The Flower of the Chapdelaines

by George Washington Cable

  Fed from a negro-cabin and guided by the stars, we fled all of anothernight afoot, and on the following day lost Mingo. At broad noon, withan overseer and his gang close by in a corn-field, the seductions of amelon-patch overcame him and he howled away his freedom in the jaws ofa bear-trap. His father and mother wept dumb tears and laid theirfaces to the ground in prayer. Euonymus was frantic. With all hersuperior sanity, she would not have left the region could she havepersuaded us to go on without her.

  Well! Day by day we lay in the brush, and night after night fled on.I could tell much about the sweet, droll piety of my three fellowrunaways, and the humble generosity of their hearts. No ancientIsraelite ever looked forward to the coming of a political Messiah withmore pious confidence than they to a day when their whole dark raceshould be free and enjoy every right that any other race enjoys.

  "Even a right to cross two races?" I once asked Luke, smilingly, thoughwith intense aversion.

  "No, suh; no, suh! De same Lawd what give' ev'y man a wuck he cayn'tdo ef he ain't dat man, give' ev'y ra-ace a wuck dey cayn't do ef deyain't dat ra-ace." I fancy he had been years revolving that into aformula; or--he may have merely heard some master or mistress say it.

  "Still," I suggested, "races have crossed, and made new and betterones."

  "I don't 'spute dat, suh; no, suh. But de Lawd ain't neveh gwine tomake a betteh ra-ace by cross'n' one what done-done e'en-a' most allwhat even yit been done, on to anotheh what, eh----"

  Sidney (Onesimus) put in: "What ain't neveh yit done noth'n'!" And hermother sighed, "Amen!"

  XVIII

  "Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?"

  "Ah, surely!" cried several, "Tha'z not all?"

  Mme. De l'Isle appealed to her husband: "Even two, three hun'red mile',that din'n' bring the line of Canada, I think."

  "No, but, I suppose, of the Ohio."

  "And that undergroun' railway!" said Scipion.

  "Yes," Mme. Alexandre agreed, "but that story remain' unfinizh' whilesthat uncle of Mr. Chezter couldn' return at his home."

  "Not even his State," ventured mademoiselle.

  "But he did," Chester said; "he came back."

  M. Dubroca spoke up: "Oh, 'tis easy to insert that, at theen'--foot-note."

  "And Hardy?" asked Beloiseau, "him and yo' uncle, they di'n' shoot eitherthe other?"

  "I believe they did, each the other. I never quite understood the hintsI got of it, till now. I know that six months in bed with a back full of_somebody's_ buckshot saved my uncle's life."

  "From lynching! That also muz' be insert'!"

  Chester thought not. "No, centre the interest in the runaway family, asin mademoiselle's 'Clock in the Sky.'" And so all agreed.

  A second time he walked home with mademoiselle, under the same lenientescort as before. One thus occupied, by moonlight, can moralize as hecannot with any larger number. "It's hard enough at best," he said, "forus, in our pride of race, to sympathize--seriously--in the joys, thehopes, the sufferings of souls under dark skins yet as human as ours ifnot as white."

  "Yes, 'tis true. Only one man, Mr. Chester, I ever knew, myself, who didthat."

  "Your father?"

  "Yes, my dear father."

  "Will you not some day tell me his story?"

  "Mr. Castanado will tell you it. Any of those will tell you."

  "I can't question them about you, and besides----"

  "Well, here is my gate. 'And besides--' what?"

  "Besides, why can't you tell me?"

  "Ah, I'll do that--'some day,' as you say."

  The gate-key went into the lock.

  "But, mademoiselle, our 'Clock in the Sky'--our 'Angel of theLord'--shan't we join them?"

  "Ah, they are already one, but you have yet to hear that _first_manuscript, and that is so very separate--as you will see."

  "Isn't it also a story of dark skins?"

  "Ah, but barely at all of souls under them; those souls we find it sohard to remember."

  "_Chere fille_"--M. De l'Isle had come up, with Mme. Alexandre--"thethree will go _gran'ly_ together! Not I al-lone perceive that, butScipion also--Castanado--Dubroca. Mr. Chester, my dear sir, thepewblication of that book going to be heard roun' the worl'! Tha'z goingproduse an epoch, that book; yet same time--a bes'-seller!"

