Three days of heat, glare, hubbub, and anxious suspense dragged away, and Thursday's gorgeous sunset brought a change. The Danish frigate, bright with flags and swarming with sailors, swept in, dropped anchor, and wrapped herself in thunder and white smoke. Soon she lowered a boat, a glittering officer took its tiller-ropes, its long oars flashed, and it bore away to the fort. But evening fell, a starry silence reigned, and when a late moon rose we slept.
Next morning we knew that Captain Erminger, of the frigate, had assumed command over the whole island, declared martial law, landed his marines, and begun operations. Soon the harbor was populous again, with refugees returning home. Tom came with his boat. Just as we started landward a schooner came round the bluffs bringing the Spaniards. At early twilight these landed and marched with much clatter through the vacant streets to the town's various points of entrance, there to mount guard, the Danes having gone to scatter the insurgents.
The pursuing forces, in two bodies, were to move toward each other from opposite ends of the island, spanning it from sea to sea and meeting in the centre, thus entirely breaking up the bands of aimless pillagers into which the insurrection had already dispersed. This took but a few days. Buddoe was almost at once trapped by the baldest flatteries of two leading Danish residents and, finding himself without even the honor of armed capture, betrayed his confederates and disappeared.
Only one small band of blacks made any marked resistance. Under a certain "Moses" they occupied a hill, hurling down stones upon their assailants, but were soon captured. Many leaders of the revolt were condemned and shot, displaying in most cases a total absence of fortitude.
In less than a week from the day of flight to the ships quiet was restored, and a meeting of planters was adopting rules and rates for the employment of the freed slaves. Some estates resumed work at once; on others the ravages of the torch had first to be repaired. Some negroes would not work, and it was months before all the windmills on the hills were once more whirling. The Spaniards lingered long, but were finally relieved by a Danish regiment. Captain Erminger was commended by his home government. The governor was censured and superseded. The planters got no pay for their slaves.
The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor; and that, after all, a general emancipation was only a moderate raising of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs offset each other. Make haste, rising generations! and, as you truly honor your fathers, bring to their graves the garlandry of juster laws and kinder, purer days.
To different minds this true story will speak, no doubt, a varying counsel. Some will believe that the lovely island was saved from the agonies of a Haytian revolution only through iron suppression. To others it will appear that the old governor's rashly timorous edict was, after all, the true source of deliverance. Certainly the question remains, whether even the most sudden and ill-timed concession of rights, if only backed by energetic police action, is not a prompter, surer cure for public disorder than whole batteries of artillery without the concession of rights. I believe the most blundering effort for the prompt undoing of a grievous wrong is safer than the shrewdest or strongest effort for its continuance. Meanwhile, with what patience doth God wait for man to learn his lessons! The Holy Cross still glitters on the bosom of its crystal sea, as it shone before the Carib danced on its snowy sands, and as it will still shine when some new Columbus, as yet unborn, brings to it the Christianity of a purer day than ours.
Chester shook the pages together on his knee.
"Oh-h-h!" cried Mlle. Corinne to Yvonne, to Aline, to Mlle. Castanado, "the en'! and--where is all that abbout that beautiful cat what was the proprity of Dora? Everything abbout that cat of Dora--scratch out! Ah, Mr. Chezter! Yvonne and me, we find that the moze am-using part--that episode of the cat--that large, wonderful, mazculine cat of Dora! Ah, madame" [to the chair], "hardly Marie Madeleine is more wonderful than that--when Jack pritend to lift his li'l' miztress through the surf of the sea, how he flew at the throat of Jack, that aztonishing mazculine cat! Ah, M'sieu' Beloiseau!--and to scradge that!"
But Beloiseau was judicially calm. "Yes, I rim-ember that portion. Scientific-ally I foun' that very interezting; but, like Mr. Chezter, I thing tha'z better art that the tom-cat be elimin-ate."
"Well," said the chair, "w'at we want to settle--shall we accep' that riv-ision of Mr. Chezter, to combine it in the book--'Clock in the Sky,' 'Angel of the Lord,' 'Holy Crozz'--seem' to me that combination goin' to sell like hot cake'."
"Yes! Agcept!" came promptly from two or three.
"Any oppose'? There is not any oppose'--Seraphine--Marcel--you'll be so good to pazz those rif-reshment?"
"Tis gone--to the pewblisher?"
M. De l'Isle, about to enter his double gate, had paused. In his home, overhead, a clock was striking five of the tenth day after that second reading in the Castanados' parlor. The energetic inquiry was his.
