If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  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 Twelve

  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 your, 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. Aida 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 wou
ld 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.

  "I had a very strange dream the other night," she said, leaning toward him slightly. "I need to tell you about it."

  "A dream?" He appeared momentarily disconcerted. "Madame Landry sometimes interprets dreams, perhaps you should tell her."

  "No, no," Aida said with certainty. "I must tell you because you were in the dream. There was something about it that was very important, I think."

  Armand shrugged with unconcern. "It is nothing, I'm sure. I've always thought most dreams to be just too much coffee after supper."

  "This one was not coffee. In fact, it was not a dream, not exactly."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that I was not asleep when it happened."

  Armand's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "You weren't asleep?"

  Aida shook her head and cast a hasty glance in Orva Landry's direction before answering. "I was washing dishes," she said quietly. "I ... I was washing dishes and a ... a feeling came over me. I had a . . . well, a vision." The last was spoken with a low whisper.

  "A vision?" Armand was incredulous. "Mademoiselle Gaudet, this attempt at being traiteur has gotten out of hand. Madame Landry has visions, you do not."

  Aida was stung by his dismissal.

  "It was a vision. I did not ask for it and I did not want it, but I got it all the same. And there is something in it that I am supposed to relate to you."

  "Mademoiselle Gaudet, I don't think—"

  "Just listen," she told him. Deliberately she took a deep breath and tried, as best she could, to convey the importance and urgency she'd felt in her dream.

  "I saw Laron cutting a field," she said. "But there was no grain there to cut. It had all been shorn and was lying in wait to be gathered."

  Armand's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he considered her words.

  "I wanted to tell him that he should put away the scythe and gather up what was on the ground," she said. "But it was as if I was not there. He could not see or hear me."

  Aida regarded Armand steadily. "You rode up on a big chestnut horse."

  She hesitated momentarily. Somehow she didn't want to describe how handsome and noble he had appeared. In her memory he seemed strong and brave and infinitely hers. She was not willing to share that.

  "You began talking to him," she said. "Trying to get him to stop scything at nothing. You continued to intone him, argue with him, plead with him, but you never once pointed out that the grain lay cut on the ground. Somehow I know that if he realized that it was already cut, he would go on about gathering it up."

  There was silence between them for a long minute. Finally Armand pushed his hat back slightly, using his sleeve to wipe the sweat that had inexplicably gathered there in the cool morning.

  "I don't believe for a moment," he said, "that this was a vision. But whatever it was, it seems easy enough to interpret."

  Aida swallowed hard and forced herself to look up at him questioningly. "And how do you interpret it?" she asked tartly.

  "Well," he answered. "It is obviously about the broken betrothal. The German widow is the grain that Laron is trying to cut. He needs a wife and he is trying to find one. But that woman is already married. She is not available to him. You are the cut grain already shorn and waiting to be gathered up."

  "What were you telling him then?" she asked.

  "The same thing that I am telling you. The marriage between you two is the right thing and the sooner you go through with it, the better it will be for everyone concerned."

  Aida considered his words for a long minute.

  "That isn't what it means," she said finally.

  Armand was immediately annoyed. "If that is not it, then what does it mean?" he asked, annoyed.

  "I'm not sure. But I believe that you have spoken too quickly. Perhaps if you think about it longer, you will see some meaning more plausible."

  "I think the meaning I have come up with is more than plausible," he said. "You must marry Laron Boudreau. It is exactly what you are meant to do."

  "I will not do that," she stated flatly. "I do not love him."

  "But you should, Mademoiselle Gaudet," he said. "You should."

  She looked at him askance. "Do you believe, monsieur, that a person can force such a feeling?"

  "I am not trying to tell you where to love," Armand said firmly. "I do suppose that is something that is out of a person's control. But I do think that a person, a man or woman, can decide on the simple things, the very important things, that could ensure or deny happiness. Those elements that they will and will not accept."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well . . . like the prospective mate has a nasty temper or ... or that he doesn't like children."

  She scoffed. "I can't imagine many women falling in love with a nasty-tempered man who doesn't like children."

  "Of course not, but you see my meaning. Standards are set."

  "And you believe that Laron Boudreau and I would meet the standards of each other?"

  "Perfectly," Armand answered. "He will be a handsome, generous, supportive husband. What more could you want?"

  "And for him?"

  "You are . . . well, you are not married to someone else," he said.

  Aida thought it was very little to recommend a woman.

  "Have you set standards, monsieur?" she asked.

  "Certainly I have."

  "What kind?" Her question was more than idle curiosity.

  "Hmmm." Armand was thoughtful for a long moment. "The woman I wed doesn't have to be pretty," he said. "But I would be pleased if she had some attractive aspect. Nice eyes or soft hair or something that I would feel drawn to."

  "All women have some desirable feature," Aida pointed out.

  He nodded. "Yes, I think you're probably right. I'd also like to be able to talk to her. She doesn't have to be a keen wit or a brilliant thinker, but I would want her to have an opinion."

  "Still that is nothing," Aida said. "Even I have an opinion. Is there nothing else?"

  "Naturally she would have to be small."

  "Small?"

  "Yes, shorter than I. Certainly I would never consider a marriage to a woman who was taller than me."

  "That's silly."

  "It is not."

  "It is. It's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard."

  "Then you don't often listen, mamselle. Everyone in the parish agrees
with me. People are always suggesting to me young female relatives and acquaintances that are small in stature. It is accepted that the husband should be taller than the wife."

  "I thought you could read both the law and the Bible?"

  Armand eyed her curiously. "I can," he said.

  "Is that written either place?"

  "Of course not, but—"

  "I know that I am not very bright, monsieur," she interrupted. "But if I were to love someone . . ." Her voice became soft, almost dreamy as she spoke. "If I were to love someone, I would let nothing that anybody thought or said dissuade me from my lover."

  Armand's eyes widened in genuine concern. "But a person must always listen to their friends, their relatives, the people of their community."

  "And why must I do that?" she asked. "A marriage is between two people, a man and a woman. No one else must live day by day for the rest of time with that person. So no one else should have a say in it."

  "So you would go against your family, your friends, your people?" His tone was angry, disapproving.

  Aida Gaudet looked up at him, standing in the pirogue. Her chin was high and her words determined.

  "For the man I love, monsieur, I would go against God Himself."

  Armand was nearly shaking from the import of Aida's words. For the man she loved, she would go against God Himself. Certainly she was preparing her conscience for the break with church and community and family. She might not even realize it yet herself, but she was preparing to break up his brother's marriage and bring pain and misery upon all of them.

  He glanced over at Gaston and Marie, still happy and contented in Madame Landry's lap. Earlier he had seen Aida hold the little girl tenderly in her arms. How could a woman do that? Be gentle with a child whose life she planned to ruin?