Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  "It is a wonderful day outside," little Jakob announced to anyone who had not heard already. "A storm is coming. Oh I wish, how I wish that after breakfast we could go fishing in your pirogue?"

  Laron shook his head. "Not today," he answered. "Today we harvest that providence rice down in the swampy bog. We've left it almost too long already. It's going to turn cold soon and we might lose it altogether before I return."

  Jakob nodded, not wholly disappointed.

  But surprisingly Karl turned surly. "I don't want to work in the rice," he complained. "I work here all week every week, while you come and go as you please. It's your rice; you should harvest it yourself."

  The boy's attitude was more than disagreeable; it was disrespectful, and Laron opened his mouth to tell the boy just that. To his surprise, Helga unexpectedly interceded.

  "Perhaps Karl can borrow your pirogue and catch us a big fish while we cut and stack the grain," she said. "With me and the children helping, you should be able to get the rice in without him."

  Stunned almost speechless, Laron hesitated to reply, giving Helga a long curious look before he nodded and answered. "Of course," he said. "We can do it ourselves."

  Karl puffed up like a toad fish and gave Laron a look that was positively defiant.

  "You want to go fishing with me, squirt?" Karl asked his brother, one eye on Laron, almost daring him to speak.

  The little fellow seemed startled by the invitation. Karl usually treated him like an unwelcome pest. Jakob hesitated, momentarily tempted. The tension at the table was palpable, undoubtedly even young Jakob could feel it.

  "Non," he said finally. "I want to be with Oncle."

  Karl looked daggers at Laron.

  Laron looked questioningly at Helga.

  Helga looked down.

  Laron took his place at the table, still puzzled and uncertain. Without Karl to help, cutting the rice would put more work on Helga and Elsa and take all day at least. But Karl was Helga's son and she raised him as she saw fit. But clearly, something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

  Aida was horrified when the Sonnier family arrived in their pirogue shortly after dawn. They towed a skiff piled high with sacked corn.

  Aida hastily covered her mouth as a little exclamation of dismay escaped her throat.

  "Bonjour," her father said, greeting them. "And what a beautiful morning for travel."

  He hurried down to the end of the dock to help them alight. Aida followed and soon found herself holding fat little Pierre as Madame Sonnier was handed out.

  "You look surprised to see us, Jesper," Jean Baptiste commented.

  "It's my fault," Aida hurriedly explained, turning with embarrassment to her father. "Monsieur Sonnier asked me at the cattle branding when he should bring his corn for grinding. I said today would be fine and then I didn't remember it again until I saw them from the doorway."

  Momentarily everyone appeared uncomfortable. Aida wished bitterly that the earth would open and swallow her up. Why hadn't she remembered? Once more her foolish feather brain had failed her and other people were embarrassed as a consequence.

  "If this is not a convenient time," Jean Baptiste said. "We can come back another day."

  Jesper waved his words away. "Non, non. It is a perfect day for grinding corn. Not so damp that it will take on moisture and later spoil and not so dry that the turning of the stones will scorch it."

  "I am so sorry for forgetting." Aida looked anxiously at the men.

  "No harm done," her father assured all of them. "With Jean Baptiste and Armand to help me, it won't take any time at all to hitch up the team."

  The men began unloading the skiff. The children, curious and energetic, began running up and down the dock in bare feet, their shapeless gowns slapping against their knees.

  Aida still held little Pierre and the fat happy baby gurgled contently.

  "Please come inside and I will fix coffee," Aida said.

  Felicite accepted gratefully. "I should rightly feel guilty to rest myself while the men work," she told Aida. "But in truth, I am such a great cow that just getting from place to place seems a worthy effort."

  The two commiserated as they made their way up the bank to the house, leaving the men to take up the challenge of turning a year's worth of corn into meal and flour.