A single step away, in the door of the iron-worker's shop, Beloiseau, too quick for Chester, at whose elbow he stood, replied: "Tis gone better! Tis gone to the editor--of the greatez' magazine of the worl'!"
"Bravo! Sinze how long?"
"A week," Chester said.
"Hah! and his rip-ly?"
"Hasn't come yet."
"Ah, look out, now! Look out he don' steal that! You di'n' write him: 'Wire answer'? You muz' do that! I'll pay it myseff!"
"I thought I'd wait one more day. He may have other manuscripts to consider."
"Mr. Chezter, that manuscrip' is not in a prize contess; 'tis only with itseff! You di'n' say that?"
"I--implied it--as gracefully as I could."
"Ah! graze'--the h-only way to write those fellow, tha'z with the big stick! 'Wire h-answer!'"
Beloiseau lifted a finger: "I don' think thad way. Firz' place, big stick or no, that hiztorie is sure to be accept'."
M. De l'Isle let out a roar that seemed to tear the lining from his throat: "Aw-w-w! tha'z not to compel the agceptanze; tha'z to scare them from stealing it! And to privend that, there's another thing you want to infer them: that you billong to the Louisiana Branch of the Authors' Protegtive H-union! Ah, doubtlezz you don't--billong; but all the same you can infer them!"
Beloiseau's response crowded Chester's out: "Well, they are maybe important, those stratagem'; but to me the chieve danger is if maybe that editor shou'n' have the sagacitie--artiztic--commercial--to perceive the brilliancy of thad story."
"Never mine! in any'ow two days we'll know. Scipion! The day avter those two, tha'z a pewblic holiday--everything shut!"
"Yes, well?"
"If that news come, 'accepted,' all of us we'll be so please' that we'll be compel to egsprezz that in a joy-ride! and even if 'rifused,' we'll need that joy-ride to swallow the indignation."
"Ah! but with whose mash-in', so it won't put uz in bankrup'cy?"
"With two mash-in'--the two of Thorndyke-Smith! He's offer' to borrow me those whiles he's going to be accrozz the lake. You'll drive the large, me the small."
"Hah! Tha'z a gran' scheme. At the en', dinner at Antoine', all the men chipping in! Castanado--Dubroca--me--Mr. Chezter, eh?"
"With the greatest pleasure if I'm included."
"Include'--hoh! By the laws of nature!" M. De l'Isle went on up-stairs.
"We had a dinner like that," Beloiseau said, "only withoud the joy-ride and withoud those three Mlles. Chapdelaine, juz' a few week' biffo' we make' yo' acquaintanze. That was to celebrade that great victory in France and same time the news of savety of our four boys ad the front."
Chester stood astounded. "What four boys?"
"You di'n' know abboud those? Ah, well, tha'z maybe biccause we don' speak of them biffo' those ladies Chapdelaine. An' still tha'z droll you di'n' know that, but tha'z maybe biccause each one he's think another he's tol' you, and biccause tha'z not a prettie cheerful subjec', eh? Yes, they are two son' of Dubroca and Castanado, soldier', and two of De l'Isle and me, aviateur'."
"And up to a few weeks ago they were all well?"
"Ah, not well--one wounded, one h'arm broke, one trench-fivver, but all safe, laz' account."
"Tell me more about them, Beloiseau. You know I don't easily ask personal questions. Tell me all I'm welcome to know, will you?"
"I want to do that--to tell you all; but"--M. Ducatel, next neighbor above, was approaching--"better another time--ah, Rene, tha'z a pretty warm evening, eh?"
For two days more the vast machinery of the United States mail swung back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up" the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's. The holiday--"everything shut up"--had arrived. No carrier was abroad. Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was well on foot. The smaller car was at the De l'Isles' lovely gates, with monsieur in the chauffeur's seat, Mme. Alexandre at his side, and Dubroca close behind her. The larger machine stood at the opposite curb, with Beloiseau for driver, and Mme. Dubroca--a very small, trim, well-coiffed woman with a dainty lorgnette--in the first seat behind him. Castanado waited in the street door at the foot of his stair, down which Mme. Castanado was coming the only way she could come.
Her crossing of the sidewalk and her elevation first to the running-board and then to a seat beside Mme. Dubroca took time and the strength of both men, yet was achieved with a dignity hardly appreciated by the street children, who covered their mouths, averted their faces, and cheered as the two cars, the smaller leading, moved off and turned from Royal Street into Conti on their way to pick up the three Chapdelaines.
