Fusiliers were a very close order;or one might say they garrisoned the citadel.
But Joseph's rising to go was not immediately upon the close of thediscussion; those courtly people would not let even an unwelcome guestgo with the faintest feeling of disrelish for them. They were castingabout in their minds for some momentary diversion with which to add afinishing touch to their guest's entertainment, when Clemence appearedin the front garden walk and was quickly surrounded by boundingchildren, alternately begging and demanding a song. Many of even theyounger adults remembered well when she had been "one of the hands onthe place," and a passionate lover of the African dance. In the sameinstant half a dozen voices proposed that for Joseph's amusementClemence should put her cakes off her head, come up on the veranda andshow a few of her best steps.
"But who will sing?"
"Raoul!"
"Very well; and what shall it be?"
"'Madame Gaba.'"
No, Clemence objected.
"Well, well, stand back--something better th
an 'Madame Gaba.'"
Raoul began to sing and Clemence instantly to pace and turn, posture,bow, respond to the song, start, swing, straighten, stamp, wheel, lifther hand, stoop, twist, walk, whirl, tiptoe with crossed ankles, smiteher palms, march, circle, leap,--an endless improvisation of rhythmicmotion to this modulated responsive chant:
Raoul. "_Mo pas l'aimein ca_."
Clemence. "_Miche Igenne, oap! oap! oap!_"
He. "_Ye donne vingt cinq sous pou' manze poule_."
She. "_Miche Igenne, dit--dit--dit--_"
He. "_Mo pas l'aimein ca!_"
She. "_Miche Igenne, oap! oap! oap!_"
He. "_Mo pas l'aimein ca!_"
She. "_Miche Igenne, oap! oap! oap!_"
Frowenfeld was not so greatly amused as the ladies thought he shouldhave been, and was told that this was not a fair indication of what hewould see if there were ten dancers instead of one.
How much less was it an indication of what he would have seen in thatmansion early the next morning, when there was found just outside ofAgricola's bedroom door a fresh egg, not cracked, according to Honore'smaxim, but smashed, according to the lore of the voudous. Who could havegot in in the night? And did the intruder get in by magic, by outsidelock-picking, or by inside collusion? Later in the morning, the childrenplaying in the basement found--it had evidently been accidentallydropped, since the true use of its contents required them to bescattered in some person's path--a small cloth bag, containing aquantity of dogs' and cats' hair, cut fine and mixed with saltand pepper.
"Clemence?"
"Pooh! Clemence. No! But as sure as the sun turns around theworld--Palmyre Philosophe!"