by Pamela Morsi
The last of the year's cotton crop had been too late and shaded for the sun to open it white and fluffy on the stock. Before the rain and cold could set in and the hulls rot unopened, the men gathered them in baskets and stored them to dry.
Now, with chill and wet and cold in the air, the women gathered together for a hulling bee—a party of sorts to break open the bolls and retrieve the last of the cotton that might have been lost.
Because Felicite was so close to her time, the bee was held in the Sonnier house. Great woven frond baskets filled the room as the women sat around in a gossipy circle. The little ones were sent up to the loft. The older ones watched the younger as they played and allowed their mothers the privacy to share secrets and talk woman talk.
The house was dark and gloomy as the rain drizzled outside. The fireplace popped and crackled, more for the sake of illumination than warmth. The bright yellow lantern hung down from a chain in the center of the room, but could not dispel the bleakness of the afternoon.
Breaking the hard spindly bolls and picking out the fine fibers of white and ecru contained inside required dexterous fingers and was hard on the hands. The women all wore sturdy gloves for the occasion. The fingers were straight and well-fitted for painstaking work, the palms were padded with moss to protect even the roughest and most work-hardened feminine hands from the sharp, slicing hulls that surrounded the cotton.
Aida, of course, had been unable to locate her work gloves that morning. Felicite had allowed her to borrow a worn pair of Jean Baptiste's. The extra padding kept her hands safe, but made her clumsier than usual in working with the cotton. She worked half as fast as any woman present and she was more than mildly embarrassed by the fact.
"And so I simply told him," Madame Doucet related to the group in general and Felicite specifically, "a healthy girl and a pair of sons, twins no less, that should be enough for any man." Madame Doucet's florid face was stern in expression. "I said, you, monsieur, just take yourself up into the garconniere for nightly rest. And don't you come back down to my bed until I'm past my prime."
Yvonne Hebert, Laron's sister, leaned close to Aida and whispered into her ear. "He must be back down by now, don't you think?"
Aida disguised her giggle with a cough and covered her smile with her heavily gloved hand.
She had felt a little uncomfortable when Yvonne sat down next to her. Although she had yet to make her decision, as each day passed she became more and more certain that Laron Boudreau would never be her husband.
"Father Denis says that a woman should bear every child she is able," Madame Benoit said.
There was a murmur of concern among the women.
Orva Landry snorted. "What does a fat man with no family understand about feeding a houseful of empty bellies every winter?"
The women of Prairie l'Acadie were devoted to Church and faith, but they also were pragmatic. The lines between the secular and the spiritual were not always clearly defined, but the practical solutions to problems inevitably won out in their lives.
"Are there not herbs or charms that ward off pregnancy?" young Madame Pujol asked.
"There is pennyroyal," Orva answered. "Though it's not a thing I would recommend. It will kill you just as likely. The only certain way is to keep to yourself."
The older women nodded in agreement.
"Well there must certainly be something," Estelle LeBlanc suggested. "Something perhaps the Germans know. The veuve allemande has borne no children since her husband left."
Beside her Aida heard Madame Hebert gasp. With great care she put an expression of studied curiosity upon her face. She glanced around and, as she expected, every eye was looking her way. Aida smiled at them. Being known as slightly scatterbrained and forever flighty did have its advantages.
"I hope you are not asking me!" she said with a little giggle. "It is true that I do grow a few herbs and flavorings, but I don't even try to keep in my head what they are or what they are for."
There was no audible sigh of relief, but Aida could feel the tension within the room ease. Of course they would believe that she was too dumb to know. Too silly to realize what every person on the river knew; that her fiancé was involved with another woman.
She glanced across at Ruby, who was gazing at her with a puzzled expression. Fortunately she had the good sense not to speak what was on her mind. Of course it was certain that these women would think Ruby even more stupid than Aida herself.
"Yes Aida, I heard you sent catmint for Madame Sonnier," Orva said with a gesture toward Felicite.