For nearly two hundred years--ever since the city had had a post-office--the post-office had been not too superior to remain in the vieux carré. Now, like so many old Creole homes themselves, it was "away up" in the American quarter--or "nine-tenth'"--at Lafayette Square. On holidays any one anxious enough for his mail to go "away up yondah" between nine and ten A.M., could have it for the asking. And such a one was Chester.
He had his reward. Twice and again he read the magazine's name on the envelope as he bore it to the Camp Street front of the building, but would not open the missive. That should be her privilege and honor. He lifted his eyes from it and behold, here came the two cars! But where was she? Certainly not in the front one. There he made out, in pairs, M. De l'Isle and Mme. Alexandre. Mlle. Yvonne and M. Dubroca, M. Castanado, and Mme. De l'Isle. Then in the rear car his alarmed eye picked out Beloiseau and Mlle. Corinne, with Cupid between them; Mmes. Dubroca and Castanado, especially the latter; and then, oh, then! Behind the smaller woman a vacant seat and behind the vaster one Aline Chapdelaine.
"You've heard?" cried M. De Elsie, slowing to the curb. Chester fluttered his prize. "Click, clap!"--he was in without the stopping of a wheel and had passed the letter to Aline.
"Accepted?" asked several, while both cars resumed their speed up-town.
"We'll open it in Audubon Park," she said to Chester, and Mme. Castanado and Dubroca passed the word forward to Beloiseau and Mlle. Corinne. These soon got it to Castanado and Mme. De l'Isle.
"Not to be open' till Audubon Park," sped the word still forward till Mlle. Yvonne and Dubroca had passed it to Mme. Alexandre and M. De l'Isle.
"Ahah!" he said, as he turned Lee Circle and went spinning up St. Charles Avenue. "Not in the pewblic street, but in Audubon Park, and to the singing of bird'!"
Out near the riverside end of the park the two cars stopped abreast under a vast live-oak, and Aline, rising, opened the letter and read aloud:
MY DEAR MR. CHESTER:
Your manuscript, "The Holy Cross," accompanied by your letter of the -- inst., is received and will have our early attention.
Very respectfully,
THE EDITOR.
All other outcries ceased half-uttered when the Chapdelaine sisters clapped hands for joy, crying:
"Agcepted! Agcepted! Ah, Aline! by that kindnezz and sag-acitie of Mr. Chezter--and all the rez' of our Royal Street frien'--you are biccome the diz-ting-uish' and lucrative authorezz, Mlle. Chapdelaine!"
M. De l'Isle's wrath was too hot for his tongue, but Scipion stood waiting to speak, and Mme. Castanado beckoned attention and spoke his name.
"Messieurs et mesdames" he said, "that manuscrip' is no mo' agcept' than rij-ect'. That stadement, tha'z only to rilease those insuranze companie' and----"
"And to stop us from telegraphing!" M. De l'Isle broke in, "and to make us, ad the end, glad to get even a small price! Ah, mesdemoiselles, you don't know those razcal' like me!"
"Oh!" cried the tender Yvonne--original rescuer of Marie Madeleine from boy lynchers--"you don't have charitie! That way you make yo'seff un'appie."
"Me, I cann' think," her sister persevered, "that tha'z juz' for the insuranse. The manuscrip' is receive'? Well! 'ow can you receive something if you don't agcept it? And 'ow can you agcep' that if you don' receive it? Ah-h-h!"
"No," Beloiseau rejoined, "tha'z only to signify that the editorial decision--tha'z not decide'."
Mlle. Corinne lifted both hands to the entire jury: "Oh, frien', I assure you, that manuscrip' is agcept'. And tha'z the proof; that both Yvonne and me we've had a presentiment of that already sinze the biggening! Ah-h-h!"
Castanado intervened: "Mademoiselle, that lady yonder"--he gave his wife a courtier's bow--"will tell you a differenze. Once on a time she receive' a h-offer of marriage; but 'twas not till after many days thad she agcept' it." [Applause.] "But ad the en', I su'pose tha'z for Mr. Chezter, our legal counsel, to conclude."
Mr. Chester "thought that although receipt did not imply acceptance the tardiness of this letter did argue a probability that the manuscript had successfully passed some sort of preliminary reading--or readings--and now awaited only the verdict of the editor-in-chief."
"Or," ventured Mme. Alexandre, "of that editorial board all together."