  In many ways it was the height of luxury to have corn mechanically milled. The Gaudets' moulin a gru could grind a year's worth of cornmeal in the time it took a woman working with mortar and pestle to pound out a day's ration. A man could rightly be proud of taking this burden from his womenfolk. And he could also be certain that if it was not ground to his satisfaction, he could complain about it hours on end without incurring his wife's wrath.

  "I was just sorting some sweet herbs," Aida said as they passed through the curtained doorway. "My little garden has really produced this year."

  Felicite followed to the table where she sat down heavily in one of the leather-seated ladder-back chairs. Aida handed little Pierre to her and she set the little fellow on the floor beside her. The baby immediately grasped fistfuls of his mother's skirts and pulled himself into a standing position.

  "He's going to walk soon," Aida said.

  Felicite nodded. "I'm hoping he'll wait until this one is born. I'm in no condition to be chasing him now."

  Aida began poking the ashes in the fireplace and urging new kindling to light.

  Madame Sonnier looked around curiously, surprised.

  "You've had no fire yet this morning?" she asked, clearly puzzled. "And you are sorting herbs before breakfast?"

  "Breakfast?" Aida repeated the word as if she had never heard it.

  Her eyes widened and she glanced down at her right hand, chagrined to find circles of thin cotton cord neatly tied on three of her fingers.

  "Oh no," she wailed, sitting back on her heels. "I remembered the string, but then forgot to look at my hand."

  Felicite's brow furrowed, confused.

  "Poor Poppa," Aida explained, shaking her head. "He's out there working on an empty stomach."

  Leaning forward, Felicite patted her shoulder, offering comfort. "Well, we will take him some bread and coffee," she said. "Men find that welcome any time of day."

  "Yes, oh yes. Can we do that?" Aida asked. "It seems almost like cheating. Like pretending that you remembered a meal when you didn't."

  "I don't imagine anyone will mind," Felicite assured her. "If you put on the coffee, I'll slice the bread."

  "Bread!" Her whispered exclamation was disheartened and fatalistic. "Yesterday was bread-baking day, but I forgot all about it. So I thought I would just bake this morning. But then I got started with the herbs and—"

  "We'll make biscuits," Felicite interrupted.

  In less than a half-hour the two women headed out the back door of the Gaudet house carrying a huge basket of hot biscuits and a pot of hot coffee.

  Jesper Gaudet had fashioned his grist mill, his moulin a gru with grinding stones bought downriver. It had taken two weeks and nearly ruined a team of horses to pull them upstream. But Gaudet told anyone who asked that it was the smartest move he'd ever made.

  Jesper's three mules were hitched to long poles connected to a center axis. The grist mill was housed in a well-built shake-roof shed that sat on a raised dais just outside the horsetrod. Each creaking, groaning circle pulled by the mules created about one hundred revolutions of the stone wheel.

  Inside, the great stones lay one atop the other. Aida's gaze was immediately drawn to Armand who stood in the shed, shirtless and straining as he and Jean Baptiste attached the long bull-hide band that connected the spindle that turned the top stone to the pulley that transmitted the power that was generated by the walking of the animals.

  It was tough, heavy work and both men were slick with the grease they liberally smeared upon the stem. Aida swallowed a strange sense of nervousness inside her as she watched him. The muscles of his arms and chest were tight and flexed against the smooth pa
le flesh so faintly shaded with soft brown hair. There was no burliness or brawn upon his frame, but Armand Sonnier appeared sturdy and stalwart and somehow breathtakingly masculine.

  The two had just managed to get the belt eased in place when he glanced up to catch Aida watching him. She felt the warmth of color rush to her cheeks. He jumped to the ground and hastily donned his shirt.

  "What have we here?" Jean Baptiste called out. "The ladies have brought us a reward for our effort."

  Aida's father headed toward them with an eager step. "It's good you caught us before the grinding began."

  To her great relief, he didn't make any joke about her failure to fix him a breakfast and no one complained about stopping to accept a bite of refreshment.

  Felicite seated herself and the children in the grass near the mill shed and spread the biscuits of little Gaston and Marie with jellied mayhaw.