Aida was partially grateful for the change of subject, but shriveled slightly under the scrutiny of Madame Landry. The older woman, who routinely spoke with the voices and could probably see right into a person's mind, was giving her a serious, lengthy perusal.
"Monsieur Sonnier told me of her troubles. I thought it might help the swelling," she said gently. She clasped her hands together in the heavy men's gloves to keep them from shaking. "And I sent arrowroot to build up her strength. I ... I thought that would be what you would do."
"Indeed it is," Orva answered. "I arrived here this very morning with a parcel of catmint, some arrowroot, a dripping of holy water and birthing sachet." The old woman leaned forward a bit more, continuing to gaze at Aida. "It was good to know that dear Felicite had already begun her treatment."
"Poor Jean Baptiste," Felicite said, shaking her head. "I have been so uncomfortable and disagreeable with this one." She rubbed her heavily rounded belly lovingly. "You would think I would be used to it by now. The fourth one should be as easy as snapping beans. But I have been so cross and grumbling. I declare that my husband has been nearly a saint to put up with me."
Orva spoke evenly. "Each birthing is different. Nothing from the last can prepare you for the next. From each child we are taught different lessons. Some things can never be taken for granted."
"Yes, of course you are right," Felicite agreed easily. "I will just be grateful when it is over. Undoubtedly Jean Baptiste will be, too. I'm so puffed up, I wonder that he can recognize me!"
Orva patted Felicite's hand. "His eyes may not, but his heart always will," she said.
Then, surprisingly, she turned the attention toward Aida once more.
"I am pleased that you have an interest in herbs, young woman," the old treater said. "Why am I just now to know of it?"
"I never thought it worth mentioning," Aida said.
Orva huffed with disdain, then added with wry humor, "Must I wait for the voices to tell me everything?"
The other women stared askance, none daring to find amusement in anything about the voices.
Aida flushed with embarrassment. "There is nothing to tell, Madame Landry," she said. "Herbs are merely a pass-a-time for me."
"Merely a pass-a-time?"
"Yes, Madame."
Nervously Aida tried to occupy her hands with the cotton but continued to fumble. One boll shot out of her hand as she tried to crack it and hit Madame LeBlanc squarely upon her ample bosom.
"Oh I do beg your pardon” Aida apologized, horrified.
Orva gazed at her intently. "Do you know how old I am?" she asked.
Aida was startled.
"Why no," she answered, wondering if she should hazard a guess. "No, Madame, I do not."
"And I am not about to tell you," Orva replied tartly. "It's almost a sin against God to be able to count that high."
There was a titter of laugher around the circle.
"I am old enough, young lady, that it would not be an unholy expectation to anticipate seeing me laid out in a shroud."
Aida swallowed nervously. Surely she was not supposed to respond to that.
"And when I am cleaned and wrapped and put to ground," she continued, "who among these women will treat the ills?"
The room was suddenly very quiet. To Aida's dismay, every eye now looked upon her with both skepticism and hope.
"Not me, Madame," Aida assured her hastily.
"
I have been waiting forty years for a woman to take an interest in the herbs," Orva said. "I admit that I would never have thought that woman to be you." Madame Landry shook her head in wonder. "But the ways of grace are mysterious."
"Aida Gaudet as a treater?" Madame Doucet whispered the words in shocked disbelief.
The rustle of murmurs went through the group as the women sought to accustom themselves to the idea. Orva Landry's gaze on Aida never wavered.
"I ... I could not do it, Madame Landry," she said.
"And why not?"
"It is a calling, not a pursuit," she said.
Orva waved that away. "'Many are called but few are chosen,'" she quoted.
"The ... the voices have never spoken to me." Aida hesitated to even mention them aloud.
"And why should they with me still living?" she asked.
Aida felt her anxiety and embarrassment growing.
"I am not smart," she admitted, lowering her eyes. "It shames me to say it, but you all know the truth. I could never be trusted with such a responsible task."
