by Kate Chopin
“Qui est la?” she asked.
“Gabriel.” He forced himself into the room before she had time to fully open the door to him.
III
Gabriel strode past her towards the fire, mechanically taking off his hat, and sat down in the rocker before which she had been kneeling. He sat on the prayer books she had left there. He removed them and laid them upon the table. Seeming to realize in a dazed way that it was not their accustomed place, he threw the two books on a nearby chair.
Tante Elodie raised the lamp and looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot, as they were when he drank or experienced any unusual emotion or excitement. But he was pale and his mouth drooped excessively, and twitched with the effort he made to control it. The top button was wrenched from his coat and his muffler was disarranged. Tante Elodie was grieved to the soul, seeing him thus. She thought he had been drinking.
“Gabriel, w’at is the matter?” she asked imploringly. “Oh, my poor child, w’at is the matter?” He looked at her in a fixed way and passed a hand over his head. He tried to speak, but his voice failed, as with one who experiences stage fright. Then he articulated, hoarsely, swallowing nervously between the slow words:
“I — killed a man — about an hour ago — yonder in the old Nigger-Luke Cabin.” Tante Elodie’s two hands went suddenly down to the table and she leaned heavily upon them for support.
“You did not; you did not,” she panted. “You are drinking. You do not know w’at you are saying. Tell me, Gabriel, who ‘as been making you drink? Ah! they will answer to me! You do not know w’at you are saying. Boute! how can you know!” She clutched him and the torn button that hung in the button-hole fell to the floor.
“I don’t know why it happened,” he went on, gazing into the fire with unseeing eyes, or rather with eyes that saw what was pictured in his mind and not what was before them.
“I’ve been in cutting scrapes and shooting scrapes that never amounted to anything, when I was just as crazy mad as I was to-night. But I tell you, Tante Elodie, he’s dead. I’ve got to get away. But how are you going to get out of a place like this, when every dog and cat” — His effort had spent itself, and he began to tremble with a nervous chill; his teeth chattered and his lips could not form an utterance.
Tante Elodie, stumbling rather than walking, went over to a small buffet and pouring some brandy into a glass, gave it to him. She took a little herself. She looked much older in the peignoir and the handkerchief tied around her head. She sat down beside Gabriel and took his hand. It was cold and clammy.
“Tell me everything,” she said with determination, “everything; without delay; and do not speak so loud. We shall see what must be done. Was it a negro? Tell me everything.”
“No, it was a white man, you don’t know, from Conshotta, named Everson. He was half drunk; a hulking bully as strong as an ox, or I could have licked him. He tortured me until I was frantic. Did you ever see a cat torment a mouse? The mouse can’t do anything but lose its head. I lost my head, but I had my knife; that big hornhandled knife.”
“Where is it?” she asked sharply. He felt his back pocket.
“I don’t know.” He did not seem to care, or to realize the importance of the loss.
“Go on; make haste; tell me the whole story. You went from here — you went — go on.”
“I went down the river a piece,” he said, throwing himself back in the chair and keeping his eyes fixed upon one burning ember on the hearth, “down to Symund’s store where there was a game of cards. A lot of the fellows were there. I played a little and didn’t drink anything, and stopped at ten. I was going” — He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands hanging between. “I was going to see a woman at eleven o’clock; it was the only time I could see her. I came along and when I got by the old Nigger-Luke Cabin I lit a match and looked at my watch. It was too early and it wouldn’t do to hang around. I went into the cabin and started a blaze in the chimney with some fine wood I found there. My feet were cold and I sat on an empty soap-box before the fire to dry them. I remember I kept looking at my watch. It was twenty-five minutes to eleven when Everson came into the cabin. He was half drunk and his face was red and looked like a beast. He had left the game and had followed me. I hadn’t spoken of where I was going. But he said he knew I was off for a lark and he wanted to go along. I said he couldn’t go where I was going, and there was no use talking. He kept it up. At a quarter to eleven I wanted to go, and he went and stood in the doorway.