  Aida carried the coffeepot and saw that the men's mugs continued to be full of the thick black brew.

  "Mmm, Mademoiselle Gaudet," Jean Baptiste said dramatically. "These are the best biscuits I ever tasted."

  "Madame Sonnier helped me," Aida responded modestly. "I usually forget either the salt or the baking powders."

  "You didn't forget a thing with these," Jean Baptiste assured her. "This daughter of yours is amazing, Gaudet. Not only is she beautiful, but she can cook, too."

  Aida couldn't quite disguise the blush of pride that his words brought to her cheeks. She smiled happily at Armand as she walked over to fill his cup.

  The younger Monsieur Sonnier, however, was not smiling.

  "My brother is quick to offer a compliment," Armand noted.

  Aida nodded almost shyly. "He is very kind."

  "The biscuits are good," Armand assured her.

  "Merci, monsieur," she replied, gleefully dropping a little half curtsy.

  He had removed his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow. The morning breeze tousled his hair attractively. Aida barely managed to resist the impulse to smooth it down. Armand was smiling at her now, smiling, friendly, but there seemed something almost troubled about his expression.

  "My brother is very charming always," he said. "But he is not so attractive as some men."

  Her eyes raised in question and Aida turned to glance at the older Sonnier standing with her father at the far end of the clearing. To her, Jean Baptiste appeared very familiar and in fact very dear, because he looked like Armand.

  Her gaze drifted back to Armand beside her. In truth, she had never thought whether he was handsome or plain. He was simply Armand, kind, patient, and oh so intelligent Armand. Aida loved beauty. She loved beautiful things and that included people. But she was not so shallow that she could not appreciate a person for his heart and mind rather than his face. A person could be even more beautiful inside than out. That is what she thought of Armand, inside he was beautiful.

  Shockingly, a saucy little thought intruded into her ruminating. Although Armand was decently covered, she could still see in memory the very masculine chest now hidden beneath a coarse homespun shirt. From what she had glimpsed earlier, some of his inside beauty had worked its way to the surface as well. She felt a treacherous warmth of humor and . . . and something else. It was that same curious excitement that his closeness had conjured up under the lilas tree.

  "On the contrary, monsieur," she answered with a teasing lilt to her voice. "I think the Sonniers are very handsome men."

  Armand stilled immediately and with a narrowed gaze his blue eyes avidly searched her face. Aida knew that somehow she had said the wrong thing.

  She knew from her own experience that beauty was, in women, associated with foolishness. But she had never thought men to fear such attractiveness. But perhaps Armand did. Maybe, because of his sickly childhood, he worried overmuch about what other men thought of him. Aida had never noticed that to be so. But there must be some reason why he kept her always at arm's length. He was the only man on the river that failed to flirt or tease her.

  "A man can be attractive," she continued, trying to reassure him. "And a woman notices that. But women do not choose a man by his looks alone."

  He continued to look at her, worried. Aida sought to give him an explanation. Her first thought was of Laron. He was very handsome, yet his handsomeness was not why she planned to marry him. His poverty and need for her father's land, figured much more heavily in her decision. But she couldn't say that. It was far too private to divulge, even to a friend. A movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention and she watched Jean Baptiste hoist baby Pierre in the air, causing the baby to laugh and gurgle. Aida had her example.

  "Take your brother, Jean Baptiste," she said. "He is very handsome to look at, but it is his hard work and generous nature that set him apart from other men."

  Armand's expression darkened and he threw out the rest of his coffee with a jerky motion that was almost angry.

  "He is also a good husband and a fine father." His words, spoken harshly, were a puzzle to Aida.

  "Yes, yes he is," she agreed. "I have always dreamed to someday be as happy as Felicite."

  On that same day it was very late in the afternoon before all the available rice had been cut and stacked. As Laron piled the grain into the waist-high shocks for drying, Helga and the children searched along the edges of the coulee and into the nearby woods for isolated patches that had grown up among the pickerelweed and swampgrass. One of the balancing features of providence rice was that, although the farmer expended little effort cultivating it, he had to get his feet wet trying to find it once it was grown.