M. De l'Isle shook his head and then a stiff finger: "I tell you! They are sicretly inquiring Thorndyke-Smith--lit'ry magnet--to fine out if we are truz'-worthy! And tha'z the miztake we did---not sen'ing the photograph of Mlle. Aline ad the biggening. But tha'z not yet too late; we can wire them from firz' drug-store, 'Suspen' judgment! Portrait of authorezz coming!'"
All eyes, even Cupid's, turned to her. She was shaking her head. "No," she responded, with a smile as lovely, to Chester's fancy, as it was final; as final, to the two aunts' conviction, as it was lovely.
"No photograph would be convincing," Chester began to plead, but stopped for the aunts.
"Oh, impossible!" they cried. "That wou'n' be de-corouz!"
"Ladies an' gentlemen," said M. Castanado, "we are on a joy-ride."
"An' we 'ave reason!" his wife exclaimed.
"Biccause hope!" Mme. Alexandre put in.
"Yes!" said Dubroca. "That manuscrip' is not allone receive'; sinze more than a week 'tis rittain', whiles they dillib-rate; and the chateau what dillib-rate'--you know, eh? M'sieu' De l'Isle, I move you we go h-on."
They went, the De l'Isle car and then Scipion's, back to St. Charles Avenue, and turned again up-town. On the rearmost seat----
"Why so silent?" Aline inquired of Chester.
"Because so content," he said, "except when I think of the book."
"The half-book?"
"Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet.
"Though with the vieux carré full of them?"
"Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!"
"Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character were--what would say?"
"I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but you get it, don't you?"
The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these vieux carré stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'"
"There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said.
"Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the vieux carré is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'"
Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the vieux carré was unlike, but so like the rest of the world.
"Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around Mme. Castanado.
"You and I," Chester said, "are going back to your father's story. You said, the other day, his life was quiet, richer within than without."
"Yes. Ah, yes; so that while of the inside I cannot tell half, of the outside there is almost nothing to tell."
"All the same, tell it. Were not he and these Royal Street men boys together?"
"Yes, though with M. De l'Isle the oldest, and though papa was away from them many years, over there in France. Yes, they were all his friends, as their fathers had been of grandpère. And they'll all tell you the same thing; that he was their hero, while at the same time that his story is destitute of the theatrical. Just he himself, he and mamma--they are the whole story."
"A sea without a wave?"
"Ah, no; yet without a storm. And, Mr. Chester, I think a sea without a storm can be just as deep as with, h'm?"
"Well, they married, your father and mother, over there where her people are fighting the Germans right now, and came and lived in Bourbon Street with your aunts, eh?"
"Yes, or rather my aunts with them, they were of so much more strong natures than my aunts--more strong and large while just as sweet, and that's saying much, you know."
"I see it is."
"Mr. Chester, what you see, I think, is that my aunts are perhaps the two most--well--unworldly women you ever knew."
"True. In that quality they're childlike."
"Yes, and because they are so childlike in--above all--the freedom of their speech, what I want to say of them, just this one time, is the more to their honor: that in my whole life I've never heard them speak one word against anybody."
"Not even Cupid?"
"Ah-h-h! that's a cruel joke, and false! That true Cupid, he's an assassin; while that child, he's faultless?"
The speaker really said "fauklezz," and it was a joy to Chester to hear her at last fall unwittingly into a Creole accent. "Well, anyhow," he led on, "the four lived together; and if I guess right your mother became, to all this joy-ride company, as much their heroine as your father was their hero."
"'Tis true!"
"But your father's coming back from France--it couldn't save the business?"
"Alas, no! Even together, he and mamma--and you know what a strong businezz partner a French wife can be--they could not save it. Both of them were, I think, more artist than merchant, and when all that kind of businezz began to be divorce' from art and married to machinery"--the narrator made a sad gesture.
"Kultur against culture, was it? and your father not the sort to change masters."
"True again. But tha'z not all; hardly was it half. One thing beside was the miz-conduct of an agent, the man who lately"--a silent smile.
"What?--sold your aunts that manuscript?"
"Yes. But he didn' count the most. Oh, the whole businezz, except papa's, became, as we say--give me the word!"
"Americanized?"
"No, papa he always refused to call it that. Mr. Chester, he used to say that those two marvellouz blessings, machinery, democracy, they are in one thing too much alike; they are, at first--say it, you."
"Vulgarizing?"
"Yes. I suppose that has to be--at the first, h'm? And with the buying world every day more and more in love with machine work--and seeming itself to become machine work, while at the same time Americanized, papa was like a river town"--another gesture--"left by the river!"