“ ‘If I don’t go, you don’t go’, he said, and he kept it up. When I tried to pass him he pushed me back like I was a feather. He didn’t get mad. He laughed all the time and drank whiskey out of a bottle he had in his pocket. If I hadn’t got mad and lost my head, I might have fooled him or played some trick on him — if I had used my wits. But I didn’t know any more what I was doing than the day I threw the inkstand at old Dainean’s head when he switched me and made fun of me before the whole school.
“I stooped by the fire and looked at my watch; he was talking all kinds of foulishness I can’t repeat. It was eleven o’clock. I was in a killing rage and made a dash for the door. His big body and his big arm were there like an iron bar, and he laughed. I took out my knife and stuck it into him. I don’t believe he knew at first that I had touched him, for he kept on laughing; then he fell over like a pig, and the old cabin shook.”
Gabriel had raised his clinched hand with an intensely dramatic movement when he said, “I stuck it into him.” Then he let his head fall back against the chair and finished the concluding sentences of his story with closed eyes.
“How do you know he is dead?” asked Tante Elodie, whose voice sounded hard and monotonous.
“I only walked ten steps away and went back to see. He was dead. Then I came here. The best thing is to go give myself up, I reckon, and tell the whole story like I’ve told you. That’s about the best thing I can do if I want any peace of mind.”
“Are you crazy, Gabriel! You have not yet regained your senses. Listen to me. Listen to me and try to understand what I say.”
Her face was full of a hard intelligence he had not seen there before; all the soft womanliness had for the moment faded out of it.
“You ‘ave not killed the man Everson,” she said deliberately. “You know nothing about ‘im. You do not know that he left Symund’s or that he followed you. You left at ten o’clock. You came straight in town, not feeling well. You saw a light in my window, came here; rapped on the door; I let you in and gave you something for cramps in the stomach and made you warm yourself and lie down on the sofa. Wait a moment. Stay still there.”
She got up and went shuffling out the door, around the angle of the gallery and tapped on Madame Nicolas’ door. She could hear the young woman jump out of bed bewildered, asking, “Who is there? Wait! What is it?”
“It is Tante Elodie.” The door was unbolted at once.
“Oh! how I hate to trouble you,cherie. Poor Gabriel ‘as been at my room for hours with the most severe cramps. Nothing I can do seems to relieve ‘im. Will you let me ‘ave the morphine which Doctor left with you for old Betsy’s rheumatism? Ah! thank you. I think a quarter of a grain will relieve ‘im. Poor boy! Such suffering! I am so sorry dear, to disturb you. Do not stand by the door, you will take cold. Good night.”
Tante Elodie persuaded Gabriel, if the club were still open, to look in there on his way home. He had a room in a relative’s house. His mother was dead and his father lived on a plantation several miles from town. Gabriel feared that his nerve would fail him. But Tante Elodie had him up again with a glass of brandy. She said that he must get the fact lodged in his mind that he was innocent. She inspected the young man carefully before he went away, brushing and arranging his toilet. She sewed the missing button on his coat. She had noticed some blood upon his right hand. He himself had not seen it. With a wet towel she washed his face and hands as though he were a little child. She brushed his hair and sent him away wit
h a thousand reiterated precautions.
IV
Tante Elodie was not overcome in any way after Gabriel left her. She did not indulge in a hysterical moment, but set about accomplishing some purpose which she had evidently had in her mind. She dressed herself again; quickly, nervously, but with much precision. A shawl over her head and a long, black cape across her shoulders made her look like a nun. She quitted her room. It was very dark and very still out of doors. There was only a whispering wail among the live-oak leaves.
Tante Elodie stole noiselessly down the steps and out the gate. If she had met anyone, she intended to say she was suffering with toothache and was going to the doctor or druggist for relief.
But she met not a soul. She knew every plank, every uneven brick of the side walk; every rut of the way, and might have walked with her eyes closed. Strangely enough she had forgotten to pray. Prayer seemed to belong to her moments of contemplation; while now she was all action; prompt, quick, decisive action.