  Mademoiselle beamed. "Does Mr. Chester think 'twill be that? Abest-seller?"

  Chester couldn't prophesy that of any book. "They say not even apublisher can tell."

  "Hah!" monsieur cried, "those cunning pewblisher'! they pref-er _not_ totell."

  "Some poetry," Chester continued, urged by mademoiselle's eyes, "doesn'tpay the poets over a few thousand a year--per volume; while some novelspay their authors--well--fortunes."

  "That they go," madame broke in, "and buy some _palaces in Italie_! Andtha'z but the biginning; you have not count' the dramatization--hundredsthe week! and those movie'--the same! and those tranzlation'!"

  "Well, I think we will be satisfied, Mr. Chester, with the tenth of that,eh?"

  Chester's reply was drowned in monsieur's: "No, my child! Butnine-tenth' _maybe_, yes! No-no-no! if those pewblisher' find out youare satisfi' by one-tenth, one-tenth is all you'll ever see!"

  "Ah," said mademoiselle to madame, "even the one-tenth I mustn't tell tomy aunts. They wouldn't sleep to-night. And myself--'publication,dramatization, movies, translation'--I believe I'll lie awake tilldaylight, making that into a song--a hymn!"

  A wonderful sight she was, pausing in the open gate, with the littlehigh-fenced garden at her back, a street-lamp lighting her face. Chesterharked back to that first manuscript. It "ought not to wait anotherweek," he declared.

  "No," monsieur said, "and since we all have read that egcept only you."

  Chester looked to mademoiselle: "Then I suppose I might read it with theCastanados alone."

  "No," madame put in, "you see, you can't riturn at Castanado'simmediately to-morrow or next day. That next day, tha'z Sunday, but youdon't know if madame goin' to have the stren'th for that fati-gue. Yetsame time you can't wait forever! And bisside', yo' Aunt Corinne, AuntYvonne--Mr. Chezter he's never have that lugsury to meet them, and thatwill be a very choice o'casion for Mr. Chezter to do that, if----"

  "If he'll take the pains," the niece broke in, "to call Sunday afternoon.Then I'll have the manuscript back from Mr. Castanado and we'll read itto my Aunt Corinne and my Aunt Yvonne, all four together in the garden."

  "Yes, yet not in this li'l' garden in the front, but in the large, farback from the house, in the h-arbor of 'oneysuckle and by the side of theli'l' lake, eh?" So prompted madame.

  "Assuredly," said the smiling girl; "not in the front, where is no roomfor a place to sit down!"

  Chester's acceptance was eager. Then once more the batten gate closedand the key grated between him and Aline--marvellous, marvellous AlineChapdelaine.

  XIX

  The sunbeams of a tedious Sabbath began noticeably to slant.

  For two days, night, morning, noon, and afternoon, Geoffry Chester hadsilently speculated on what he was to see, hear, and otherwise experiencewhen, as early as he might in keeping with the Chapdelaine dignity andhis, he should pull the tiny brass bell-knob on their tall gate-post.

  Chapdelaine! Impressive, patrician title. Impressive too thosebaptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale ofadversity. Killing time up one street and down another--Rampart,Ursuline, Burgundy--he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne apresence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne afragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace. Knowledgeof Aline justified such inferences--within bounds. With other charms shehad all these, and must have got them from ancestral sources as trulyMlle. Corinne's and Mlle. Yvonne's as hers.

  "Oh, of course," he pondered, "there are contrary possibilities. Theymay easily fall short, far short, of her, in outer graces, and show theirkinship only in a reflection of her inner fineness. They may b
e no moresurprising than those dear old De l'Isles, or the Prieurs, or than Mrs.Thorndyke-Smith. So let it be! Aline----"

  "Aline-Aline!" alarmingly echoed his heart.

  "Aline is enough." Enough? Alas, too much! He felt himself far tooforthpushing in--he would not confess more--a solicitude for her which hecould not stifle; an inextinguishable wish to disentangle her from theofficious care of those by whom she was surrounded--encumbered. "I've noright to this state of mind," he thought; "none." He reached the gate.He rang.