"Yet he never went into bankruptcy? You can point with pride to that, mademoiselle."
"Ah, Mr. Chester, pride! Once I pointed, and papa--'My daughter, there are many ways to go bankrupt worse than in money, and to have gone bankrupt in none of them--' there he stopped; he was too noble for pride. No, the businezz, juz' year after year it starved to death. In the early days grandpére had two big stores, back to back; whole-sale, Chartres Street; retail, Royal, where now all that is left of it is the shop of Mme. Alexandre. Both her husband and she were with papa in the retail store, until it diminish' that he couldn' keep them, and--in the time of President Roosevelt--some New York men they bought him out. Because a new head of the custom-house, old Creole friend of papa, without solicitation except maybe of M. Beloiseau and those, appointed him superintendent of customs warehouses, you know? where they keep all kind of imported goods, so they needn't pay the tariff till they take them out to sell them in the store? h'm?"
"Yes. And he kept that place--how long?"
"Always, till he passed, he and mamma; mamma first, he two years avter. Ad the last he said to me--we chanced to be talking in Englizh--'I've lived the quiet life. If I must go I can go quietly.'
"'And still,' I said, 'if your life had been as stormy as grandpére's you'd have been always for the right, and ad the last content, I think.'
"'Yes,' he said, 'I believe I never ran away from a storm, while ad the same time I never ran avter one.' And then he said something I wrote down the same night in the fear I might sometime partly forget it."
"Have you it with you, now, here?" She showed a bit of paper, holding it low for him to read as she retained it:
On the side of the right all the storms of life--all the storms of the world--are for the perfection of the quiet life--the active-quiet life--to build it stronger, wider, finer, higher, than is possible for the stormy life to be. Whether for each man or for the nations, the stormy life is but the means; the active-quiet life, without decay of character in man or nation but with growth forever--that is the end.
The pair exchanged a look. "Thank you," murmured Chester, and presently added: "So you were left with your two aunts. Then what?"
"I'll tell you. But"---the Creole accent faded out--"we must not disappoint the De l'Isles, nor those others, we must----"
"I see; we must notice where we're going and give and take our share of the joy."
"We mustn't be as if reading the morning paper, h'm? I think 'tis for you they've come this way instead of going on those smooth shell-roads between the city and the lake." The two cars had come up through old "Carrollton," where the Mississippi, sweeping down from Nine-Mile Point, had been gnawing inland for something like a century, in spite of all man's engineering could pile against it, and now were out on the levee road and half round the bend above.
To press her policy, "See!" exclaimed Aline, as a light swell of the ground brought to view a dazzling sweep of the river, close beyond the levee's crown and almost on a level with the eye. They were in a region of wide, highly kept sugar-plantations. Whatever charms belong to the rural life of the Louisiana Delta were at their amplest on every side. Groves of live-oak, pecan, magnolia, and orange about large motherly dwellings of the Creole colonial type moved Aline to turn the conversation upon country life in Chester's State, and constrain him to tell of his own past and kindred. So time and the river's great windings slipped by with the De l'Isles undisappointed, and early in the afternoon the company lunched in the two cars, under a homestead grove. Its master and mistress, old friends of all but Chester, came running, followed by maids with gifts of milk and honey. They climbed in among the company; shared, lightly, their bread and wine; heard with momentary interest the latest news of the great war; spoke English and French in alternating clauses; inquired after the coterie's four young heroes at the French front, but only by stealth and out of Aline's hearing; and cried to Cupid, "'Ello, 'Ector! comment ça va-t-il? And 'ow she is, yonder at 'ome, that Marie Madeleine?"
Cupid smiled to his ears, but it was the absentee's two mistresses who answered for her, volubly, tenderly: "We was going to bring her, but juz' at the lazt she discide' she di'n' want to come. You know, tha'z beautiful, sometime', her capriciouznezz!"
Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days. Then, in the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they glided cityward. At Carrollton they turned toward the New Canal, and at West End took the lake shore eastward--but what matter their way? Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two--three, counting Cupid--and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept themselves aware of the world about them while Aline's story ran gently on. It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the reply:
"No, 'twas easier to bear, I think, because I had not more time and less work."
"What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now? Incidentally you keep books, but mainly you do--what?"
"Mainly--I'll tell you. Papa, you know, he was, like grandpère, a true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of beautiful living. Like grandpère he had that perception by three ways--occupation, education, talent. And he had it so abboundingly because he had also the art--of that beautiful life, h'm?"
