Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  "Oncle must put me in bed, no one else," Jakob demanded in French.

  "I will put you in bed," his sister told him. "It's my job."

  Helga nodded. "And you must go right to sleep, my baby," she said. "Remember tomorrow is Sunday, and since Monsieur Boudreau is here, we shall have beignets for breakfast."

  Little Jakob licked his lips in anticipation and then sighed with acceptance of the

  good-night ritual. He allowed Elsa to lead him to the loft ladder. The sounds of their feet overhead could be heard before Helga spoke once more to her eldest son.

  "You also, Karl. You need your rest as well as the others."

  The youngster continue to puff on his pipe. "I am not tired," he said in French. Then in German he added, "And I know exactly why Monsieur Boudreau has traveled in his boat this long distance."

  Laron did not understand the boy's words, but from the tone of his voice and the shocked reaction on his mother's face, he knew the comment had been hurtful. She lowered her head not quite fast enough to hide her distress.

  He wanted to come to her defense. He wanted to demand to know what was said. He wanted to wash young Karl's mouth out with soap. He wanted to do something. But he didn't know what it could be.

  "I brought my cards," Laron piped up, pretending to have missed the undercurrent in the room. "I promised to teach you bourre. If you aren't tired, we can play."

  Karl hesitated a long moment. Finally he shrugged. "All right, I have nothing else to do."

  Laron pulled out his cards and smiled at Helga. "You go ahead and finish with your work," he said. "We men will do our best to stay out of your way."

  She raised her eyes, which still glistened brightly. "Karl has said many times that he wanted to learn the cards," she said, forcing a smile.

  Laron nodded and stepped past her.

  "Let us go outside," he said to Karl.

  "Why?"

  "I want to smoke my pipe," he answered. "And I would never offend your mother by doing so inside her house."

  Walking outside alone, Laron waited on the porch, wondering if the boy would follow him. The way things were going the last several weeks, he would not have been surprised if the boy was too stubborn to even do that.

  It was simply a part of growing up, Laron reminded himself. Karl was young and confused and testing the waters. Boys grew up early in the bayous. And a boy with no father grew up quicker than most.

  The youngster did come out to the porch, still puffing enthusiastically on the hand-hewn pipe. They seated themselves on slat-back chairs before a low table.

  "Where did you get the pipe?" Laron asked.

  "Traded for it," Karl answered.

  "Hmmm." Laron nodded with interest.

  "The Arceneaux brothers, Jacques and Duclize. I gave them a couple of fine turtle shells."

  "Seems like a fair trade," Laron agreed.

  "They know you," Karl said, looking at him closely.

  Laron raised his eyes to look at Karl directly. "Yes, they are my cousins. They are a little older than you."

  Karl shrugged and puffed heavily on his pipe. "I'm old enough," he stated.

  Laron didn't argue. "Let us play," he said.

  He spread the cards out upon the table and showed him the four suits and identified the face cards. Neither could actually read the printed numbers, but both could adequately count the hearts, diamonds, clubs, or spades printed there.

  Laron showed him the trick of shuffling to make the cards stack randomly. As the boy practiced the new skill, Laron lit his own pipe and watched.

  After several minutes the boy set the cards in a stack in the middle of the table.

  "I'm ready to learn," he said.

  Laron nodded. "First the rules," he said.

  "All right."

  Laron reached across and took Karl by the wrist. His hold was not bruising or confining, merely firm. The boy looked up, startled.

  "Rule one," Laron said quietly. "A son does not say things to his mother that make her cry."

  Karl's eyes narrowed and his jaw firmed.

  The moment lingered, dark brown eyes staring into blue ones. The intensity growing to unbearability before it began to wane.

  "I am sorry," Karl said finally.

  "You should say that to her and not to me," Laron pointed out.

  After a long hesitation the boy nodded.

  "Deal."

  He did.

  An hour later Karl was yawning into his cards and Laron called the game to a halt. When they returned to the interior of the cabin, the boy didn't relight his pipe, but he did sprawl into a chair.

