CHAPTER VI
_The Family Circle_
On the morning of Elise's strike for freedom, Pierre came to breakfastwith his usual atmosphere of compressed wrath. He glanced at hisbreakfast which Madame had placed on the table at the first sound whichheralded his approach. There was nothing there to break the tension andto set free the pent-up storm within. Much meditation, with fear andtrembling, had taught Madame the proper amount of butter to apply to thehot toast, the proportion of sugar and cream to add to the coffee, andthe exact shade of crisp and brown to put on his fried eggs. But a manbent on trouble can invariably find a cause for turning it loose.
"Where is Elise?" he demanded.
"Elise," Madame answered, evasively, "she is around somewhere."
"Somewhere is nowhere. I demand to know." Pierre looked threatening.
"Shall I call her?" Madame vouchsafed.
"If you know not where she is, how shall you call her? Heh? If you know,mek ansaire!"
"I don't know where she is."
"_Bien!_" Pierre reseated himself and began to munch his toast savagely.
Madame was having a struggle with herself. It showed plainly on thethin, anxious face. The lips compressed with determination, the eyesset, then wavered, and again the indeterminate lines of acquiescentsubjection gained their accustomed ascendency. Back and forth assertionand complaisance fled and followed; only assertion was holding its own.
The eggs had disappeared, also the greater part of the toast. Pierreswallowed the last of his coffee, and, without a look at his silentwife, began to push his chair from the table. Madame's voice startledhim.
"Elise is sixteen," she ventured.
Pierre fell back in his chair, astonished. The words were simple anduncompromising, but the intonation suggested that they were not final.
"Well?" he asked, explosively.
"When are you going to send Elise away to school?"
"To school?" Pierre was struggling with his astonishment.
"Yes." Madame was holding herself to her determination with an effort.
"To school? _Baste!_ She read, she write, she mek ze figure, is it notsuffice? Heh?"
"That makes no difference. You promised her father that you would sendher away to school."
Pierre looked around apprehensively.
"Shut up! Kip quiet!"
"I won't shut up, and I won't keep quiet." Madame's blood was warming.The sensation was as pleasant as it was unusual. "I will keep quiet formyself. I won't for Elise."
"Elise! Elise! Ain't I do all right by Elise?" Pierre asked,aggressively. "She have plenty to eat, plenty to wear, you tek good careof her. Don't I tek good care, also? Me? Pierre? She mek no complain,heh?"
"That isn't what her father wanted, and it isn't what you promised him."
Pierre looked thoughtful; his face softened slightly.
"We have no children, you and me. We have honly Elise, one li'l girl,_la bonne_ Elise. You wan' mek me give up _la bonne_ Elise? _P'quoi?_"His face blazed again as he looked up wrathfully. "You wan' mek her goto school! _P'quoi?_ So she learn mek _teedle, teedle_ on ze piano? Soshe learn speak gran'? So she tink of me, Pierre, one li'l Frenchmens,not good enough for her, for mek her shame wiz her gran' friends? Heh?Who mek ze care for ze li'l babby? Who mek her grow up strong? Heh? Youmek her go school. You mek ze gran' dam-zelle. You mek her go back toher pip'l. You mek me, Pierre, you, grow hol' wiz noddings? Hall ze res'ze time wiz no li'l Elise? How you like li'l Elise go away and mek zemarry, and w'en she have li'l children, she say to her li'l children,'_Mes enfants, voila!_ Pierre and Madame, _tres bon_ Pierre and Madame,'and _les petits enfants_ mek big eyes at Pierre and Madame and li'lElise? She say, '_Pauvres enfants_, Pierre and Madame will not hurt you._Bon_ Pierre! _Bonne_ Madame!'" Pierre made a gesture of deprecatingpity.
Madame was touched to the quick. Starting tears dimmed the heavy eyes.Had she not thought of all this a thousand times? If Pierre cared somuch for li'l Elise how much more reason had she to care? Li'l Elise hadbeen the only bright spot in her dreary life, yet she was firm. Elisehad been very dear to her in the past, but her duty was plain. Her voicewas gentler.
"Elise is not ours, Pierre. It is harder to do now what we ought to havedone long ago."
Pierre rose and walked excitedly back and forth. He was speaking half tohimself, half to Madame.
"Sixtin year 'go li'l Elise mammy die. Sixtin year! She no say, 'MadameMarie, tek my li'l babby back Eas' to my friend, _hein_? No. She say,'Madame Marie, my poor li'l babby ain' got no mammy no mo'. Tek goodcare my poor li'l babby.' Then she go die. We mek good care of ze li'lElise, me and you, heh? We sen' away Elise? _Sacre non!_ Nevaire!"Pierre stopped, and looked fiercely at Madame.
"Yes," answered Madame. "Her mammy asked me to care for her little baby,but it was for her father. When her father died he made you promise togive her to her friends. Don't I know how hard it is?" Her tears wereflowing freely now. "Every year we said, 'She is yet too young to go.Next year we will keep our promise,' and next year she was dearer to us.And now she is sixteen. She must go."
Pierre broke in fiercely:
"She shall not! Sixtin year? Sixtin year she know honly me, Pierre, herdaddy, and you, her mammy. What you tink, heh? Elise go school in onebeeg city, heh? She mek herself choke wiz ze brick house and ze stonestreet. She get sick and lonesome for ze mountain, for her hol' daddyand her hol' mammy, for ze grass and ze flower."
"That is for her to say. Send her away as you promised. Then"--Madame'sheavy eyes grew deep, almost beautiful--"then, if she comes back to us!"
Pierre turned sullenly.
"She is mine. Mine and yours. She shall stay."
Madame's tears ceased flowing.
