Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  "I am leaving now," Laron told him. "But I wish you to give a message to your mother."

  Karl looked skeptical but nodded.

  "Tell her that I am going to make it all right. Once and for all time, I am going to make it right."

  And he would, Laron vowed silently once more as he poled himself and Armand toward the ever increasing volume of music along the river. He was going to make it right.

  "She is very sweet and genuine, actually," Armand was saying. "Certainly a man cannot look at her without feeling a degree of lust, but it is not as if she draws it to herself or even desires that attention. A woman cannot be held responsible for her own beauty any more than she can be condemned for plainness."

  "If you think she is so wonderful, Armand," Laron interrupted, "then perhaps you should set your own sights in that direction. I am no longer interested."

  "But Laron—"

  "We are here already," he announced. "I fully intend to talk to her, my friend, so please do not bend my ear any further about it."

  The fais-dodo was in full swing. Dancers twirled on the most even spot of the Guidrys' high ground. A huge fire was lit in the outside hearth, but it was not as much for cooking as for fending off the November chill in the air. The space at the end of the dock was overcrowded; the two men stepped out of the pirogue and were forced to wade the last steps to the bank, dragging the boat up behind them.

  "I'm getting wet," Armand complained.

  Laron laughed at him. "If you insist on wearing those resplendent Creole trousers, then you must learn to live with your damp pant legs."

  His friend growled back at him good-naturedly. They were met upon the bank by friends and neighbors with happy greetings and slaps upon the back. Laron, who had not been seen among them since his now well-known foray to the Bayou Blonde, was greeted with both warmth and curiosity. He'd stepped over the bounds, but he was back in the fold. All were willing to forgive and forget, and could do so easily.

  Laron laughed and talked and communed with them. He enjoyed these people and this place. He cherished being a part of them. They were his family, some literally and others in his heart. He loved them. But he loved Helga more and he had things to accomplish. It was time to do those things.

  He made his way to the edge of the dancers, his eyes taking in, with pleasure, the beauty of Aida Gaudet. On Granger's arm she danced with delicate grace. She was a treasure to behold, all light and prettiness as shiny as morning. She was a swirl of eye-catching color, all red and blue and yellow. Any man's attention would be drawn to her. He understood how his own once had been, too. He had thought to possess her. To press that lovely body against his own and fill it with his seed. He no longer had the desire to do that. He could look at her dispassionately now and know that she was human. He could be sorry that he was going to abandon her, but he would not regret the loss.

  The music ended and the dancers clapped politely. Aida spotted him in that moment and paled. He never approached her early in the evening. He always watched her have her fun until he was ready to take his obligatory dance. Tonight he stepped forward immediately.

  As if knowing that a Passepied was not Laron's main interest, Ony Guidry took that moment to put down the fiddle and seek out a cup of coffee.

  "We must talk," he said to her.

  "Yes," she answered, nodding.

  Laron hesitated momentarily. Should he take her into the relative privacy of the nearby trees, or would that be unconscionable for a couple who were just about to become unengaged?

  He led her a little away from the other young people, but kept in full sight of every person present. He wished suddenly that he had practiced what he had to say, but he hadn't truly gotten much past the decision to say it.

  "My dear Mademoiselle Gaudet," he began formally. "It seems that I have done you a great wrong. I—"

  Laron hesitated. Aida wasn't even looking at him, she was searching for something inside her sleeve.

  "We have known each other from childhood," he continued a little warily. "And we have been betrothed for some time so I feel that I must speak plainly. I . . ."

  She was still trying to retrieve something from her sleeve.

  "Mamselle?"

  "I have it here someplace," she said. "I purposely put it right here in my right sleeve so I would not lose it."

  Laron's brow furrowed with curiosity. "I believe that is your left sleeve," he whispered.

  Aida looked up at him wide-eyed. "Yes, yes it is. Oh dear, sometimes I just get so rattled. Just one minute. I have it here—"

  She began immediately digging inside the other brightly colored sleeve. A moment later she pulled out what appeared to be a wad of multicolored rags. She pressed them in his hands.