  "Aren't you going to bed?" Helga asked him.

  "No, I'm still wide awake," he proclaimed, although his eyelids appeared heavy.

  Laron and Helga exchanged a disbelieving glance. She shrugged and began bustling, rather tiredly, around the kitchen once more. Laron looked longingly at the comfortable rope-sprung bed in the corner of the room and then turned back with purpose to the boy yawning before the fire.

  "I must tell you the story of how my people came to this place," he said.

  "I've heard it," Karl answered, his tone sarcastic and bored. "You've spoken of the Grand Derangement many times."

  "But it is a story that must be told many times, lest anyone forget."

  Seating himself, Laron began to talk. His words were low, almost monotone. Karl, his head propped

  up on his elbow, feigned listening as the older man spoke at great length about the history of the Acadians.

  "As a people we were scattered to the four winds. Exiles in places where our religion was reviled and our citizenship unwanted."

  They were the stories Laron had heard all his life, told by parents and elders since the days when he could still find a comfortable perch on an old frail lap. Deliberately Laron left out all the tales involving adventure, danger, and excitement. Those had been his favorites at Karl's age. This night he concentrated fully on the factual and mundane.

  He had just gotten to Theophile Peyroux's visit to the Spanish ambassador when the first little snore escaped from Karl's mouth.

  Slowly, with big quiet movements, Laron turned to see Helga sitting with her elbow propped on the table. She was hardly able to hold up her own head. But when she saw his face and glanced over at her now sleeping son, she immediately became alert.

  Laron grinned broadly, but put a finger to his lips, signaling silence, and pointed to the back door. She nodded and soundlessly the two crept out, keeping a watchful eye on young Karl until they were down the back steps and into the yard.

  Laron grabbed her hand and they took off running. They were out of sight of the house when, breathless and laughing, they stopped to catch their breath at the trunk of a hardy old tupelo. "I thought he would never sleep!" Laron told her, chuckling.

  Helga was shaking her head. "When you started reciting which boats headed for which ports, I thought I would be snoring first."

  Laron wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against him. "But I would have awakened you, Madame," he said.

  He bent his head and leaned down to kiss her. She met his lips with her own. Warm. Eager.

  His hands roamed her body.

  She pulled at his clothes.

  "Love me! Love me!" she begged him.

  He did.

  The Sonniers' pirogue, crowded with sleeping children and tired adults, bumped lightly into the dock in front of their home very late that Saturday night. Armand held the boat steady with the pole as his brother tied it securely to the cypress posts.

  Jean Baptiste squatted on the dock. "Hand them out," he said.

  Felicite lifted the baby to him first. The little one was awake and fussing. Jean Baptiste laid him on the wide cypress planks and then stretched his arms toward his wife once more. The two older children were passed into their father's arms. And then, rising to his feet, he assisted Felicite, who was huge and ungainly.

  "I'll take care of this," Armand assured t
hem, indicating the now empty cook pot, old tablecloths, miniature sabots, and sack of spare clothing, diapers, and needments required for traveling with little ones. "You two get the babies to bed."

  His brother and sister-in-law made their way up the planking toward the house. Jean Baptiste carried Gaston and Marie, who hung like rag dolls from their father's broad shoulders. Felicite carried the baby, Pierre, who was squalling now in earnest. Armand suspected that it was near time for the little fellow to be put at his mother's breast.

  He watched their retreating backs for a moment and then returned his attention to collecting the cargo of the pirogue. The evening had been a long one. He could not quite shake the worry and concern he felt at his godmother's words, despite talking with many other people through the course of the evening. At one point Armand had sought the solitude of the big chinaberry tree and allowed his gaze to wander around the crowd.

  As always his attention settled upon Aida Gaudet. He watched her from afar as she laughed and giggled and flirted with every male still breathing.