It must have been near upon two o’clock. She did not meet a cat or a dog on her way to the Nigger-Luke Cabin. The hut was well out of town and isolated from a group of tumbled-down shanties some distance off, in which a lazy set of negroes lived. There was not the slightest feeling of fear or horror in her breast. There might have been, had she not already been dominated and possessed by the determination that Gabriel must be shielded from ignominy — maybe, worse.
She glided into the low cabin like a shadow, hugging the side of the open door. She would have stumbled over the dead man’s feet if she had not stepped so cautiously. The embers were burning so low that they gave but a faint glow in the sinister cabin with its obscure corners, its black, hanging cobwebs and the dead man lying twisted as he had fallen with his face on his arm.
Once in the cabin the woman crept towards the body on her hands and knees. She was looking for something in the dusky light; something she could not find. Crawling towards the fire over the uneven, creaking boards, she stirred the embers the least bit with a burnt stick that had fallen to one side. She dared not make a blaze. Then she dragged herself once more towards the lifeless body. She pictured how the knife had been thrust in; how it had fallen from Gabriel’s hand; how the man had come down like a felled ox. Yes, the knife could not be far off, but she could not discover a trace of it. She slipped her fingers beneath the body and felt all along. The knife lay up under his arm pit. Her hand scraped his chin as she withdrew it. She did not mind. She was exultant at getting the knife. She felt like some other being, possessed by Satan. Some fiend in human shape, some spirit of murder. A cricket began to sing on the hearth.
Tante Elodie noticed the golden gleam of the murdered man’s watch chain, and a sudden thought invaded her. With deft, though unsteady fingers, she unhooked the watch and chain. There was money in his pockets. She emptied them, turning the pockets inside out. It was difficult to reach his left hand pockets, but she did so. The money, a few bank notes and some silver coins, together with the watch and knife she tied in her handkerchief. Then she hurried away, taking a long stride across the man’s body in order to reach the door.
The stars were like shining pieces of gold upon dark velvet. So Tante Elodie thought as she looked up at them an instant.
There was the sound of disorderly voices away off in the negro shanties. Clasping the parcel close to her breast she began to run. She ran, ran, as fast as some fleet fourfooted creature, ran, panting. She never stopped till she reached the gate that let her in under the live-oaks. The most intent listener could not have heard her as she mounted the stairs; as she let herself in at the door; as she bolted it. Once in the room she began to totter. She was sick to her stomach and her head swam. Instinctively she reached out towards the bed, and fell fainting upon it, face downward.
The gray light of dawn was coming in at her windows. The lamp on the table had burned out. Tante Elodie groaned as she tried to move. And again she groaned with mental anguish, this time as the events of the past night came back to her, one by one, in all their horrifying details. Her labor of love, begun the night before, was not yet ended. The parcel containing the watch and money were there beneath her, pressing into her bosom. When she managed to regain her feet the first thing which she did was to rekindle the fire with splinters of pine and pieces of hickory that were at hand in her wood box. When the fire was burning briskly, Tante Elodie took the paper money from the little bundle and burned it. She did not notice the denomination of the bills, there were five or six, she thrust them into the blaze with the poker and watched them burn. The few loose pieces of silver she put in her purse, apart from her own money; there was sixty-five cents in small coin. The watch she placed between her mattresses; then, seized with misgiving, took it out. She gazed around the room, seeking a safe hiding place and finally put the watch into a large, strong stocking which she pinned securely around her waist beneath her clothing. The knife she washed carefully, drying it with pieces of newspaper which she burned. The water in which she had washed it she also threw in a corner of the large fire place upon a heap of ashes. Then she put the knife into the pocket of one of Gabriel’s coats which she had cleaned and mended for him; it was hanging in her closet.
She did all this slowly and with great effort, for she felt very sick. When the unpleasant work was over it was all she could do to undress and get beneath the covers of her bed.
