The Grandissimes
Page 61
CHAPTER LX
"ALL RIGHT"
The sun is once more setting upon the Place d'Armes. Once more theshadows of cathedral and town-hall lie athwart the pleasant groundswhere again the city's fashion and beauty sit about in the sedateSpanish way, or stand or slowly move in and out among the old willowsand along the white walks. Children are again playing on the sward;some, you may observe, are in black, for Agricola. You see, too, a morepeaceful river, a nearer-seeming and greener opposite shore, and manyother evidences of the drowsy summer's unwillingness to leave theembrace of this seductive land; the dreamy quietude of birds; thespreading, folding, re-expanding and slow pulsating of theall-prevailing fan (how like the unfolding of an angel's wing isofttimes the broadening of that little instrument!); the oft-drawnhandkerchief; the pale, cool colors of summer costume; the swallow,circling and twittering overhead or darting across the sight; thelanguid movement of foot and hand; the reeking flanks and foaming bitsof horses; the ear-piercing note of the cicada; the dancing butterfly;the dog, dropping upon the grass and looking up to his master withroping jaw and lolling tongue; the air sweetened with the merchandise ofthe flower _marchandes_.
On the levee road, bridles and saddles, whips, gigs, andcarriages,--what a merry coming and going! We look, perforce, toward theold bench where, six months ago, sat Joseph Frowenfeld. There issomebody there--a small, thin, weary-looking man, who leans his baredhead slightly back against the tree, his thin fingers knit together inhis lap, and his chapeau-bras pressed under his arm. You note hisextreme neatness of dress, the bright, unhealthy restlessness of hiseye, and--as a beam from the sun strikes them--the fineness of his shortred curls. It is Doctor Keene.
He lifts his head and looks forward. Honore and Frowenfeld are walkingarm-in-arm under the furthermost row of willows. Honore is speaking. Howgracefully, in correspondence with his words, his free arm orhand--sometimes his head or even his lithe form--moves in quiet gesture,while the grave, receptive apothecary takes into his meditative mind, asinto a large, cool cistern, the valued rain-fall of his friend'scommunications. They are near enough for the little doctor easily tocall them; but he is silent. The unhappy feel so far away from thehappy. Yet--"Take care!" comes suddenly to his lips, and is almostspoken; for the two, about to cross toward the Place d'Armes at the veryspot where Aurora had once made her narrow escape, draw suddenly back,while the black driver of a volante reins up the horse he bestrides, andthe animal himself swerves and stops.
The two friends, though startled apart, hasten with lifted hats to theside of the volante, profoundly convinced that one, at least, of its twooccupants is heartily sorry that they were not rolled in the dust. Ah,ah! with what a wicked, ill-stifled merriment those two ethereal womenbend forward in the faintly perfumed clouds of their ravishingsummer-evening garb, to express their equivocal mortificationand regret.
"Oh! I'm so sawry, oh! Almoze runned o'--ah, ha, ha, ha!"
Aurora could keep the laugh back no longer.
"An' righd yeh befo' haivry _boddie_! Ah, ha, ha! 'Sieur Grandissime,'tis _me-e-e_ w'ad know 'ow dad is bad, ha, ha, ha! Oh! I assu' you,gen'lemen, id is hawful!"
And so on.
By and by Honore seemed urging them to do something, the thought ofwhich made them laugh, yet was entertained as not entirely absurd. Itmay have been that to which they presently seemed to consent; theyalighted from the volante, dismissed it, and walked each at a partner'sside down the grassy avenue of the levee. It was as Clotilde with onehand swept her light robes into perfect adjustment for the walk, andturned to take the first step with Frowenfeld, that she raised her eyesfor the merest instant to his, and there passed between them an exchangeof glance which made the heart of the little doctor suddenly burn like aball of fire.
"Now we're all right," he murmured bitterly to himself, as, withouthaving seen him, she took the arm of the apothecary, and theymoved away.
