Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  Laughing, the elder Sonnier hoisted his young son up to the first big branch of the cypress. Armand moved lower to join the child. His knee-length shapeless dress hampered the boy's natural climbing ability.

  With the pole in his right hand, Armand locked his legs tightly around the tree limb and wrapped his left arm around Gaston's waist, holding the little fellow securely to his chest.

  "Are you afraid?"

  The little boy looked down at his father several feet below.

  "Your uncle Armand won't let you fall," Jean Baptiste assured him. "But even if he did, Poppa will always be here to catch you."

  Armand felt the child's little body relax.

  "It's pretty high up here," Armand said.

  The little boy looked around, getting his bearings. "I like it," he said finally. "I like climbing trees and this is the biggest tree I have ever climbed."

  Armand grinned at him and kissed the side of his brow.

  "Being in the tree can be very wonderful. Look how far downstream you can see."

  Gaston craned his neck.

  "How far away do you think that is off there?"

  The little boy shook his head in wonder.

  "Perhaps we can see as far as La Pointe or Vermilionville. Do you think we can see as far as the bay?"

  The boy squinted off into the distance. "I don't know," he admitted.

  Armand smiled at him, pleased. "Shall I show you how to use the pole?" he asked.

  Gaston nodded.

  He had the boy grasp the pole just below Armand's hands. "Just ease it out," he said. "Get it just into the center of the swag and then gently pull back."

  The two managed to hook a good-sized piece. Carefully they brought it around until it hung high over the pirogue. Then with a twist of the wrist, it fell into the towering heap that already heavily loaded the boat.

  "I did it!" Gaston cheered himself loudly.

  Both adults made the proper congratulations.

  "I can gather moss just like you and Poppa," he declared proudly.

  "My father, your grandpere, used to gather moss in this bayou. Maybe from this very tree," Armand told him.

  "Truly?"

  Armand nodded. "And someday you and Pierre will gather moss here, too, just like we do today."

  "Me and Pierre?" Gaston was skeptical. "Pierre's just a baby."

  "But he will grow up just like you will," Armand said. "And you two will be farmers like your father and I. And you will do things together and help each other because you are brothers. That is what brothers do. And the difference in age won't seem like anything important at all."

  Gaston accepted that idea thoughtfully. "I'll be the big brother, like Poppa. So I will stand in the boat to get the ones hanging low."

  Armand shrugged. "Maybe so. But you can never tell who will grow to be biggest."

  "Oh I will," Gaston assured him. "I want to be tall like my poppa."

  The two looked down at Jean Baptiste, who was smiling proudly.

  "It's a good thing to be a big man and strong," Gaston said.

  "It's a good thing to be happy with whoever you are," Armand told him.

  "Uncle Armand, are you happy being small?"

  Armand looked at the boy for a long minute and then leaned closer as if to put a secret in his ear.

  "I get to climb the trees," he whispered.

  The pirogue was low in the water as the Sonniers made their way home. With the weight of the moss it took both of them to pole the huge craft. Armand took the fore and Jean Baptiste the aft. They moved in unison aiding the pirogue on its downstream journey and keeping it within the deepest channel where it would not snag up on some unseen debris.

  Young Gaston slept soundly, peacefully atop the heap, even though it was only noon. They had risen at dawn to complete their task before the heat of the day.

  "How is Laron?" Jean Baptiste asked, breaking the contemplative silence.

  Armand sighed heavily. "I don't really know."

  "His family was very surprised and upset about his running off to Bayou Blonde."

  "The German widow has bid him pass no more time with her," Armand said. "He is taking it very hard."

  Jean Baptiste shook his head.

  "It is for the best though," Armand continued. "She was why he was so hesitant to wed. Now he can go ahead, begin his life, have his family as he's always planned."

  "Yes, he should get on with his life. He will forget the German soon enough. A beautiful young woman like Aida Gaudet could make any man forget the past," Jean Baptiste said appreciatively. "Even a past with one that he thought he loved."