  Madame Landry had said that Armand's words were destined to change Aida's life. She would not marry his friend Laron. But then whom would she marry? Clearly she and Laron were perfectly paired. They were equally matched in grace and good looks, and he was head and shoulders taller than she. Her dainty feminine charms enhanced the appeal of his masculine strength. Anyone looking in their direction would note immediately what a handsome couple they made. They looked as if they belonged together.

  Were his careless words about to drive them apart? Was his unsolicited opinion about to cause upheaval to people he cared about? And, most disturbing of all, was it his own selfish, unrequited passion that had caused him to speak?

  Laron Boudreau was the closest friend he had in the world. Armand wanted what was best for him.

  Armand had been thinking himself wise and helpful when he'd given his opinion on marriage without love. Wise and helpful. But now . . . now . . .

  Armand shook his head furiously at his own conceit. He had urged his friend to give up a genuine opportunity to wed in order to continue an illicit union with a strange foreign woman of low morals. A woman Laron could never marry because she was still the legal wife of another man.

  And Aida Gaudet would soon be seeking a new beau.

  At first he'd thought this could be a good thing. When she had found her way to his tree-shaded hiding place, his heart had taken up a hurried pace. She was beautiful, of course. But there was more about her, more about Aida, almost a glow that surrounded her. It was what drew men to her side, Armand was sure. Many women had fine figures, handsome hair, and shy beckoning smiles. But Aida Gaudet had some unique indefinable something that seemed always to cheer the heart and brighten the day. And Aida was so guileless and uncomplicated, she remained unaware of the real source of her attraction.

  Armand was not unaware. She was like the warm glow of an autumn fire, hard for any man to resist.

  "Someone I'm sure you would never suspect."

  Orva Landry's words, when he'd asked whom Aida would set upon for a new romance, now had an ominous ring. Aida Gaudet was a beautiful and desirable woman. But if she were not safely bound to Boudreau, she would surely seek out another man. And because she was not very bright, her choice might well be an unwise one.

  It was just as he had told Laron; Aida would choose a man the same way she chose cloth, for the prettiness of its aspect rather than the durability of the fabric. Laron was the best-looking young man on the river, but here in Prairie l'Acadie, Armand knew what man might well come in second place.

  The image of his brother Jean Baptiste kneeling at her feet helping with her shoes came to his mind.

  "It was nothing," Armand muttered to himself. A still, frightening coldness settled about his heart. "It was nothing." And indeed it was nothing, helping her with her shoes. A public gesture with much joking or teasing; no one present took it seriously. But then no one present had heard Orva Landry's warning. No one present had heard his brother's dissatisfied complaints about married life.

  And with any luck at all, no one present had seen the two of them sneaking back from the privacy of the woods.

  With fear distorting his reason, Armand thought of poor Felicite swelled with child. He thought of Gaston and Marie. He thought of little Pierre, gurgling happily as was his nature.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed hard against the fear that filled his throat. "Please God," Armand prayed into the quiet stillness of the Louisiana night. "Please don't let this be happening."

  Armand hadn't seen them leave. He'd turned away from the sight of the festivities when Laron had swept her into the dance. They were such a handsome couple. It hurt him to look at them. He made his way to a group of men swapping hunting stories, telling jokes. Hippolyte Arcenaux had warned him that Father Denis wanted to speak with him and Armand quickly made himself scarce.

  He was near the edge of the woods when he heard the familiar tinkle of laughter. It had surprised him. Although, as an engaged couple, Laron and Aida would have undoubtedly been allowed an occasional private walk in the moonlight, his friend virtually never took advantage of that privilege.

  A movement from the corner of his eye caught Armand's attention. In the distance, out on the river, he spied a man poling his pirogue upstream. He didn't even need to squint to recognize Laron Boudreau. His friend, as on every Saturday night, was on his way to visit the German widow.

  Immediately Armand's heart began to beat faster. The man in the trees with Aida Gaudet could not be Laron. It might well be the new man, the man Orva spoke about. The man whose arms Armand's careless words had sent Aida flying to.