  "I know what you are going to say, or at least I think that I do and it is not necessary. I ... I cannot marry you, Monsieur Boudreau, because I . . . think I may love someone else. And I believe that you do also. I think, however, that I should call it off. Everyone will think it is because of your adventure at the Bayou Blonde. That should keep the gossips occupied and we can try to sort out our lives as best we can."

  Laron spread the wad of rags across his hands. It was a miniature collection of male clothing. A tiny shirt, a little coat, and a pair of culottes that would more likely fit a mouse than a man. He had been sacked, handed his vetements. In the traditional way, he had become the rejected suitor. He had shown himself too small in her eyes.

  Strangely he caressed the tiny blue jacket and then looked up at her. She was very young, very pretty, and very anxious.

  "I didn't realize that you could sew," he said.

  "I can do anything that I have to do," she answered.

  There was a gasp beside them and they both spotted Ruby beside them, staring in horror at the jilting suit. The small sound had captured the attention of others around her and within a moment's time there was a complete silence in the company and every eye was staring at the couple with shock and disbelief.

  Laron leaned closer, not willing for any to hear.

  "Thank you, Aida," he whispered. "I'm going away this night and won't be here to face the gossips with you."

  "I can handle them," she answered. Her brow furrowed in concern. "Where are you going? Not to Bayou Blonde."

  He shook his head. "Down the river to the German coast," he answered. "I'd rather no one knew, but I have business there."

  She nodded. "Best of luck with your business, monsieur," she said.

  He took her hand and brought it to his lips. "And best of luck to you, mademoiselle. I think I will find you more agreeable as a friend than I would have as wife."

  She smiled at him, that tiny shy smile that could slay the heart of any man on the Vermilion River.

  "Indeed I think you shall," she answered.

  He stepped back, bowed formally, and walked away. The silence around the gaily lit party was near complete. Laron walked straight to his pirogue, looking neither to the left nor to the right. No one spoke a word or moved to stop him.

  Suddenly Armand broke free from the group and hurried after him calling his name. Laron kept walking. He kept his face devoid of expression but he wanted to scream for joy. Free! He was free! Now it was left only to make her free also.

  "Laron!"

  Armand was hurrying behind him. He would not let him merely go without a word. But Laron was already ankle-deep in water before he finally forced himself to turn and speak to his friend.

  "I am leaving," he said simply. "Do not be concerned for me. And tell my sisters not to worry. I won't be at Bayou Blonde."

  "Laron, you cannot do this," Armand insisted. "I will not allow you to throw you life away. You cannot break this engagement."

  He held up his handful of little clothes. "I did not break it, she did. It seems, my friend, that the lovely Aida thinks she loves someone else."

  Chapter 11

  Armand had great hopes for the fais-dodo. It had taken a bit of arm twisting to get Laron to att
end, but he'd done it. Armand was certain that familiarity, duty, and the lure of the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River would do the rest.

  As Laron had watched the lovely Aida dance, Armand made his way to the fire. He pretended an interest in the conversation going on there. In fact, he stood near the blaze in the hope of drying out his pant legs. He enjoyed the companionship of the fire until the fiddle stopped playing and the din of conversation increased dramatically.

  Not far from him, smoking a pipe with Oscar Benoit and Hippolyte Arceneaux, his brother Jean Baptiste was telling a very crude joke that Armand had already heard about a woman whose entrance was stretched so big, her husband donned a miner's hat to mount her.

  Jean Baptiste should have stayed at home, he thought. Felicite wasn't feeling well enough to come. Her husband should be there at her side, not here telling raucous jokes to other jaded husbands, probably no more steadfast than himself.

  Armand had glanced back again at Laron and Aida.

  Come on, my friend, he urged silently. Make it up with her, marry her, and we can all be happy again.