  Something as cold as fear and as hard as stone settled in Armand's chest.

  "So have they pushed up the wedding date?" Jean Baptiste asked.

  "Not yet. Laron is not yet reconciled."

  "What do you mean he's not yet reconciled?"

  "He still thinks to have the widow” Armand answered.

  "How can he do that? She is widow in name only."

  Armand sighed heavily. "He cannot. He doesn't accept it, but of course he will. He will have to."

  Jean Baptiste nodded.

  The last few days with Laron had been difficult ones. His friend was just becoming impervious to reason. He was going to have Helga Shotz and no one else.

  Armand's own guilt about this multiplied innumerably. It was he himself who had first suggested this idea, after all. It was he who had said that perhaps Laron could be happy merely living with the woman that he truly wanted. He had spoken from his own heart, selfishly. Now he feared to reap the harvest of those careless words.

  Having heard the whole story, he found that he now greatly admired Madame Shotz. With her little children to raise, the German widow was not about to openly live in sin with Laron, reviled by the community, an embarrassment to the Boudreau family. And now that her oldest had come to an age of understanding, she was not even willing to continue the clandestine relationship of the past.

  Laron must see that he could not have her. And he must turn once again to Aida Gaudet. Armand had deliberately sought her out on several occasions in

  the last couple of weeks. He had spoken at length about Laron's good qualities and what a fine husband he would make for her.

  She remained vaguely noncommittal. And the gossip about Laron's activities in Bayou Blonde had not helped, he was certain.

  "You sound as if you have been chosen as his protégé,'' Aida told him, speaking of the tradition of a man other than the would-be groom proposing to the bride.

  "Laron is my dearest friend," Armand said. "I want him to be happy."

  He only hoped that the words he spoke were the truth.

  The day before he'd gone by to check on Orva Landry, and the old woman had shaken her head and pointed her finger at him accusingly.

  "You stir and stir," she told him. "But you can't make a chicken from soup. Just let the pot boil and accept destiny as it comes."

  Armand glanced behind him at his nephew, asleep on the moss pile, and his brother, steady at the pole.

  Armand knew from his own experience what it was for two brothers to grow up without a father. Would Gaston and Pierre share that fate? He thought to himself that some destinies must be avoided in any way possible.

  Swallowing his anxiety, he purposely concentrated on the peace and beauty that surrounded him. There was almost no breeze upon the water. The occasional plop of a fish or splash of a turtle were the only sounds except for the gentle wake of their own pirogue. The morning had been cool, almost chill.

  And there was a bite to the air and a fragrance in it that said winter was close.

  All up and down the banks the verdant greens of summer grass and trees were giving way to the muted browns, pale yellows, and occasional vibrant splash of fall orange.

  Winter was coming and winter was a good time for Acadians. There was little work and much time spent in frolic and family gatherings.

  Old man Breaux had again spoken to Arman
d of his "tiny little niece" who was coming for an after-Christmas visit. Armand wanted to feel a sense of anticipation for his future, but the present worries of the people that he loved too much overwhelmed him.

  Up ahead the sound of splashing water caught his attention. It was too loud to be turtles or gators. Was someone swimming? As they rounded a curve in the river, they spotted a woman doing laundry.

  A long rough-hewn plank extended from the bank out into the river where the woman sat straddled, her bare legs in the gray water. The mid-morning sun gleamed down, showing her in relief against the dark shaded woods behind her. With the square wooden battoir she pounded the clothes on the end of the plank mercilessly. The strong, rhythmic motions were born of much practice and competence, the task somehow passionate and feminine in its aspect.

  "Bonjour, Madame!" Armand hailed her, politely not wishing to come up on her unexpectedly.

  It was only when she turned to look in his direction that Armand realized the woman was Aida Gaudet. He was momentarily taken aback. He should have realized; certainly this was very near her father's home. And of course he knew that Mademoiselle Gaudet would have laundry to do for herself and her father, just as any other woman would. But somehow he did not imagine her, had never imagined her, as she was now. Garbed in a loose-fitting, near-threadbare work dress and with a gardesoleil sun-bonnet so functional and unattractive it was only describable as ugly, she labored hardily at such a mundane task.