  A footfall of daintiest lightness came running! ["Aline-Aline!"] Somight Allegro have tripped it. The key rasped round, ["Aline-Aline!"]the portal drew in, and he found himself getting his first front view ofCupid, the small black satellite.

  A pleasing object. Smaller than ever. White-collared as ever, starchedand brushed to the sheen of a new penny and ugly of face as agargoyle--ugly as his goddess was beautiful. Not merely negroidal, inlips, nose, ears, and tight black wool divided on the absolute equator;not racially but uniquely ugly--till he smiled--and spoke. He smiled andspoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love,that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from the entrancedrecognition they radiated.

  "Ladies at home? Yassuh," he said, with an ecstasy as if he announcedthe world's war suddenly over, all oceans safe, all peoples free. He ledthe way up the cramped white-shell walk with a ceremonial precision thatgave the caller time to notice the garden. It was hardly an empire. Itlay on either side in two right-angled figures, each, say, of sixty byfourteen feet, every foot repeating florally the smile of the child. Therigid beds were curbed with brick water-painted as red as Cupid's gums.The three fences were green with vines, and here and there against thembloomed tall evergreen shrubs. At one upper corner of the main path wasa camellia and at the other a crape-myrtle, symbols respectively, to thevisitor, of Aunt Corinne and Aunt Yvonne. The brick doorstep smiled asred as the garden borders, and as he reached the open door Aline, withher two aunts at her back, received him.

  "Mr. Chester--Mlle. Chapdelaine. Mr. Chester--my Aunt Yvonne." Neverhad the niece seemed quite so fair--in face, dress, figure, or mentalpoise. She wore that rose whose petals are deep red in their outercircle and pass from middle pink to central white and deepen in tintswith each day's age. If that rose could have been a girl, mind, soul,and all, a Creole girl, there would have been two on one stem.

  And there, on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean,the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters,betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youthnamed to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they weresweet-mannered, fluent, gay, cordial, and unreserved, though fluttering,twittering, and ultra-feminine.

  The room was like the pair. "Doubtlezz Aline she's told you ab-out that'ouse. No? Ah, chere! is that possible? 'Tis an ancient relique, that'ouse. At the present they don't build any mo' like that 'ouse isbuild'! You see those wall', those floor'? Every wall they are not oflath an' plazter, like to-day; they are of solid plank' of a thicknezz oftwo-inch'--and from Kentucky!"

  The guest recognized the second-hand lumber of broken-up flatboats.

  "Tha'z a genuine antique, that 'ouse! Sometime' we think we ought toegspose that 'ouse, to those tourist', admission ten cent'." [A gaylaugh.]

  "But tha'z only when Aline want' to compel us to buy some new dresses.And tha'z pritty appropriate, that antique 'ouse, for two sizter'themselve' pritty antique--ha, ha, ha!--as well as their anceztors."

  "I fancy they're from 'way back," said Chester.

  "We are granddaughter' of two _emigres_ of the Revolution. The other twothey were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time,we don't _feel_ antique. We don't feel mo' than ten year'! Andespecially when we are showing those souvenir' of our in-_fancy_. Andthere is nothing we love like that."

  "Aline, _chere_, doubtlezz Mr. Chezter will be very please' to see yo'li'l' dress of baptism! Long time befo', that was also for me, and mysizter. That has the lace and embro'derie of a hundred years aggo, thatli'l' dress of baptism. Show him that! Oh, that is no trouble, that isa _dil_-ight! and if you are please' to enjoy that we'll show you our twodoll', age' forty-three!--bride an' bri'groom. Go, _you_, Yvonne, fedgethem."

  The sister rose but lingered: "Mr. Chezter, you will egscuse if thatbride an' groom don't look pritty fresh; biccause eighteen seventy-threethey have not change' their clothingg!"

  "_Cherie_," said Aline, "I think first we better read the manuscript, and_then_."

  After a breath of hesitation--"Yes! read firs' and _then_. Alway'businezz biffo'!"

  All went into the garden; not the part Chester had come through, butanother only a trifle less pinched, at the back of the house. A fewsteps of straight path led them through its stiff ranks of larkspurs,carnations, and the like, to a bower of honeysuckle enclosing two roughwooden benches that faced each other across a six-by-nine goldfish pool.There they had hardly taken seats when Cupid reappeared bearing to thevisitor, on a silver tray, the manuscript.