"She shall go." Her temerity frightened her. "I will tell her all if youdon't send her away."
Pierre did not explode, as she expected. Instead, there was the calm ofinvincible purpose. He held up one finger impressively.
"I settle hall zis. _Ecoutez!_ She shall marry. Right away. Queek. Da'shall." He left the room before Madame had time to reply.
Madame was too terrified to think. The possibility conveyed in herhusband's declaration had never suggested itself to her. Elise was stillthe little baby nestling in her arms, the little girl prattling andplaying indoors and out, on the wide ranch, and later, Madame shuddered,when Pierre had abandoned the ranch for the Blue Goose, waiting at thebar, keeping Pierre's books, redeeming checks at the desk, moving outand in among the throng of coarse, uncouth men, but through it all thesame beautiful, wilful, loving little girl, so dear to Madame's heart,so much of her life. What did it matter that profanity died on the lipsof the men in her presence, that at her bidding they ceased to drink tointoxication, that hopeless wives came to her for counsel, that theirdull faces lighted at her words, that in sickness or death she was tothem a comfort and a refuge?
What if Pierre had fiercely protected her from the knowledge of the moreloathsome vices of a mining camp? It was no more than right. Pierreloved her. She knew that. Pierre was hoarding every shining dollar thatcame to his hand. Was he lavish in his garnishment of the Blue Goose? Itwas only for the more effective luring of other gold from the pockets ofthe careless, unthinking men who worked in mines or mills, or roamedamong the mountains or washed the sands of every stream, spending allthey found, hoping for and talking of the wealth which, if it came,would only smite them with more rapid destruction. And all these littlerivulets, small each one alone, united at the Blue Goose into a growingstream that went no farther. For what end? Madame knew. For Pierre, lifebegan and ended in Elise. Madame knew, and sympathized with this; buther purpose was not changed. She knew little of life beyond themonotonous desolation of a western ranch, the revolting glamour of agambling resort, where men revelled in the fierce excitement ofshuffling cards and clicking chips, returning to squalid homes and tospiritless women, weighed down and broken with the bearing of manychildren, and the merciless, unbroken torture of thankless, thoughtlessdemands upon their lives
. Madame saw all this. She saw and felt thedreary hopelessness of it all. Much as she loved Elise, if it parted herfrom all that made life endurable she would not shrink from thesacrifice. She knew nothing of life beyond her restricted circle, butanything outside this circle was a change, and any change must be forthe better.
"She shall marry. Right away." Pierre's words came to her again withoverwhelming terror. Overwhelming, because she saw no way of avertingthe threatened blow.
From behind, Madame felt two soft hands close on her straining eyes, anda sympathetic voice:
"Has daddy been scolding you again? What was it about this time? Was itbecause I ran away this morning? I did run away, you know."
For reply Madame only bowed her head from between the clasping handsthat for the first time had distress instead of comfort for her gropingsoul. She did not pray for guidance. She never thought of praying. Whyshould she? The prisoned seed, buried in the dank and quickening soil,struggles instinctively toward the source of light and strength. Butwhat instinct is there to guide the human soul that, quickened byunselfish love, is yet walled in by the Stygian darkness of an ignorantlife?
Madame's hands were clinched. Her hot eyes were dry and hard. No light!No help! Only a fierce spirit of resistance. At length she was consciousof Elise standing before her, half terrified, but wholly determined. Hereyes moistened, then grew soft. Her outstretched arms sought the girland drew her within their convulsive grasp.
"My poor Elise! My poor little girl, with no one to help her but me!"
"What is it, mammy? What is it?"
Madame only moaned.
"My poor little Elise! My poor little girl!"
Elise freed herself from the resisting arms.
"Tell me at once!" She stamped her foot impatiently.
Madame sprang to her feet.
"You shall not marry that man. You shall not!" Her voice rose. "I willtell you all--everything. I will, if he kills me. I will! I will!"
The door from the saloon was violently opened, and Pierre strode in. Hepushed Elise aside, and, with narrowed eyes and uplifted hand,approached his wife.
"You will? You will, heh?"
The threatening blow fell heavily, but upon Elise. She thrust forth herhands. Pierre stumbled backward before the unexpected assault. His eyes,blazing with ungoverned fury, swept around the room. They rested upon astick. He grasped it, and turned once more toward Madame.
"You will! You will! I teach you bettaire. I teach you say 'I will' tome! I teach you!" Then he stopped. He was looking squarely into themuzzle of a silver-mounted revolver held in a steady hand and levelledby a steady eye.
Pierre was like a statue. Another look came into his eyes. Youth toyedwith death, and was not afraid. Pierre knew that. At threatening weaponsin the hands of drink-crazed men Pierre smiled with scorn. The bad manstood in terror of the law as well as of Pierre. But when determinedyouth laid hold on death and shook it in his face Pierre knew enough tostand aside.
Elise broke the tense silence.
"Don't you ever dare to strike mammy again. Don't you dare!"
Without a word Pierre left the room. He had loved Elise before with asunselfish a love as he could know. But hitherto he had not admired her.Now he rubbed his hands and chuckled softly, baring his teeth withunsmiling lips.
"A-a-ah!" he breathed forth. "_Magnifique! Superb! La petite diable!_She mek ze shoot in her eye! In ze fingaire! She bin shoot her hol' man,her hol' daddy, _moi!_ Pierre." Pierre thoughtfully rubbed his smoothchin. "_La petite diable!_"
Poor Madame! Poor Pierre! The dog chases his tail with undiminishedzest, and is blissfully rewarded if a straggling hair but occasionallybrushes his nose. He licks his accessible paws, impelled alone by asense of duty.
The Blue Goose Page 6