by Pamela Morsi
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 galant."
"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 with 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.
"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 run 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 trousers 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