by Kate Chopin
Marianne carried a gun across her shoulder as easily as a soldier might. Her stride was as untrammelled as that of the stag who treads his native hill-side unmolested. There was something stag-like, too, in the poise of her small head as she turned it from side to side, to snuff the subtle perfume of the Indian summer. But against the red western sky curling columns of thin blue smoke began to ascend from chimneys in the village. This meant that housewives were already busy preparing the evening meal; and the girl quickened her steps, singing softly as she strode along over the tufted meadow where sleek cattle were grazing in numbers.
Less than a score of houses formed the village of Saint Phillippe, and they differed in no wise from one another except in the matter of an additional room when the prosperity of the owner admitted of such. All were of upright logs, standing firmly in the ground, or rising from a low foundation of stone, with two or more rooms clustering round a central stone chimney. Before each was an inviting porch, topped by the projection of the shingled roof.
Gathered upon such a porch, when Marianne walked into the village, were groups of men talking eagerly and excitedly together with much gesture and intensity of utterance.
The place was Sans-Chagrin’s tavern; and Marianne stopped beside the fence, seeing that her father, Picoté Laronce, was among the number who crowded the gallery. But it was not he, it was young Jacques Labrie who when he saw her there came down to where she stood.
“Well, what luck, Marianne?” he asked, noting her equipment.
“Oh, not much,” she replied, slapping the game-bag that hung rather slack at her side. “Those idle soldiers down at the fort have no better employment than to frighten the game away out of reach. But what does this talk and confusion mean? I thought all the trouble with monsieur le curé was settled. My father stands quiet there in a corner; he seems to be taking no part. What is it all about?”
“The old grievance of a year ago, Marianne. We were content to grumble only so long as the English did not come to claim what is theirs. But we hear to-day they will soon be at Fort Chartres to take possession.”
“Never!” she exclaimed. “Have not the Natchez driven them back each time they attempted to ascend the river? And do you think that watchful tribe will permit them now to cross the line?”
“They have not attempted the river this time. They have crossed the great mountains and are coming from the east.”
“Ah,” muttered the girl with pale exasperation, “that is a monarch to be proud of! Your Louis who sits in his palace at Versailles and gives away his provinces and his people as if they were baubles! Well, what next?”
“Come, Marianne,” said the young man as he joined her outside. “Let me walk to your home with you, I will tell you as we go along. Sans-Chagrin, you know, returned this morning from the West Illinois, and he tells astonishing things of the new trading-post over there — Laclede’s village.”
“The one they call Saint Louis?” she asked half-heartedly, “where old Toussaint of Kaskaskia has taken his family to live?”
“Old Toussaint is far seeing, Marianne, for Sans-Chagrin says the town across the water is growing as if by enchantment. Already it is double the size of Saint Phillippe and Kaskaskia put together. When the English reach Fort Chartres, St. Ange de Bellerive will relinquish the fort to them, and with his men will cross to Laclede’s village — all but Captain Vaudry, who has leave to return to France.”
“Capt. Alexis Vaudry will return to France!” she echoed in tones that rose and fell like a song of lamentation. “The English are coming from the east! And all this news has come to-day while I hunted in the forest.”
“Do you not see what is in the air, Marianne?” he asked, giving her a sideward cautious glance.
They were at her portal now, and as he followed her into the house she half turned to say to him:
“No, Jacques, I can see no way out of it.” She sat down languidly at the table, as though heavy fatigue had suddenly weighted her limbs.
“We hate the English,” Jacques began emphatically; leaning upon the table as he stood beside her.
“To be sure, we hate the English,” she returned, as though the fact were a self-evident one that needed no comment.
“Well, it is only the eastern province of Louisiana that has been granted to England. There is hardly a man in Saint Phillippe who would not rather die than live subject to that country. But there is no reason to do either,” he added smiling. “In a week from now, Marianne, Saint Phillippe will be deserted.”
“You mean that the people will abandon their homes, and go to the new trading-post?”
“Yes, that is what I mean.”
“But I have heard — I am sure I have heard, long ago, that King Louis made a gift of his Louisiana possessions to his cousin of Spain; that they jointly granted the East Illinois to England. So that leaves the West under the Spanish dominion, Jacques.”
“But Spain is not England,” he explained, a little disconcerted. “No Frenchman who respects himself will live subject to England,” he added fiercely. “All are of one mind — to quit Saint Phillippe at once. All save one, Marianne.”
“And that one?”
“Your father.”
“My father! Ah, I might have known. What does he say?” she questioned eagerly.
“He says he is old; that he has dwelt here many years — — “
“That is true,” the girl mused. “I was born here in Saint Phillippe; so were you, Jacques.”
“He says,” continued the young man, “that he could not dispose of his mill and that he would not leave it.”
“His mill — his mill! no!” exclaimed Marianne, rising abruptly, “it is not that. Would you know why my father will never leave Saint Phillippe?” approaching as she said this a rear window whose shutters were partly closed, and throwing them wide open. “Come here, Jacques. That is the reason,” pointing with her strong shapely arm to where a wooden cross marked the presence of a grave out under the wide-spreading branches of a maple.