She knew that when she did not appear at breakfast Madame Nicolas would send to investigate the cause of her absence. She took her meals with the young widow around the corner of the gallery. Tante Elodie was not rich. She received a small income from the remains of what had once been a magnificent plantation adjoining the lands which Justin Lucaze owned and cultivated. But she lived frugally, with a hundred small cares and economies and rarely felt the want of extra money except when the generosity of her nature prompted her to help an afflicted neighbor, or to bestow a gift upon some one of whom she was fond. It often seemed to Tante Elodie that all the affection of her heart was centered upon her young protégé, Gabriel; that what she felt for others was simply an emanation — rays, as it were, from this central sun of love that shone for him alone.
In the midst of twinges, of nervous tremors, her thoughts were with him. It was impossible for her to think of anything else. She was filled with unspeakable dread that he might betray himself. She wondered what he had done after he left her: what he was doing at that moment? She wanted to see him again alone, to insist anew upon the necessity of his self-assertion of innocence.
As she expected, Mrs. Wm. Nicolas came around at the breakfast hour to see what was the matter. She was an active woman, very pretty and fresh looking, with willing, deft hands and the kindest voice and eyes. She was distressed at the spectacle of poor Tante Elodie extended in bed with her head tied up, and looking pale and suffering.
“Ah! I suspected it!” she exclaimed, “coming out in the cold on the gallery last night to get morphine for Gabriel; ma foi! as if he could not go to the drug store for his morphine! Where have you pain? Have you any fever, Tante Elodie?”
“It is nothing, chérie. I believe I am only tired and want to rest for a day in bed.”
“Then you must rest as long as you want. I will look after your fire and see that you have what you need. I will bring your coffee at once. It is a beautiful day; like spring. When the sun gets very warm I will open the window.”
V
All day long Gabriel did not appear, and she dared not make inquiries about him. Several persons came in to see her, learning that she was sick. The midnight murder in the Nigger-Luke Cabin seemed to be the favorite subject of conversation among her visitors. They were not greatly excited over it as they might have been were the man other than a comparative stranger. But the subject seemed full of interest, enhanced by the mystery surrounding it. Madame Nicolas did not risk to speak of it.
“That is not a fit conversation for a sick-room. Any doctor — anybody with sense will tell you. For Mercy’s sake! change
the subject.”
But Fifine Delonce could not be silenced.
“And now it appears,” she went on with renewed animation, “it appears he was playing cards down at Symund’s store. That shows how they pass their time — those boys! It’s a scandal! But nobody can remember when he left. Some say at nine, some say it was past eleven. He sort of went away like he didn’t want them to notice.”
“Well, we didn’t know the man. My patience! there are murders every day. If we had to keep up with them, ma foi! Who is going to Lucie’s card party to-morrow? I hear she did not invite her cousin Claire. They have fallen out again it seems.” And Madame Nicolas, after speaking, went to give Tante Elodie a drink of Tisane.
“Mr. Ben’s got about twenty darkies from Niggerville, holding them on suspicion,” continued Fifine, dancing on the edge of her chair. “Without doubt the man was enticed to the cabin and murdered and robbed there. Not a picayune left in his pockets! only his pistol — that they didn’t take, all loaded, in his back pocket, that he might have used, and his watch gone! Mr. Ben thinks his brother in Conshotta, that’s very well off, is going to offer a big reward.”
“What relation was the man to you, Fifine?” asked Madame Nicolas, sarcastically.
“He was a human being, Amelia; you have no heart, no feeling. If it makes a woman that hard to associate with a doctor, then thank God — well — as I was saying, if they can catch those two strange section hands that left town last night — but you better bet they’re not such fools to keep that watch. But old Uncle Marte said he saw little foot prints like a woman’s, early this morning, but no one wanted to listen to him or pay any attention, and the crowd tramped them out in little or no time. None of the boys want to let on; they don’t want us to know which ones were playing cards at Symund’s. Was Gabriel at Symund’s, Tante Elodie?”