  "Armand, my son, it is good to see you again."

  He felt the priest's hand upon his shoulder and it was all Armand could do not to moan aloud.

  "Good evening, Father Denis," he said. "I hope you are doing well."

  "Tolerably so, thank you," he answered. "But of course I would do better if I were to hear that you have reconsidered your ill-thought-out position on the school."

  "Father, I believe I have already said everything that is to be said on that subject," Armand stated stiffly.

  The old priest smiled. "Yes, I suppose you have rather thoroughly articulated your wrong-minded view." He snorted and shook his head. "The idea that somehow the absence of knowledge could be an advantage and savior rather than a burden and affliction."

  Father Denis's words were a little too close to the truth for comfort. Armand didn't actually believe it that way, or he didn't mean it quite as the priest portrayed. Still he hung on to his position with stubbornness.

  "You will not be able to change my mind," he said.

  Father Denis nodded. "Yes, I've come to that conclusion myself." He sighed and then smiled down at Armand. "This is another of those situations where I just have to trust in God to change it for me."

  "What?"

  "He works His will in our lives," the priest answered. "All we need is the patience to allow Him to do so."

  Armand felt something familiar pull at him inside. It was a vague, uneasy, untenable feeling and he shrank from it. Fortunately his attention was immediately averted by the sound of a startled gasp.

  Like everyone else he turned toward the sound. It had come out of the mouth of Ruby Babin, but unerringly he followed her gaze to the contents of Laron Boudreau's hands.

  At first his brow furrowed in curiosity, then he realized what his friend held. Jilting clothes, sized to fit the man a fellow would think himself to be after being thrown over by his betrothed.

  Armand was stunned into disbelief. What was happening? Aida was sending him away. That just couldn't be. It just wouldn't do. Armand was frozen in place, stunned into silence like those around him.

  He watched Laron walking calmly, head unbowed, toward his pirogue. His heart ached for his friend. First to lose Helga and now Aida. It was not to be borne. Laron was leaving. Alone.

  Armand broke away from the crowd and hurried after him.

  "Laron!" he called out. His voice sounded unusually loud in the silence around him. "Laron wait!"

  He finally caught up with him just when Laron was getting to the boat. Laron turned. His words were calm, but his expression was unfathomable.

  "I am leaving. Do not be concerned for me. And tell my sisters not to worry. I won't be at Bayou Blonde."

  "Laron, you cannot do this," Armand insisted. "I will not allow you to throw your life away. You cannot break this engagement."

  Laron held up his handful of little clothes for his inspection. Armand still couldn't believe it and shook his head. "I did not break it," Laron pointed out, "she did." Laron actually smiled. "It seems, my friend, that the lovely Aida thinks she loves someone else."

  He had turned then, unsecured the line, and waded out to his pirogue. Armand watched him go, stunned and silent. How could he fix this? How could he make it right?

  Armand's inability to answer those questions led him down the path to renewed fear. Laron's words echoed inside him.

  She thinks she loves someone else.

  Armand turned quickly to face the muttering crowd of people behind him. Unerringly his eyes sought out and found his brother.

  "Jean Baptiste." It was whispered, prayerful.

  He was still standing with Arceneaux and Benoit. He was still safe.

  With deliberate determination Armand walked back up the bank and into the crowd. People were talking all around him, asking him questions.

  "What did he say?"

  "Where is he going?"

  "He's back to Bayou Blonde, no doubt."

  "I wonder if he'll take that German widow with him?"

  "Shush! Don't speak of her in front of the young women, Rosemond!"

  "Have you seen that youngest of hers?"

  "Doesn't favor him much?"

  "Lucky. Very lucky."

  "Why did she do it?"

  "The widow?"

  "Aida."

  "Wouldn't want to set up house with a drunken gallant."

  "She could have brought him around."

  "Good blood the Boudreaus have."

  "Anatole must be spinning in his grave!"