Orva hooted with laughter. The sound brought Aida's head up sharply. She was not alone. Every occupant in the room was staring startled at the old woman.
"Heaven does have a sense of humor," Madame Landry said, still chuckling. She directed her comments to those around her. "Here sits the most beautiful female this old woman has ever beheld. And what does she feel?" Orva continued to chuckle. "She is distraught because she is not much for wit. Around her the rest of us, all prideful in what we perceive, would trade, each and every one of us, for a fraction of this young woman's beauty."
There was a sputtering of high-minded dissension among the group. But not one woman contradicted Madame Landry's words.
"Heaven has disguised you from me," Orva said. "I am not the only one who has need of a lesson in humility."
No one knew to whom she referred, but there was no ignoring the inference of her words. Aida continued to shake her head in disagreement.
"I could never do it," she insisted with certainty.
"You have done it," Orva said. "You have done it for Madame Sonnier and I will teach you to do it for others."
Aida's heart was pounding with wild anxiety. "As long as you are here for me to ask," Aida agreed. "Then I could follow your orders. But after you are gone? Oh, Madame, how could I remember? I cannot remember where I left my gloves or which day is Wednesday or even to cook supper each night for my poppa!"
The truth of that statement stopped the discussion. Aida was flighty and featherheaded. Everybody knew that. She couldn't remember where to find the beans, much less when to put them on the fire. She would never be able to keep in her silly brain all the cures and charms necessary for the welfare of the people in the parish.
"Armand could write them down."
The surprise statement came from Felicite.
"What?" Orva's interest was piqued.
"While you apprentice Aida as treater," she said. "You must keep Armand with you. He can write down in words all the mixes and spells."
"But a man can't be a treater," Madame Marchand pointed out.
"And he won't be," Felicite said. "Aida will be treater and when she can't remember what to do, Armand can read it to her."
"All the cures written down in words?" Madame Doucet wasn't certain.
"After you are gone," Felicite said, indicating Madame Landry. "After Aida is gone, even after Armand is gone, the words would still be there. My Gaston is learning to read the words," she admitted proudly. "Other boys will learn, too. They can read them for the next treater and the next and next."
"The men write down laws and contracts," Madame Hebert piped in. "Why should not the women have those things important to us kept in ink and paper?"
Orva was nodding thoughtfully. "Writing it down. Having Armand write it all down. Yes, that would work," she said. "That would work very well indeed."
Outside of the hulling bee, standing along the riverbank in a dripping rain, the menfolk cast their fishing lines. It was a women's occasion. And it was not so much that the men felt unwelcome as they just felt unnecessary. They were expected to load, unload, transport, and carry. But when females got an opportunity to sit together, the farmers were supposed to make themselves scarce. A small fire pit blazed under the protecting limbs of a lilas parasol. A pot of strong black coffee was the only comfort being afforded.
Armand watched the end of his cane pole with a substantive concentration that could have snapped it in two. He'd already caught a stringer's length of fish that morning, but he had no heart for the sport this day. All around him he heard light-hearted conversations in which he did not participate. His mind was troubled.
Laron continued to be reluctant to go ahead with his wedding plans. He still insisted that he would have Helga or no one. Armand wanted to support his decision, but he could not. Not with his brother's happiness in jeopardy. Not with Jean Baptiste still sleeping in the garconniere.
Aida Gaudet was much too dangerous for that. He'd nearly gotten into an argument with his brother the day they had caught her doing laundry. Armand remembered well his own reaction. He'd gotten hard as a stone just looking at her that day. And when he had waded in to stand beside her, it had been all he could do to keep himself from reaching out to touch the white skin on her arm, the loose lock of hair on her cheek. She was beautiful, desirable, and almost available. For any man that was a temptation. For one suffering a weakness in his marriage, it could be a damning combination.
Jean Baptiste continued to sing her praises while sighing with disappointment about Felicite.