Yes, if his irony was meant for this pair, he divined correctly. Theirhearts had found utterance across the lips, and the future stood waitingfor them on the threshold of a new existence, to usher them into aperpetual copartnership in all its joys and sorrows, itsdisappointments, its imperishable hopes, its aims, its conflicts, itsrewards; and the true--the great--the everlasting God of love was withthem. Yes, it had been "all right," now, for nearly twenty-fourhours--an age of bliss. And now, as they walked beneath the willowswhere so many lovers had walked before them, they had whole histories totell of the tremors, the dismays, the misconstructions and longingsthrough which their hearts had come to this bliss; how at such a time,thus and so; and after such and such a meeting, so and so; no part ofwhich was heard by alien ears, except a fragment of Clotilde's speechcaught by a small boy in unintentioned ambush.
"--Evva sinze de firze nighd w'en I big-in to nurze you wid de fivver."
She was telling him, with that new, sweet boldness so wonderful to alately accepted lover, how long she had loved him.
Later on they parted at the _porte-cochere_. Honore and Aurora had gotthere before them, and were passing on up the stairs. Clotilde,catching, a moment before, a glimpse of her face, had seen that therewas something wrong; weather-wise as to its indications she perceived animpending shower of tears. A faint shade of anxiety rested an instant onher own face. Frowenfeld could not go in. They paused a little withinthe obscurity of the corridor, and just to reassure themselves thateverything _was_ "all right," they--
God be praised for love's young dream!
The slippered feet of the happy girl, as she slowly mounted the stairalone, overburdened with the weight of her blissful reverie, made nosound. As she turned its mid-angle she remembered Aurora. She couldguess pretty well the source of her trouble; Honore was trying to treatthat hand-clasping at the bedside of Agricola as a binding compact;"which, of course, was not fair." She supposed they would have gone intothe front drawing-room; she would go into the back. But shemiscalculated; as she silently entered the door she saw Aurora standinga little way beyond her, close before Honore, her eyes cast down, andthe trembling fan hanging from her two hands like a broken pinion. Heseemed to be reiterating, in a tender undertone, some question intendedto bring her to a decision. She lifted up her eyes toward his with amute, frightened glance.
The intruder, with an involuntary murmur of apology, drew back; but, asshe turned, she was suddenly and unspeakably saddened to see Aurora dropher glance, and, with a solemn slowness whose momentous significancewas not to be mistaken, silently shake her head.
"Alas!" cried the tender heart of Clotilde. "Alas! M. Grandissime!"
CHAPTER LXI
"NO!"
If M. Grandissime had believed that he was prepared for the supremebitterness of that moment, he had sadly erred. He could not speak. Heextended his hand in a dumb farewell, when, all unsanctioned by hiswill, the voice of despair escaped him in a low groan. At the samemoment, a tinkling sound drew near, and the room, which had grown darkwith the fall of night, began to brighten with the softly widening lightof an evening lamp, as a servant approached to place it in the frontdrawing-room.
Aurora gave her hand and withdrew it. In the act the two somewhatchanged position, and the rays of the lamp, as the maid passed the door,falling upon Aurora's face, betrayed the again upturned eyes.
"'Sieur Grandissime--"
They fell.
The lover paused.
"You thing I'm crool."
She was the statue of meekness.
"Hope has been cruel to me," replied M. Grandissime, "not you; that Icannot say. Adieu."
He was turning.
"'Sieur Grandissime--"
She seemed to tremble.
He stood still.
"'Sieur Grandissime,"--her voice was very tender,--"wad you' horry?"
There was a great silence.
"'Sieur Grandissime, you know--teg a chair."
He hesitated a moment and then both sat down. The servant repassed thedoor; yet when Aurora broke the silence, she spoke in English--havingsuch hazard
ous things to say. It would conceal possible stammerings.
"'Sieur Grandissime--you know dad riz'n I--"
She slightly opened her fan, looking down upon it, and was still.
"I have no right to ask the reason," said M. Grandissime. "It isyours--not mine."
Her head went lower.
"Well, you know,"--she drooped it meditatively to one side, with hereyes on the floor,--"'tis bick-ause--'tis bick-ause I thing in a fewdays I'm goin' to die."
M. Grandissime said never a word. He was not alarmed.
She looked up suddenly and took a quick breath, as if to resume, but hereyes fell before his, and she said, in a tone of half-soliloquy:
"I 'ave so mudge troub' wit dad hawt."