  "Messieurs Sonnier!" she called out gaily, as if she were at a party rather than scrubbing dirty clothes on the end of a plank. "How are you?"

  Armand waved back silently and would have passed right by, but realized as the pirogue began to slow that Jean Baptiste was steering them closer. He answered her greeting.

  "Well mamselle, and you?"

  With an ease that belied the weight and clumsiness of the cargo, they pulled to a stop only a few feet from the end of the young woman's wash plank.

  "How lovely you look this afternoon," Jean Baptiste said to her. "With the sun shining down on you, you are beautiful as a painting in church."

  Armand had thought the same thing, but he was disturbed to hear Jean Baptiste say it.

  Aida giggled as if he told a great joke.

  "Thank you, monsieur," she said with exaggerated formality. "What you see before you is the very latest in laundering fashion. All the best clothes must be washed, so alas, the worst must be worn."

  The two laughed together easily. Too easily, Armand thought. It was no problem for Aida Gaudet to joke about her appearance, he realized. Even clad

  in such clothes, she was inordinately desirable. Her rolled-up sleeves allowed a man to feast his eyes upon the smooth, sun-pinked skin of her arms, prettily rounded with not a hint of skinniness, and the delicate femininity of her narrow wrists, small enough for a man to hold both in his own.

  It was upon her arms and wrists that Armand concentrated his attention because he was much too aware of her bosom, heavily spattered with water, the thin cottonade clinging to her abundant curves with unrelenting accuracy, and of the exposed flesh of her naked legs, only partially hidden in the murky water of the Vermilion River.

  Of course it was impossible for a woman to wash clothes without rolling up her sleeves and tying up her skirt and getting wet. But did a woman converse with men in such attire?

  To be fair Armand did recall several times when he conversed with Felicite as she did the wash. And of course he'd watched Orva Landry do hers. But that was not at all the same. Felicite was his sister-in-law and Orva Landry an old woman. He had spoken briefly once with Madame Hebert in much the same position that Aida was at this moment. But that had not seemed at all . . . at all the way that this seemed.

  They should move away. They should not speak with her any longer.

  Jean Baptiste kept talking. He kept smiling at her.

  She kept giggling.

  "Most women do their wash on Wednesday," Armand pointed out.

  Aida's cheeks brightened with embarrassment. "As do I, too," she admitted. "But yesterday, well, I . . . I just forgot that yesterday was Wednesday and

  then Thursday was upon us and . . . and so I have to do Wednesday's laundry on Thursday."

  As Armand listened to her explanation, it was all he could do not to shake his head in disbelief. The woman was completely devoid of any sense of reality. She must spend her life in a haze, unaware of anyone else.

  She did, however, have other qualities. Unerringly Armand's eyes were drawn to her bare knees just breaking the surface of the water. They were spread apart by the width of the plank. She was completely covered by the bunched fabric of her skirt. There was nothing inherently immodest in her pose. Still Armand's throat went extremely dry and his body tense. Her knees were spread on either side of the plank. Parting Aida's knees, spreading them apart, wide . . . The idea sizzled through him like grease on hot coals.

  He jerked his hat off his head and held it in front of him, ostensibly to run a hand through his hair.

  Aida looked at him, smiling shyly, as if nothing was amiss.

  "How is it going with Madame Sonnier?" she asked Jean Baptiste. "Her time draws near, I think."

  "She is well," he answered. "Her limbs trouble her somewhat, they are badly swollen it seems. Much more so than any of the other times."

  Felicite's limbs? Armand nearly scoffed aloud. Anger mixed unevenly into the heat of his arousal. His brother was thinking about limbs all right, but not swollen ones. He was looking at Aida Gaudet with her legs astraddle that plank and he was thinking the same thing that Armand was. Armand was sure of that. But unlike Jean Baptiste, Armand did not have a wife at home who loved him and cared for him. Jean Baptiste had no right to allow his mind to stray in such a direction.