"What is wrong with her face?" Jean Baptiste had asked Armand just this morning.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Felicite's face," his brother continued. "Her cheeks and neck are so fat, she looks as if she's gotten bee-stung."
She did look bad, Armand couldn't deny that. But pregnancy and vanity were not a good mix. Jean Baptiste should be looking at her through a haze of love.
But any haze cleared when the lovely Aida was helped out of her pirogue, showing an unmannerly amount of bare leg, Armand thought. And giggling about forgetting her gloves. What kind of woman went to a hulling bee with no gloves? The answer was simple, a woman who was more interested in being seen than in doing any work.
Aida Gaudet was silly, superficial, and useless compared to Felicite. And Jean Baptiste couldn't keep his eyes off her. It was frightening. Terrifying. If only Armand could speak up to him directly, man to man, and say, "Don't do this to your wife!" But he was afraid. Look at the mess careless words had already gotten him into. If he pointed things out to him, the situation might even get worse.
"Well, look who is here!"
The statement of surprise came from Emile Marchand.
Oscar Benoit sniggered under his breath. "Never known him to show up when there was real work going on."
A chuckle of agreement moved down the line of men like a contagion.
"Bonjour, Father Denis," Jean Baptiste said, stepping up to greet the man. "Welcome to my home."
The priest gave him a hasty, halfhearted blessing.
"Come and have coffee," Jean Baptiste continued. "You have walked so very far. If we had known you wanted to attend the hulling bee, we would have sent someone in a pirogue to fetch you."
"Hulling bee, is it?" the priest looked around him critically. "It looks more like a fishing party."
The men offered good-natured disagreement.
"Alas, our women keep warm and dry with the cotton," Hippolyte Arceneaux piped in sarcastically. "While we poor men are left outside with the gray and drizzle. Nothing to give us comfort but cold coffee and wet fish."
That comment evoked guffaws. Even Father Denis joined in.
"Would you care to linger with us, Father?" Jean
Baptiste asked. "Or would you prefer to join the women under a roof?"
"Oh no, I can't stay long," he said. "I only came to speak wit
h your brother."
Jean Baptiste spotted Armand. "He's here to see you," he reported.
Of course Armand had heard Father Denis's words but he was quite reluctant to rush to the old priest's side. His unwillingness was not because he loved fishing, but rather a great aversion to having to deal with one more uneasy problem. Reluctantly he began pulling in his line.
"May I fish with your pole, Uncle Armand?" little Gaston asked excitedly. The boy's own had proved unlucky that morning. He'd not caught even one measly throwback.
Armand ruffled the boy's hair and handed him the pole.
"Clearly the fish are having trouble swimming around all this other bait," he said to Gaston, indicating the long line of fishermen. "My hook is always their favorite."
Around him the other men scoffed good-naturedly. The boy looked up at him, his trusting eyes wide.
"Give it just a tiny flick of the wrist when you toss it out," Armand suggested quietly. "No grand gesture, like a beau making bow to a mamselle, just a tiny flick, like a husband bidding his wife to dance."
Gaston nodded solemnly.
"The big catfish know that gesture," Armand assured him. "As soon as they see it they'll hurry to the end of your line."
Biting the side of his small mouth in concentration, the child attempted to follow his uncle's advice.
Armand squeezed his shoulder before turning toward the long-robed priest.
Armand offered a polite word in greeting. Father Denis answered with a blessing.
"What is it, Father?" he asked as the two stepped away from the riverbank. "You wished to speak with me?"
The cleric gave a quick disapproving look at the palmfrond hat that remained on Armand's head but made no comment.
"It is a beautiful day," Father Denis commented conversationally.
Armand raised an eyebrow. "It's drizzling rain."
The old priest shrugged. "Even the worst of times are the gift of our Father in heaven," he replied.
Armand shrugged a tacit agreement.
"Let us walk, shall we?"
Armand followed the priest's lead and they slowly made their way along the high ground path, pausing to turn inland when they reached the cypress pieux split rail fence.