Pamela Morsi

by The Love Charm

  "If you wish to dance, Mademoiselle Gaudet," Armand said hastily, "then I would be your partner for the evening long."

  Her eyes widened in surprise. "It is not done."

  "Afraid of the gossips?" he asked. "Can they chatter faster than they are already?"

  She giggled then. It was a delightful, warm, winning sound. Armand fought the urge to pull her into his arms.

  "I am yours, monsieur, all yours for the night."

  The words, offered lightly, had a jolting effect on Armand's body. He managed a wan smile. Oh how he wished that it was true.

  Aida stood in the last glimmering light of the Saturday night moon washing dishes. Her poppa was already snoring in the other room as she leaned out the tablette window where her dishpan sat and scrubbed the dried-on remains of supper, grateful

  that the Acadian-styled lean-out wash shelf allowed her occasional inattention only to splash water on the ground below the window.

  She'd forgotten all about the dishes, of course. In the excitement of going to the fais-dodo and her intention to hand Laron the jilting clothes, she'd allowed the mundane task to slip her mind. And she was unpleasantly surprised to come home and discover that she hadn't even cleared the supper table. This was just the sort of thing, she was certain, that led to people believing she was silly and scatterbrained. Well, perhaps that was she exactly. She certainly was acting that way.

  She had thrown over Laron Boudreau, the most handsome man in the parish, because . . . because . . . because . . . There was really no answer. The people of the parish had decided long ago that the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River should marry the most attractive man. That man was Laron Boudreau and nothing that had happened, not the German widow, the Bayou Blonde, or his seeming disaffection, had changed that.

  But she had cast him off and she was not at all certain why. She had told him that she thought she was in love with someone else. Even remembering her own words brought a blush of embarrassment.

  She had been thinking about Armand Sonnier, of course. It seemed that lately all she did think about was sweet, patient Armand Sonnier. As if such a pairing could ever occur.

  He wasn't truly handsome at all, even if she squinted until she could barely make him out. And he was short, desperately short. A woman should never love a man whom she could stand next to and criticize the straightness of the part in his hair.

  Of course, the other day in the garden, he had actually appeared quite attractive. And, strangely, dancing with him was exceptionally pleasant. She had not been uncomfortably aware of his lack of height, but rather enjoyed his very graceful movement and the way he twirled and led her with such precision and skill. A lazy, languid smile drifted over her face as she imagined once more those bright blue eyes as they looked at her with such intensity.

  It could not mean what she thought, she assured herself. Armand Sonnier was not a man to be flirted with and wooed with false wiles. When he looked at her, he saw the real Aida. And if he did not turn away, that was a compliment in itself.

  But no, he could not be in love with her. He was wise, knowledgeable, and literate. He was like a regular man, with a rather irregular mind. Yes, that was it. She smiled at the cleverness of her apt description. That was it exactly. And she could never hope to appeal to him.

  Aida stilled suddenly. She'd heard something. Her soapy hands lay unmoving in the dishwater as she listened . . . listened . . . listened. She had heard something. Something. Her heart was pounding. Her blood was surging.

  Don't be silly! she scolded herself. It was her own heart she was hearing. It was her own heart and nothing more. Still she held herself stiff and poised in expectation.

  Aida had been one of those rare children who hated scary things. While her little friends had relished tales of pirate ghosts, swamp monsters, and peg-legged Englishmen, she had always cried at such stories and hidden her head. Even games like "got-you" and "boo" were not to her liking. She saw nothing fun about being frightened. And she was frightened now.

  Deliberately, slowly, she pulled her hands from the dishwater and wiped them on her apron. She listened. Listened.

  In the next room her father was snoring. The crickets kept up their noisy chatter. The world was far from silent, not holding its breath in fear as some bear or cat or giant beast approached. No Baritaria pirate, wild Indian, Americaine outlaw or escaped slave lurked in the darkness. The sounds were all there, they were all normal. It was nothing, nothing at all. She had simply taken a silly fantasy, she assured herself. There was nothing to fear.

  She forced herself to release her breath. It was nothing, nothing.

  She heard it again.

  No, not heard it. She felt it. It was on her. In her. Cold. It—they were here in the room. They were in the room with her.

  Aida was no longer paralyzed with fear. She ran. She ran as if all the devils of hell were after her.

  She was through the curtained door and down the porch. Her bare feet slapped the cypress planks in a rhythm of panic. Too terrified to scream, she raced away, away from them. She had to get away. They pursued her. She had to get away.

  At the end of the dock she stopped abruptly. There was no further that she could go. There was no path to get away. She could not rim on water. She was trapped, cornered. There was no way out. No, of course there was not.

  Aida trembled. She quaked and trembled at the end of the dock. She should call out for her father. But no, she knew her father could not help her now. There was nothing about this that her father could even understand.

  She folded her arms across her chest, offering herself what little comfort she could. She bit her lip, wanting to cry, but she couldn't. They were here. They had followed her outside. They were all around her here, too. Somehow that wasn't quite so frightening. It was not so close here as in the house and the water was here. The evil, if it came, could be cast into the water. They were not evil. She knew that. Still her knees were shaking so badly that she could no longer stand and lowered herself to sit, curled as tightly as a ball at the end of the dock.