"The art beyond the arts," suggested the listener; "their underlying philosophy."
The narrator glowed. Then, grave again, she said: "Mr. Chezter, I'll tell you something. To you 'twill seem very small, but to me 'tis large. It muz' have been because of both together, those arts and that art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him--egcept in play--speak an exaggeration. 'Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you that--while ad the same time papa he never rebuke' that in anybody else--egcept, of course--his daughter."
"But I ask about you, your work."
"Ah! and I'm telling you. Mamma she had the same connoisseur talent as papa, and even amongs' that people where she was raise', and under the shadow, as you would say, of that convent so famouz for all those weavings, laces, tapestries, embro'deries, she was thought to be wonderful with the needle."
Chester interrupted elatedly: "I see what you're coming to. You, yourself, were born needle in hand--the embroidery-needle."
"Well, ad the least I can't rimember when I learned it. 'Twas always as if I couldn' live without it. But it was not the needle alone, nor embro'deries alone, nor alone the critical eye. Papa he had, pardly from grand-père, pardly brought from France, a separate librarie abbout all those arts, and I think before I was five years I knew every picture in those books, and before ten every page. And always papa and mamma they were teaching me from those books--they couldn' he'p it! I was very naughty aboud that. I would bring them the books and if they didn' teach me I would weep. I think I wasn' ever so naughty aboud anything else. But in the en', with the businezz always diclining, that turn' out fortunate. By and by mamma she persuade' papa to let her take a part in the pursuanze of the businezz. But she did that all out of sight of the public----"
"Had you never a brother or sister?"
"Yes, long ago. We'll not speak of that. A sizter, two brothers; but--scarlet-fever----"
The story did not pause, yet while it pressed on, its hearers musing lingered behind. Why were the long lost ones not to be spoken of? For fear of betraying some blame of the childlike aunts for the scarlet-fever? The unworthy thought was put aside and the hearer's attention readjusted.
"Even mamma," the girl was saying, "she didn' escape that contagion, and by reason of that she was compelled to let papa put me in her place in the businezz; and after getting well she never was the same and I rittained the place till a year avter, when she pas' away, and I have it yet."
"And who filled M. Alexandre's place?"
"Oh, that? Tis fil' partly by Mme. Alexandre and partly by that diminishing of the businezz--till the largez' part of it is ripairing--of old laces, embro'deries, and so forth. Madame's shop is the chief place in the city for that. Of that we have all we can do. 'Tis a beautiful work.
"So tha'z all I have to tell, Mr. Chezter; and I've enjoyed to tell you that so you can see why we are so content and happy, my aunts and I--and Hector--and Marie Madeleine. H'm?"
"That's all you have to tell?"
"That is all." "But not all there is to tell, even of the past, mademoiselle."
"Ah! and why not?"
"Oh, impossible!" Chester softly laughed and had almost repeated the word when the girl blushed; whereupon he did the same. For he seemed all at once to have spoiled the whole heavenly day, until she smilingly restored it by saying:
"Oh, yes! One thing I was forgetting. Just for the laugh I'll tell you that. You know, even in a life as quiet as mine, sometimes many things happening together, or even a few, will make you see bats instead of birds, eh?"
"I know, and mistake feelings for facts. I've done it often, in a moderate way."
"Yes? Me the same. But very badly, so that the sky seemed falling in, only once."
Chester thought that if the two aunts, just then telling the biography of their dolls, were his, his sky would have fallen in at least weekly. "Tell me of that once," he said, and, knowing not why, called to mind those four soldiers in France, to her, for some reason, unmentionable.
"Well, first I'll say that the archbishop he had been the true friend of papa, but now this time, this 'once' when my sky seemed falling, both mamma and papa they were already gone. I don't need to tell you what the trouble was about, because it never happened; it only threatened to happen. So when I saw there was only me to prevent it and to----"
"To hold the sky up?"
"Yes, seeing that, it seemed to me the best friend to go to was the archbishop.
"'Well, my old and dear friend's daughter,' he said, 'what is it?'
"'Most reverend father in God, 'tis my wish to become a nun.'
"'My child, that is a beautiful sentiment.'
"'But 'tis more; even more than my wish; 'tis my resolution. I must do that. 'Tis as if I heard that call from heaven to me, Aline Chapdelaine!'
"'Ah, but that's not only your name. Your mamma, up yonder, she's also Aline Chapdelaine.'