  It was not opened and dived into with the fine flurry of the modernstage. Its recipient took time to praise the bower and pool, and thesisters laughed gratefully, clutched hands, and merrily called theirniece "tantine." "You know, Mr. Chezter, 'tantine' tha'z 'auntie,' an'tha'z j'uz' a li'l' name of affegtion for her, biccause she takes so muchmo' care of us than we of her; you see? But that bower an' that li'l'lake, my sizter an' me we construc' them both, that bower an' that li'l'lake."

  Without blazoning it they would have him know they had not squandered"tantine's" hard earnings on architects and contractors.

  "And we assure you that was not ladies' work. 'Twas not till weeks weachieve' that. That geniuz Aline! _she_ was the arshetec'. And thosegoldfishes--like Aline--are self-su'porting! We dispose them at theapothecary, Dauphine and Toulouse Street--ha, ha, ha! Corinne, tha'z theegstent of commerce we ever been ab'e to make, eh?"

  "And now," said Aline, "the story."

  "Ah, yes," responded Mlle. Corinne, "at laz' the manuscrip'!" and Mlle.Yvonne echoed, with a queer guilt in her gayety:

  "The manuscrip'! the myzteriouz manuscrip'!"

  But there the gate bell sounded and she sprang to her feet. Cupid couldanswer it, but some one must be indoors to greet the caller.

  "Yes, you, Yvonne," the elder sister said, and Aline added: "We'll notread till you return."

  "Ah, yes, yes! Read without me!"

  "No-no-no-no-no! We'll wait!"

  "We'll wait, Yvonne." The sister went.

  Chester smoothed out the pages, but then smilingly turned them facedownward, and Aline said:

  "First, Hector will tell us who's there."

  Hector was Cupid. He came again, murmuring a name to Mlle. Corinne. Sherose with hands clasped. "C'est M. et Mme. Rene Ducatel!"

  "Well? Hector will give your excuses; you are imperatively engaged."

  "Ah, _chere_, on Sunday evening! Tha'z an incredibility! Must you notlet me go? You 'ave 'Ector."

  "Ah-h! and we are here to read this momentous document to Hector?" Thesparkle of amused command was enchanting to at least one besides Cupid.

  Yet it did not win. "Chere, you make me tremble. Those Ducatel',they've come so far! How can we show them so li'l' civilization whenthey've come so far? An' me I'm convince', and Yvonne she's convince',that you an' Mr. Chezter you'll be ab'e to judge that manuscrip' betteral-lone. Oh, yes! we are convince' of that, biccause, you know--I'm_sorrie_--we are prejudice' in its favor!"

  Aline's lifted brows appealed to Chester. "Maybe hearing it," hehalf-heartedly said, "may correct your aunts' judgment."

  The aunt shook her head in a babe's despair. "No, we've tri' that." Hersmile was tearful. "Ah, _cherie_, you both muz' pardon. Laz' night wewas both so af-raid about that, an' of a so affegtionate curio-zitie,that we was _compel_' to read that manuscrip' through! An' we areconvince'--though tha'z not a
b-out clocks, neither angels, neitherlovers--yet same time tha'z a moz' marvellouz manuscrip'. Biccause, youknow, tha'z a true story, that 'Holy Crozz.' Tha'z concerning aninsurregtion of slave'--there in Santa Cruz. And 'a slave insurregtion,'tha'z what they ought to call it, yes!--to prom-ote the sale. Alreadylaz' night Yvonne she say she's convince' that in those Northron citie',where they are since lately _so fon_' of that subjec', there be people by_dozen_'--will _devour_ that story!"

  She tripped off to the house.

  "Hector," said Aline, "you may sit down."

  Cupid slid into the vacated seat. Chester dropped the document into hispocket.

  "For what?" the girl archly inquired.

  "I want to take it to my quarters and judge it there. Why shouldn't I?"

  "Yes, you may do that."

  "And now tell me of your father, or his father--the one Beloiseauknew--Theophile Chapdelaine."

  "Both were Theophile. He knew them both."

  "Then tell me of both."

  "Mr. Chester, 'twould be to talk of myself!"

  "I won't take it so. Tell the story purely as theirs. It must be fine.They were set, in conscience, against the conscience of their day----"