They both stood for a while silently gazing across the grassy slope that reflected the last flickering gleams of the setting sun. Then Jacques muttered as if in answer to some unspoken thought:
“Yes, he loved her very dearly. Surely the better part of himself went with her. And you, Marianne?” he questioned gently.
“I, Jacques? Oh, it is only the old whose memories dwell in graves,” she replied a little wearily. “My life belongs to my father. I have but to follow his will; whatever that may be.”
Then Marianne left Jacques standing by the open window, and went into the adjoining room to divest herself of her hunting raiment. When she returned she was dressed in the garments that had been her mother’s once — a short camlet skirt of sober hue; a green laced bodice whose scantiness was redeemed by a muslin kerchief laid in deep folds across the bosom; and upon her head was the white cap of the French working-woman.
Jacques had lighted the fire for her in the big stone chimney, and gone silently away.
It was indeed true. During that autumn of 1765, a handful of English, under command of Captain Sterling of the Highlanders, crossed the Alleghanies and were coming to take peaceful possession of their hitherto inaccessible lands in the Illinois.
To none did this seem a more hated intrusion than to the people of Saint Phillippe. After the excited meeting at Sans-Chagrin’s tavern, all went to work with feverish haste to abandon the village which had been the only home that many of them had ever known. Men, women, and children seemed suddenly possessed with demoniac strength to demolish. Doors, windows, and flooring; everything that could serve in building up the new was rifled from the old. For days there was gathering together and hauling away in rough carts constructed for the sole purpose. Cattle were called from the pasture lands and driven in herds to the northward.
When the last of these rebellious spirits was gone, Saint Phillippe stood like the skeleton of its former self; and Picoté Laronce with his daughter found
themselves alone amid the desolate hearthstones.
“It will be a dreary life, my child, for you,” said the old man, gathering Marianne in a close embrace.
“It will not be dreary,” she assured him, disengaging herself to look into his eyes. “I shall have much work to do. We shall forget — try to forget — that the English are at our door. And some time when we are rich in peltries, we will go to visit our friends in that great town that they talk so much about. Do not ever think that I am sad, father, because we are alone.”
But the silence was very desolate. So was the sight of those abandoned homes, where smiling faces no longer looked from windows, and where the music of children’s laughter was heard no more.
Marianne worked and hunted and grew strong and stronger. The old man was more and more like a child to her. When she was not with him, he would sit for hours upon a rude seat under the maple-tree, with a placid look of content in his old, dim eyes.
One day when Captain Vaudry rode up from Fort Chartres, fine as could be in his gay uniform of a French officer, he found Picoté and Marianne sitting in the solitude hand in hand. He had heard how they had remained alone in Saint Phillippe, and he had come to know if it was true, and to persuade them, if he could, to return with him to France — to La Rochelle, where Picoté had formerly lived. But he urged in vain. Picoté knew no home save that in which his wife had dwelt with him, and no resting-place on earth except where she lay. And Marianne said always the same thing — that her father’s will was hers.
But when she came in from her hunt one evening and found him stretched in the eternal sleep out under the maple, at once she felt that she was alone, with no will to obey in the world but her own. Then her heart was as strong as oak and her nerves were like iron. Lovingly she carried him into the house. And when she had wept because he was dead, she lit two blessed candles and placed them at his head and she watched with him all through the still night.
At the break of day she barred the doors and windows, and mounting her fleet Indian pony, away she galloped to the fort, five miles below, to seek the aid she needed.
Captain Vaudry, and others as well, made all haste to Saint Phillippe when they learned this sad thing that had befallen Marianne. Word was sent to the good curé of Kaskaskia, and he came too, with prayer and benediction. Jacques was in Kaskaskia when the tidings of Picoté’s death reached there, and with all the speed at his command he hurried to Marianne to help her in her need.
So Marianne was not alone. Good and staunch friends were about her. When Picoté had been laid to rest — under the maple — and the last blessing had been spoken, the good curé turned to Marianne and said:
“My daughter, you will return with me to Kaskaskia. Your father had many friends in that village, and there is not a door but will open to receive you. It would be unseemly, now he is gone, to live alone in Saint Phillippe.”
“I thank you, my father,” she answered, “but I must pass this night alone, and in thought. If I decide to go to my good friends in Kaskaskia, I shall ride into town early, upon my pony.”
Jacques, too, spoke to her, with gentle persuasion: “You know, Marianne, what I want to say, and what my heart is full of. It is not I alone but my father and mother as well to whom you are dear, and who long to have you with us — one of us. Over there in the new village of Saint Louis a new life has begun for all of us. Let me beg that you will not refuse to share it till you have at least tried — — “
She held up her hand in token that she had heard enough and turned resolutely from him. “Leave me, my friend,” she said, “leave me alone. Follow the curé, there where he goes. If I so determine, you shall hear from me, if not, then think no longer of Marianne.”
So another silent night fell upon Saint Phillippe, with Marianne alone in her home. Not even the dead with her now. She did not know that under the shelter of a neighboring porch Captain Vaudry lay like a sentinel wrapped in his mantle.