  Helga found and cut a small clump that had been nearly hidden by an overgrowth of mudbabies. She carried her bundle to the drier strewn piles.

  Laron was there, sorting the cut rice and stacking it into shocks. His thin cottonade shirt clung to his sweat-soaked back as he bent and lifted the damp cut grain. He looked up as Helga approached, and he grinned. She smiled back at him, trying to match his mood. But he wasn't fooled.

  Laron straightened and looked down into her eyes, warmly and with love. The slanted rays of the sun glistened on his hair and cast a shadow in her direction.

  "I think this must be the last of it," he said as he took the bundle of cut grain from her arms. "Two weeks' drying in the shock and you'll be able to thresh out enough rice to keep those children's little bellies full all winter."

  Helga nodded. "Yes," she said. "This year they will not starve. You've taught us how to feed ourselves. It has been an important lesson."

  "It's about the only claim to education most Acadians would own up to," he admitted.

  "We would never have made it without you," she admitted quietly. "I don't know what would have become of us if you hadn't come into our lives when you did."

  Laron's smile faded and his expression became serious. "I'm glad I was here, Helga," he said. "I'm glad for your sake and the children, but mostly for myself."

  Helga looked up at him, so strong and dependable and loving. She could count on him. She knew that. She could count on him for food, for shelter, for protection. She could count on him to love her and to provide for her children. She could count on him— but she could never have him.

  And the whole situation was starting to hurt her oldest son.

  "What's wrong?" he asked, apparently having read the sorrow in her expression.

  She glanced around to assure herself that the children were out of earshot. Elsa was near the far end of the coulee. Jakob was much closer, but his attention had been captured by a small toad that was hopping through the muddy field.

  "Tell me what is wrong," Laron repeated.

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "Nothing is wrong."

  She'd made the statement adamantly. Not because she wanted him to believe it, but because she wanted not to have to talk about it. She wanted to delay for another day, another hour, even another minute.

  But she could not.

  "We should not see eac
h other anymore," she said. "It is time you stopped these visits to me."

  Laron paled visibly and his expression was stricken. He reached for her. His hands upon her shoulders, he held her firmly, securely, as if he feared she might run away.

  "Helga, no. I cannot—"

  "The time has come for this to end," she interrupted. "It has been three years. Three years that we have ignored our beliefs, ignored what is right. You know that I have always cared about you, but this liaison can continue no longer."

  He was silent, frighteningly silent for a long moment.

  "You have heard about Mademoiselle Gaudet, haven't you," he said finally.

  Helga's brow furrowed. "Mademoiselle Gaudet?"

  "I ... I am betrothed," he admitted.

  She couldn't have been more stunned if he'd slapped her. Helga thought herself already sufficiently wounded to be numb, but his words penetrated painfully. "No, no I had not heard. I recall you have said that she is a rare beauty. Congratulations."

  "We have been affianced for well almost two years."

  Helga's eyes widened in disbelief. An angry rebuke came to her lips, but she didn't speak it. She could not complain that he did not tell her. She was his leman, his convenience. She had no right to know or intrude on his life, his plans, his future.

  "I wish you happy, Monsieur Boudreau."

  Her answer was as unfeeling and formal as if she were only the most casual of acquaintances.

  "We are not to wed until the spring."

  Helga maintained a noncommittal mask. "It is a long time for a bridegroom to wait."

  "This bridegroom could wait forever," he answered softly. "Helga, I love you. Perhaps I have not said that enough. I do love you. But a man ... a man must wed. If you were free I—"

  "I am not free and I have never been." Her tone was harsh, deliberately cold.

  He nodded.

  "Don't cast me out yet," he said, quietly pleading. "I knew you would not conscience me as another woman's husband, but I am not yet wed. Let me stay beside you until spring. Let me . . . let me love you until I take vows to promise not."