  And she, since the most handsome unattached man was ignoring her, was encouraging the most handsome attached man.

  "Perhaps she should try some catmint tea," Aida suggested.

  "Catmint tea?"

  "It's said to help with swelling."

  Jean Baptiste offered a polite thank you. "I shall ask Madame Landry for the herb next time I see her."

  "Oh I can give you some," Aida told him quickly. "From my little garden. I grow my own herbs."

  "I didn't know that," Jean Baptiste told her.

  "It's just a girlish pass-a-time," she assured him. "I showed my garden to Monsieur Armand the Sunday he came to my porch. I enjoy watching the plants grow and flower. And I love the fragrances."

  "Ah! So it is then no wonder that you always smell so sweet, mamselle," Jean Baptiste said.

  With a pointed nod she accepted his compliment. "It will only take me a minute to get the catmint."

  She scooted back along the plank and then rose to her feet and dropped her damp skirts in one smooth nimble motion that revealed nothing untoward.

  "I will be right back," she called as she turned and raced up the path into the woods.

  Armand listened to Jean Baptiste's pleasured sigh. "She is as graceful as a deer," he said wistfully. Then he shook his head. "Poor Felicite moves like an ox."

  "Poor Felicite is your wife!" Armand almost snarled at him. "It would serve you better if you spoke of her with greater respect."

  Jean Baptiste turned to look at Armand as if the younger brother had suddenly grown donkey ears.

  "What in the world—" he began.

  "Poppa, are we home?" a sleepy Gaston asked from the top of the moss pile.

  "Non, petit," Jean Baptiste answered. "We have only stopped to chat with Mademoiselle Gaudet."

  Aida hurried up the woods pathway to the back door of her house. She wasn't sure how she was feeling—partially elated, partially embarrassed. Ostensibly she chose her washing site because it was close to the fence line where she hung the clothes to dry. But the fact that she was rarely seen there and that those who did pass by merely hailed her from a distance had always been a substantial side benefit. Laundry was not a pretty chore and it was difficul
t for a woman to look her best while doing it.

  Now today, when she was not only garbed in her worst but splashed and spattered, the Sonnier brothers had deliberately sought her out for conversation.

  Jean Baptiste was not difficult, at least. He was such a warm and agreeable fellow. Felicite was certainly a lucky woman to have him for a husband.

  Armand, however, appeared today rather grim and humorless. While Jean Baptiste chatted and charmed, Armand looked at her as if she were a rodent caught in his corncrib. She had seen so much of him lately and it seemed inevitably when she was saying or doing something that made her seem like a fool. Compared to him, of course, she was not at all smart. He could read and write and he understood all about money and governments and the world outside. She didn't know any of that, but she did know that her engagement to Monsieur Boudreau was on a shaky foundation and getting more so everyday.

  And she wished she could talk to Armand about it—not only was he Laron's best friend, but as children they had been close.

  Laron hadn't so much as darkened her doorway since that Sunday that he failed to show up on her porch. A few days later Ruby had told her about Laron's trip to Bayou Blonde.

  She had no idea what had set him off in that direction or what his feelings now might be. But he had not hurried to beg her pardon. He'd apparently sent Armand to do it for him. A half-dozen times since then his best friend had offered a recitation of her fiancé’s virtues.

  Aida's mouth thinned unpleasantly. Maybe because she had never made demands upon Laron, he thought that he could treat her without respect. Well, she was not about to be publicly humiliated by him. She was not going to be made a laughingstock. If Laron couldn't even be bothered to come speak for himself, she seriously doubted that he would be eager to make vows with her. And if the betrothal was to be broken, Aida knew without question that it was she herself who was going to break it.

  Skirting the henhouse and the back shed, Aida made her way into the yard. Near the center of the cleared, nearly grassless area, used for household tasks and chicken scratching, was the tall circular-shaped cistern where rainwater was caught for drinking and cooking.