She lifted one little hand feebly to the cardiac region, and sighedsoftly, with a dying languor.
M. Grandissime gave no response. A vehicle rumbled by in the streetbelow, and passed away. At the bottom of the room, where a gilded Marswas driving into battle, a soft note told the half-hour. The ladyspoke again.
"Id mague"--she sighed once more--"so strange,--sometime' I thing I'mgit'n' crezzy."
Still he to whom these fearful disclosures were being made remained assilent and motionless as an Indian captive, and, after another pause,with its painful accompaniment of small sounds, the fair speaker resumedwith more energy, as befitting the approach to an incredible climax:
"Some day', 'Sieur Grandissime,--id mague me fo'gid my hage! I thing I'myoung!"
She lifted her eyes with the evident determination to meet his ownsquarely, but it was too much; they fell as before; yet she wenton speaking:
"An' w'en someboddie git'n' ti'ed livin' wid 'imsev an' big'n' to fillole, an' wan' someboddie to teg de care of 'im an' wan' me to gidmarri'd wid 'im--I thing 'e's in love to me." Her fingers kept up alittle shuffling with the fan. "I thing I'm crezzy. I thing I muz bego'n' to die torecklie." She looked up to the ceiling with large eyes,and then again at the fan in her lap, which continued its spreading andshutting. "An' daz de riz'n, 'Sieur Grandissime." She waited until itwas certain he was about to answer, and then interrupted him nervously:"You know, 'Sieur Grandissime, id woon be righd! Id woon be de juztiz to_you!_ An' you de bez man I evva know in my life, 'Sieur Grandissime!"Her hands shook. "A man w'at nevva wan' to gid marri'd wid noboddie in'is life, and now trine to gid marri'd juz only to rip-ose de soul of'is oncl'--"
M. Grandissime uttered an exclamation of protest, and she ceased.
"I asked you," continued he, with low-toned emphasis, "for the singleand only reason that I want you for my wife."
"Yez," she quickly replied; "daz all. Daz wad I thing. An' I thing dazde rad weh to say, 'Sieur Grandissime. Bick-ause, you know, you an' meis too hole to talg aboud dad _lovin'_, you know. An' you godd dad grade_rizpeg_ fo' me, an' me I godd dad 'ighez rispeg fo' you; bud--" sheclutched the fan and her face sank lower still--"bud--" sheswallowed--shook her head--"bud--" She bit her lip; she could not go on.
"Aurora," said her lover, bending forward and taking one of her hands."I _do_ love you with all my soul."
She made a poor attempt to withdraw her hand, abandoned the effort, andlooked up savagely through a pair of overflowing eyes, demanding:
"_Mais_, fo' w'y you di' n' wan' to sesso?"
M. Grandissime smiled argumentatively.
"I have said so a hundred times, in every way but in words."
She lifted her head proudly, and bowed like a queen.
"_Mais_, you see 'Sieur Grandissime, you bin meg one mizteg."
"Bud 'tis corrected in time," exclaimed he, with suppressed but eagerjoyousness.
"'Sieur Grandissime," she said, with a tremendous solemnity, "I'm verriesawrie; _mais_--you spogue too lade."
"No, no!" he cried, "the correction comes in time. Say that, lady; saythat!"
His ardent gaze beat hers once more down; but she shook her head. Heignored the motion.
"And you will correct your answer; ah! say that, too!" he insisted,covering the captive hand with both his own, and leaning forwardfrom his seat.
"_Mais_, 'Sieur Grandissime, you know, dad is so verrie unegspeg'."
"Oh! unexpected!"
"_Mais_, I was thing all dad time id was Clotilde wad you--"
She turned her face away and buried her mouth in her handkerchief.
"Ah!" he cried, "mock me no more, Aurore Nancanou!"
He rose erect and held the hand firmly which she strove to draw away:
"Say the word, sweet lady; say the word!"
She turned upon him suddenly, rose to her feet, was speechless aninstant while her eyes flashed into his, and crying out:
"No!" burst into tears, laughed through them, and let him clasp her tohis bosom.