"'Yes, but I know that call is to me. Ah, your Grace, surely, surely, you will not forbid me?'
"'No, my daughter. Yet at the same time that is not a thing to be done suddenly, or in desperation. I'll appoint you a season for reflection and prayer, and after that if your resolution remains the same you shall become a nun.'
"'But, for the sake of others, will not that season be made short?'
"'For your own sake, my daughter, as well as for others, I'll make it the shortest possible. Let me see; I was going to say forty but I'll make it only thirty-nine.'
"'Ah, your Grace, but in thirty-nine days----'
"He stopped me: 'Not days, my child; years.' What he said after, 'tis no matter now; pretty soon I was kneeling and receiving his benediction."
"And the sky didn't fall?"
"No, but--I can't explain to you--'twas that very visit prevent' it falling."
It was in keeping with the coterie's spiritual make-up that they should know a restaurant in the vieux carré, which "that pewblic" knew not, and whose best merits were not music and fresco, but serenity, hospitality, and cuisine---a haven not yet "Ammericanize'."
Where it was they never told a philistine. The elect they informed under the voice, as one might betray a bird's nest. It was but a step from the crumbling Hotel St. Louis, and but another or so from the spires of St. Louis Cathedral.
In it, at a round table, the joy-riders had passed the evening of their holiday. As the cathedral clock struck nine they rose to part. At the board Chester had sat next the same joy-mate allowed him all day in the car. But with how reduced a share of her attention! Half of his own he had had to give, at his other elbow, to her aunt Yvonne; half of Aline's had gone to Dubroca. The other half into half of his was but half a half and that had to be halved by a quarter coming from the two nearest across the table, one of whom was Mlle. Corinne, whose queries always required thought.
"Mr. Chezter," she said, when the purchase of an evening paper had made the great over-seas strife the general theme, "can you egsplain me why they don' stop that war, when 'tis calculate' to projuce so much hard feeling?"
Explaining as best he could without previous research, Chester had turned again to Mlle. Yvonne to let her finish telling--inspire'd by an incoming course of the menu--of those happy childhood days when she and her sister and the unfortunate gentleman from whom they had bought Aline's manuscript went crayfishing in Elysian Fields street canal, always taking the dolls along, "so not to leave them lonesome"; how the dolls had visibly enjoyed the capture of each crayfish; and how she and Corinne and the dolls would delight in the same sport to-day, but, alas! "that can-al was fil' op! and tha'z another thing calculate' to projuce hard feeling."
Through such riddles and reminiscences and his replies thereto persistently ran Chester's uneasy question to himself: Why had Aline told him that story of unnamable trouble which had goaded her to seek the cloister? Why if not to warn him away from a sentiment which was growing in him like a balloon and straining his heart-strings to hold it to its proper moorings?
Now the two cars let out their passengers at the De l'Isle gates and at the door of the Castanados. Madame of the latter name, with her spouse heaving under one arm and Chester under the other, while Mme. Alexandre pushed behind, was lifted to her parlor. Returning to the street, Chester found the motors gone, MM. De l'Isle and Beloiseau gone with them, and only the two Dubrocas, the three Chapdelaines, and Cupid awaiting him.
And now, with Cupid leading, and sleeping as he led, and with a Dubroca beside each aunt, and Aline and Chester following, this remnant of the company approached the Conti Street corner, on the way to the Chapdelaine home. At the turn----
"Mademoiselle," Chester asked in a desperation too much like hers before the arch-bishop, "do you notice that, as the old hymn says, we are treading where the saints have trod? Your saints?"
"My--ah, yes, 'tis true. 'Tis here grand'mère----
"Turned that corner in her life where your grandpère first saw her. Al'--Aline."
"Mr. Chester?"
"I want this corner, from the day I first saw you turn it, to be all that to you and me. Shall it not?"
She said nothing. Priceless moments glided by, each a dancing ghost. Just there ahead in the dark was Bourbon Street, and a short way down among its huddled shadows were her board fence and batten gate. It was senseless to have taken this chance on so poor a margin of time, but what's done's done! "Oh, Aline Chapdelaine, say it shall be! Say it, Aline, say it!"
"Mr. Chester, it is impossible! Impossible!"
"It is not! It's the only right thing! It shall be, Aline, it shall be!"
"No, Mr. Chester, 'tis impossible. You must not ask me why, but 'tis impossible!"