  "That old man had an eye for the ladies, he just married up with the prettiest one."

  "And Laron had meant to do the same."

  "What a shame. What a sad, sad shame."

  Armand willed himself not to hear, not to think. He moved through them, not speaking, not reacting. He moved toward the clearing where the dancers stood. He had to get to Aida. He had to convince her that she'd made a mistake.

  Finally he was standing in front of her. She looked scared and pale, but in control. A tearful Ruby was holding her arm. Nearby Granger and Marchand hovered uncertainly.

  "I must talk with you," he said.

  "Dance with me."

  It was not an invitation but a demand.

  "What?"

  "Dance with me."

  "I cannot."

  "You cannot dance?"

  "Of course I can dance, but not with you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because . . . because you stand taller than I."

  "At this moment it seems a rather foolish concern."

  He looked at her then, truly looked at her and realized how thin her layer of composure was. Even if she was about to break up his brother's marriage, she shouldn't be subjected to such a public humiliation.

  "Monsieur Guidry!" Armand called out. "A Rigaudon if you will, the young lady wishes to dance."

  The old fiddler was jolted out of his reverie and immediately struck up a lively tune. Armand bowed over Aida's hand and led her out. Several other couples joined them immediately and they quickly formed a ring and commenced the steps.

  He had noticed before that she was a graceful dancer. She felt even more so in his arms. They spun and twirled and passed again. And when the step called for nearness and hands clasped, it did not seem all that intolerable that he was the shorter of the two. They moved together with ease and grace and when the ritual of the dance decreed that he place his hand at her waist for a half-spin, he did it. The need to wrap his arms around her and pull her tight against him was a desire that he didn't give in to. He forced himself to think about what he must do. She'd told Laron that she thought herself perhaps in love already. He must do whatever was necessary to protect her from Jean Baptiste. Or rather, he hastily corrected himself, to protect Jean Baptiste from her. That is what it was. She was beautiful and desirable and Jean Baptiste was merely weak.

  Aida had broken wit
h Laron no doubt because of Bayou Blonde. Clearly that was understandable. It was a disreputable place with disreputable people. No woman would want to think that the man she planned to husband her would dally among such coarseness and the dangers of disease. He must make her understand that Laron's inconstancy was a temporary aberration. Once she forgave him and they married, he would always be a good and faithful husband.

  The ladies moved in front of him in a circle. He stepped forward, crossed his hands before him, and took Aida with his left and Mademoiselle Douchet with his right. He spun the two females simultaneously two turns before passing the extra, Mademoiselle Douchet, on to the next gentleman.

  Momentarily, as he glanced down to see the lovely Aida's pretty hands in his own, he wondered if what he was planning to say would be true. Could his friend, loving one woman, be faithful in marriage to another? And what about himself? When the time came and some lovely little female from some other parish vowed to be his bride, would he still pine for Aida Gaudet?

  The thought caused him to trip in his step. Aida looked over at him curiously as he recovered his balance, but not his composure.

  He loved her, yearned for her, but it could never be. She was not for him, not at all.

  The memory of the afternoon in Madame Landry's garden assailed him. She had been sitting, cross-legged and curious, in the dirt. Not precisely the prim, pretty Aida with which he was familiar. Her enthusiasm was buoyant and her wit surprising. He had been unable to keep his eyes off her.

  And then she had caught him. Caught him straightaway, staring at her as if she were a feast and he a starving man. Well, maybe she was a feast and he could be described as extremely hungry, but there was no place for him at that dinner table.

  It seemed forever before the tune was done, yet the time went too quickly. He bowed to her formally and then reluctantly released her hand.

  He stepped closer to speak more privately.

  "We must talk, mamselle," he whispered.

  "No, I cannot, monsieur," she answered. "I cannot talk tonight. Tonight I must dance."

  Armand was annoyed. It was important that he speak with her and as soon as possible. But if she would not, he could not. He moved to step away and spied his brother edging up closer to the dancers.