  As footsteps grew nearer Armand thought to himself, surely it must be Granger. Granger or Marchand, it really didn't matter. He didn't care if it was young Babin or even old toothless LeBlanc.

  He saw her first. Aida Gaudet, dainty and dazzling and desirable.

  Holding her arm in his own and gazing down at her, blue eyes wide as a lovesick calf's, was his brother, Jean Baptiste Sonnier.

  "Please God, don't let it be," Armand said to the silent night.

  "Well, it is already Sunday, but don't you think you ought to save that for church?"

  The words came from behind him. Startled, Armand turned to face his brother.

  "I figured you were already abed," Armand told him.

  "Thought I'd sleep up in the garconniere," Jean Baptiste said. "If you don't mind me invading your territory."

  "You're not sleeping with your wife?"

  Jean Baptiste shook his head. "She's so big now and restless. She gets up a half-dozen times a night. I'll get more sleep upstairs in one of the extra beds."

  He started up the stairs at the far end of the porch, but turned back toward Armand. "Are you coming up?"

  Armand felt momentarily rooted to the spot.

  "Yes," he said finally. "Yes, yes, I'm coming."

  He hurried up the stair behind his brother. The so-called garconniere was merely the floored space under the eaves of the roof. It was generally used only by young men because it was accessed by the stairs from the porch. The steep pitch of the roof made standing a thing done only in the middle, but the space around the edges was well-utilized by lowlying rope sprung beds.

  Normally the room was Armand's alone. Laron stayed with him frequently, as did other young men, neighbors and cousins, when they visited. Even little Gaston had spent a night or two up there. But Armand could not recall his brother spending the night with him since his marriage.

  Jean Baptiste picked a bed across the room from his brother. Armand was thoughtful as he readied himself for the night.

  "You made quite a scene with Mademoiselle Gaudet," he said finally.

  "Helping her with her dancing slippers?" Jean Baptiste chuckled. "It was a bit of fun, wasn't it?"

  "It's a good thing that you're married," Armand pointed out. "Otherwise she might have gotten the wrong idea."

  His brother
laughed as if the thought were a pleasant one. Stripped down to his smallclothes, he stretched out on the bed and stared up at the roof beams.

  "Her feet are just as tiny as you'd expect them to be," Jean Baptiste said thoughtfully. "Dainty and pretty, just like the rest of her. And the scent,” Jean Baptiste took a deep breath as if he were breathing it in once more. "I couldn't quite place it. Was it was lilies or roses or ... or something else?"

  "Well," Armand pointed out, "most women smell good."

  Jean Baptiste sighed and offered a noise of agreement as he rolled over on his side, punching at the moss-fill pillow to get it just right. Yawning and sleepy, just before dozing off he added, "Felicite smells like milk. I swear she's not going to get the last baby weaned before the next one is here."

  Armand lay awake a long time.

  Chapter 4

  The rough dark gray bark of the tupelo scratched Helga's backside, but she paid it no notice. Her arms and legs were wound tightly around Laron, but her passion was spent.

  They held their position for as long as they could. Eventually the strength of his legs gave way to the waves of relaxation that settled upon him and he eased her feet to the ground.

  "Your drawers, Madame," he said, finding them on the ground and shaking them out before he handed them over. His teasing tone was typical. Acadian women wore no such garment and Laron had declared them to be a needless, silly affectation of clothing.

  "Drawers are the fashion now everywhere," she had assured him. "Only the most poor of peasant women would go around with their buttocks unsheathed."

  Laron had laughed at that. "With all of the skirts you women wear, I hardly think that you are very close to nakedness."

  He had not convinced her to give them up. Instead he teased her relentlessly about wearing them.

  "So when did the smoking start?" he asked. "And why on earth is Karl so unwilling to go to bed?"

  Helga hesitated momentarily. "The smoking began on Wednesday, I think," she answered. "He came home from fishing and was green as duckweed. The smell of supper had him puking off the back porch."