  Cold. Cold. The coldness made her shiver. They were speaking to her now. Speaking to her. But not in words. They were speaking in pictures. She closed her eyes tightly, but she couldn't blot out the sight before her. It was bright, vivid, otherworldly, yet so very much familiar.

  She was standing in a field by Laron. Poor Laron. He looked so very unhappy. Had she made him so? No, it was not she, she knew with certainty. It was something else that made him so. He was unhappy, but determined. She wanted to speak to him, but she could not. It was as if he did not know that she was there. It was as if she really was not there. But she could clearly see him, closer than she had ever seen him before.

  He was working. Harvesting grain. The sun beat down upon him, hot and unmerciful. Aida watched the sweat pouring off his brow like drops of blood. But he kept working. With great rhythm and force he moved the scythe blade back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

  Aida watched, mesmerized. Then the strangeness of the scene struck her. There was no grain. The land he worked was completely shorn, all of it had already been cut and left lying in windrows waiting for someone to gather it up. There was nothing, nothing at all, to harvest. Still he worked on, tirelessly, as if he could not see the chore was completed.

  She tried to tell him, but of course she could not speak. She was not actually there.

  Her gaze was caught by a movement off in the distance. A horseman was riding toward them. She strained and squinted, trying to make him out. But she did not recognize him. Even as the sleek, fine-flanked chestnut pulled up next to Laron's side, it took her a moment to identify the rider. It was Armand. Her Armand.

  He looked in a way he had never appeared before. He looked older, wiser than she knew him to be. Atop the horse he was majestic and glorious, as if he had somehow overnight acquired tremendous wealth and fortune. His clothes were startling and radiant, finer than any plantation Creole's. The long trouse
rs were jet-black, beaded along the seams with gold thread. His shirt glittered and shined as if light were pouring out from his chest, illuminating him. Over it he had donned a long cape of brilliant red that spread out so grandly it protected both him and the magnificent horse. Incongruously, he still wore his Acadian-style palmetto hat, but stuck in the band was a strange bright feather cockade, such as Aida had never seen before.

  Aida could hear nothing the two men said, but clearly they were arguing. Armand pointed many times to the scythe, obviously trying to dissuade his friend from its fruitless use. But Laron would not quit the task.

  It was foolish to try to talk Laron out of it, she realized. Armand needed only to point out the windrows. Men were rarely persuaded by moral admonitions. Once he understood that the result was achieved, the grain had already been cut, the two of them could gather it all in and be ready for winter. Aida must tell Armand that, she thought to herself. Somehow she must make him understand. That was what they wanted her to do. They, the voices, were expecting that of her. She must speak to Armand. She must make him understand.

  And then they were gone. Aida gave a little startled cry as they left. The first sound she had uttered. She knew immediately she was alone once more.

  She looked around her in the dark night, curious now rather than afraid. A peaceful weariness settled upon her heavily like a huge blanket. Aida sighed in relief and lay down flat on the dock, relaxing. She breathed deeply several times, allowing that sense of calm and peace to seep inside her and about her, comforting her, warming her.

  "I simply have to explain it to Armand," she heard herself say aloud.

  She lay several minutes at the end of the dock and then rose to her feet and made her way into the house. She was humming quietly, contentedly, as she entered into the familiar safety of the little home.

  Inside, "her father continued snoring peacefully. The candle had burned down and sputtered out, but the darkness was somehow welcome. Aida tucked away the doorway curtains and pulled the front doors together and latched them. She made her way to her room and stripped down to her nightclothes and burrowed under the warm quilted covers. She closed her eyes and immediately drifted off to deep, serene and renewing sleep.

  The gray light of dawn was creeping through the windows when she awoke. Immediately she recalled the strangeness, Armand atop the horse, Laron working the shorn field.

  She yawned and shook her head.

  "What a dream!" she said to herself.

  It didn't make any sense. But then, it was just a dream. She had fallen asleep, she told herself. Fallen asleep without realizing. That was what it was. She had thought that she was awake. She had thought she was being pursued by . . . by, well it didn't bear thinking about. But of course that had been part of the dream also.

  That explanation made perfect sense. Comforted, she rose to wash and dress and begin her day. What a strange, strange dream! But dream was what it was.

  It was only when she saw her cold dishwater sitting on the tablette shelf that her certainty faltered.

  Chapter 12

  The morning was chilly and gray. Aida wrapped her shawl around her more tightly and pulled little Marie Sonnier closer to her side. Aida was happy. Armand, who was poling the pirogue, clearly was not. Although the downstream direction was no great strain and he was able to use the pole more as rudder than as impetus, he was in an obviously disagreeable temper.

  "Where exactly are we going?" he asked Madame Landry.

  The old woman dissembled easily. "Oh not far," she answered.

  Aida had first learned about the trip when the boatload, Armand, Madame Landry, and the two older Sonnier children, Gaston and Marie, arrived at her home.

  "We have an errand to run and we need you," the old woman had called out.