"It isn't! Aline, and I ask no why. I see the trouble. It's your aunts. Why, I'll take them with you, of course! I'll take them into my care and love as you have them in yours, and keep them there while they and I live. I can do it, I've got the wherewithal! Things have happened to me fast since I first saw you turn that corner behind us. I've inherited property, and only yesterday I was taken into one of the best law firms in the city. I'll prove all that to you and your aunts to-morrow. Aline, unspeakable treasure, you shall not live the buried-alive life in which you are trying to believe yourself rightly placed and happy, my saint! My--adored--saint!"
"Yes, I must. What you ask is impossible."
Long after midnight Chester had not returned to his room. He could not tolerate the confinement even of the narrow streets round about it.
Far out Esplanade Avenue, uncompanioned, he was walking mile after mile beside a belt line of trolley-cars, or more than one, while at home, in Bourbon Street, Cupid slept.
But now the child awoke, startled. Four small feet were on one of his arms, and Marie Madeleine was purring, at the top of her purr, in his ear. Drowsily he crowded her away. Purring on, she slowly walked across his stomach and dropped to the floor. But soon she leaped up again to that sensitive region and purred into his nose, not at all as if to claim attention, but as though lost in thought. When he pushed her aside she dropped again to the floor, with such a quadruple thump that he looked after her, and as she loitered across his view with tail as straight up as Cleopatra's Needle, he observed just beyond her a condition of affairs that appalled him.
Cold from his small fingers and toes to his ample heart, he rose, stole into the next room, and stood by the bed where lay Mlles. Corinne and Yvonne as they had lain every night since their earliest childhood.
"Ah! oh! h'nn!" Mlle. Corinne sprang to an elbow, nervously whispering: "What is it?"
"My back do'," he murmured, "stan'in' opem."
"Oh, little boy, no, it cannot be! I bolt' it laz' evening when you was praying. You know?"
"Yass'm, but it opem now; Marie Madeleine dess gone out thu it."
Mlle. Yvonne sprang up dishevelled beside her dishevelled sister: "Mon dieu! where is Aline?"
Colder than ever in hands and feet, the wee grandson of the intrepid Sidney responded: "Stay still tell I go see."
"Yes!" whispered Mlle. Corinne, slipping to the floor and tenderly pushing him, "go! safest for everybody! And if you see a burglar don' threaten him!"
"No'm, I won't."
"No, but juz' run quick out the back door and fron' gate and holla 'fire'! Go!"
At the crack of the door she listened after him while her sister crowded close, whispering: "Ah, pauvre Aline, always wise! Like us, silent! And tha'z after all the bravezt!"
In a moment Cupid was back, less frozen yet trembling: "She am' dah. Seem' like 'tis her leave de do' opem."
"Her clothes--they are gone?"
"No'm, all dah 'cep' de cloak she tuck on de machine. Reckon she out in de honey-sucker bower whah dey sot together Sunday evenin'. Reckon Marie Madeleine gone dah. I'll go see."
"Ah, fearlezz boy, yes! Make quick!"
This time both women pushed, single file, all the way to the garden door. There they strained their sight down the path, beyond him, but the bower was quite dark. "Corinne, chére, ought not one of us to go, yo'seff?--to spare her feelings--from that li'l' negro? You don' think one of us ought to go, yo'seff?"
"No, to sen' him, that is to spare those feel'--listen! . . . Ah, Yvonne, grâce au ciel, she's there!"
They frankly wept. "Thangg the good God!"
"Yvonne, chère, you know, we are the cause of this. 'Tis biccause juz'--you and me. And she's gone yonder juz' for one thing; to be as far from her misérie as she can."
"Yes, chère, I billieve that. I think even, she muz' not see us when she's riturning." No footfall sounded, but the cat came in, tail up, purring. Back in their chamber, with wet cheeks on its unlatched door, the sisters listened.
"I know what we muz' do, Yvonne, as soon as to-morrow. Tha'z strange I never saw that biffo'!"
Cupid came and was let in. "She was al-lone, of co'se?" the pair asked from the edge of their bed.
"Oh, yass'm, o' co'se; in a manneh, yass'm."
"Mon dieu! li'l boy. In a manner? But how in a manner? Al-lone is al-lone! What she was doing?"
"Is I got to tell dat?"
"Ah, 'tit garçon! Have you not got to tell it?"
"Well, she 'uz--she 'uz prayin'."
"And tha'z the manner she was not al-lone?"
"Yas'm, dass all." The little fellow dropped to his knees, clutched a knee of either questioner, and wept and sobbed.