Near the outer road, but within the inclosure of Marianne’s home, was “the great tree of Saint Phillippe” under which a rude table and benches stood. Here Picoté and his daughter had often taken their humble meals, shared with any passer-by that chose to join them.
Seated there in the early morning was Captain Vaudry when Marianne stepped from her door, in her jerkin of buckskin and her gun across her shoulder.
“What are you doing here, Captain Vaudry?” she asked with startled displeasure when she saw him there.
“I have waited, Marianne. You cannot turn me from you as lightly as you have the others.” And then with warm entreaty in his voice he talked to her of France:
“Ah, Marianne, you do not know what life is, here in this wild America. Let the curé of Kaskaskia say the words that will make you my wife, and I will take you to a land, child, where men barter with gold, and not with hides and peltries. Where you shall wear jewels and silks and walk upon soft and velvet carpets. Where life can be a round of pleasure. I do not say these things to tempt you; but to let you know that existence holds joys you do not dream of — that may be yours if you will.”
“Enough, Captain Alexis Vaudry! I have sometimes thought I should like to know what it is that men call luxury; and sometimes have felt that I should like to live in sweet and gentle intercourse with men and women. Yet these have been but fleeting wishes. I have passed the night in meditation and my choice is made.”
“I love you, Marianne.” He sat with hands clasped upon the table, and his handsome enraptured eyes gazing up into her face, as she stood before him. But she went on unheedingly:
“I could not live here in Saint Phillippe or there in Kaskaskia. The English shall never be masters of Marianne. Over the river it is no better. The Spaniards may any day they choose give a rude awakening to those stolid beings who are living on in a half-slumber of content — — “
“I love you; oh, I love you, Marianne!”
“Do you not know, Captain Vaudry,” she said with savage resistance, “I have breathed the free air of forest and stream, till it is in my blood now. I was not born to be the mother of slaves.”
“Oh, how can you think of slaves and motherhood! Look into my eyes, Marianne, and think of love.”
“I will not look into your eyes, Captain Vaudry,” she murmured, letting the quivering lids fall upon her own, “with your talk and your looks of love — of love! You have looked it before, and you have spoken it before till the strength would go from my limbs and leave me feeble as a little child, till my heart would beat like that of one who has been stricken. Go away, with your velvet and your jewels and your love. Go away to your France and to your treacherous kings; they are not for me.”
“What do you mean, Marianne?” demanded the young man, grown pale with apprehension. “You deny allegiance to England and Spain; you spurn France with contempt; what is left for you?”
“Freedom is left for me!” exclaimed the girl, seizing her gun that she lifted upon her shoulder. “Marianne goes to the Cherokees! You cannot stay me; you need not try to. Hardships may await me, but let it be death rather than bondage.”
While Vaudry sat dumb with pain and motionless with astonishment; while Jacques was hoping for a message; while the good curé was looking eagerly from his door-step for signs of the girl’s approach, Marianne had turned her back upon all of them.
With gun across her shoulder she walked up the gentle slope; her brave, strong face turned to the rising sun.
A SHAMEFUL AFFAIR
I
Mildred Orme, seated in the snuggest corner of the big front porch of the Kraummer farmhouse, was as content as a girl need hope to be.
This was no such farm as one reads about in humorous fiction. Here were swelling acres where the undulating wheat gleamed in the sun like a golden sea. For silver there was the Meramec — or, better, it was pure crystal, for here and there one might look clean through it down to where the pebbles lay like green and yellow gems. Along the river’s edge trees were growing to the very wat
er, and in it, sweeping it when they were willows.
The house itself was big and broad, as country houses should be. The master was big and broad, too. The mistress was small and thin, and it was always she who went out at noon to pull the great clanging bell that called the farmhands in to dinner.
From her agreeable corner where she lounged with her Browning or her Ibsen, Mildred watched the woman do this every day. Yet when the clumsy farmhands all came tramping up the steps and crossed the porch in going to their meal that was served within, she never looked at them. Why should she? Farmhands are not so very nice to look at, and she was nothing of an anthropologist. But once when the half dozen men came along, a paper which she had laid carelessly upon the railing was blown across their path. One of them picked it up, and when he had mounted the steps restored it to her. He was young, and brown, of course, as the sun had made him. He had nice blue eyes. His fair hair was dishevelled. His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean. A not unpicturesque figure in the rough attire that bared his throat to view and gave perfect freedom to his every motion.
Mildred did not make these several observations in the half second that she looked at him in courteous acknowledgment. It took her as many days to note them all. For she signaled him out each time that he passed her, meaning to give him a condescending little smile, as she knew how. But he never looked at her. To be sure, clever young women of twenty, who are handsome, besides, who have refused their half dozen offers and are settling down to the conviction that life is a tedious affair, are not going to care a straw whether farmhands look at them or not. And Mildred did not care, and the thing would not have occupied her a moment if Satan had not intervened, in offering the employment which natural conditions had failed to supply. It was summer time; she was idle; she was piqued, and that was the beginning of the shameful affair.