  Her father had grumbled about her leaving him without having remembered to cook him any breakfast. But Jesper Gaudet had been grumbling almost continuously since the fais-dodo two nights previous. She had jilted her betrothed and spent the rest of the night laughing and dancing with another man.

  Father Denis had not been particularly happy, either. His words on Sunday had chastised her harshly for her unforgiving heart. She had made no attempt to explain herself. She wasn't even sure that she could.

  She had not been upset about Laron's visit to the Bayou Blonde. She did believe that he would be a good and faithful husband to any woman he married. And she had always thought that he would suit her perfectly. She no longer felt certain about that. Her uncertainty was not something that she chose to examine too closely. And the old priest's insistence that she do so went unheeded. After all, she had the dream or whatever it was to think about. And it seemed much more immediate and important than her former betrothal.

  Orva began singing a little children's song about getting washed and dressed. Gaston and Marie both knew it, or knew most of it, and they eagerly joined in. The tiny girl wiggled out of Aida's arms to go sit with Madame Landry. The three voices contrasted vividly and actually sounded sweet and soothing to the ears.

  The old woman had apparently insisted that Armand take her out in the pirogue and that the children come also. Felicite and Jean Baptiste needed some time together, she had said. Aida assumed that to be quite true, but couldn't quite shake the feeling that Madame Landry had some other purpose for their presence.

  "We have to talk." Armand leaned down and spoke the words close to her. She startled from the feel of his warm breath so close to her neck.

  He was right, they did need to talk. She needed to tell him about her dream somehow. She needed to make him understand that he must talk to Laron, he must make Laron see ... He must make him see . . . something. What exactly, Aida wasn't certain of herself. But he was right, indeed they did have to talk.

  "Must we?" she asked, nearly whining as she begged to put off the inevitable. "It is such a beautiful day."

  "Beautiful day?" Armand looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "It's cold and gray and looks ready to rain down upon us any minute."

  Aida giggled, feeling especially silly. "So it is." It was the only reasonable comment to make. "I suppose it must seem beautiful to me because I am just so happy."

  The words out of Aida's mouth surprised her, but they seemed to have genuinely angered him. Armand's jaw hardened.

  "How can you be happy when you jilted a fine and good man?"

  Aida glanced, embarrassed, toward Orva Landry, who appeared to be deliberately inattentive to their conversation.

  "He wanted his freedom as much as I," she said. "I know that he has been seeing the German widow. Perhaps he loves her; certainly he cares more for her than me. You are his friend, surely you know that to be true."

  "I am sorry that you found out about Madame Shotz," Armand said quietly. "I am sure that it was a blow to your pride."

  "My pride?" Aida looked at him curiously and shook her head. "Perhaps a little, but I genuinely like Monsieur Boudreau. I want him to have the life that he wants."

  "What a man wants and what is truly good for him are most often very different things," he said.

  "Sometimes perhaps, but not most often," she disagreed. "I believe that you have not a high enough opinion of your gender."

  "I believe, mamselle, that I might know more about such things than yourself," he said.

  Uncharacteristically she bristled at his words. "I do not claim to be as intelligent as yourself, monsieur," she said. "But about love, perhaps a person does not have to be intelligent to be smart."

  "And you believe that you have been smart about love?" he asked.

  Aida's cheeks were flushed, but she held her chin high. "I do know that a marriage between two people who do not love each other is a very unfortunate thing."

  His jaw hardened and his bright blue eyes sparked with anger. "Love has many seasons and cycles. What looks to you like a loveless marriage may just be a difficult period for a couple who truly cares about their vows."

  His words seemed fierce. Aid
a drew back from his fury as her brow furrowed in curiosity. What on earth was the man talking about? A loveless marriage? A couple who cares about their vows? Clearly Armand was quite angry, but about what exactly, Aida was confused.

  "I am no expert in love," she told him quietly, intent on calming his rancor. "But I think I would know if I were in it and I am not in love with Laron Boudreau."

  "So I understand," Armand replied snidely. "You told him that you loved someone else."

  Aida's fair face fired with humiliation. Laron had told him that, he had told Armand. She looked away from him, flustered, and desperately sought a reasonable reply.

  "I simply told him that to ease the moment," she sputtered. "I never meant it."

  "Then it's not true?" Armand's gaze was penetrating.

  "That is what I just said," she answered.

  Armand nodded slowly, but his gaze narrowed. "Yes, it is what you said, but you are unable to look me in the eye when you say it."

  Aida swallowed, but determinedly raised her chin to face him. "You may be a great friend to the priest," she said sarcastically. "But it is Father Denis who is my confessor and not yourself."

  He looked away from her then. Clearly still angry.

  Aida was writhing in her own embarrassment, but couldn't quite fathom from where his displeasure came. It was impossible, she was sure, for him to believe that she cared about him. Why, she wasn't even certain herself that it was true. Still he was decidedly angry about something. Unhappily Aida surmised that she was just too silly to understand what.

  In Madame Landry's lap, the children continued their happy exuberant singing. Thankfully it kept away the sullen silence that surrounded the young couple at the other end of the pirogue. Aida thought once again of the dream that was, of course, not a dream. Perhaps she should tell him now. It might serve to diffuse his anger and it would certainly change the subject from why and whom she loved.