A DEADLOCK.
"I found the fullest summer here
Between these sloping meadow-hills and yon;
And came all beauty then, from dawn to dawn,
Whether the tide was veiled or flowing clear."
J. F. H.
Three days later, Vesper had only two friends in Sleeping Water,--that
is, only two open friends. He knew he had a secret one in Mrs. Rose à
Charlitte, who waited on him with the air of a sorrowing saint.
The open friends were the child Narcisse, and Emmanuel Victor de la
Rive, the mail-driver. Rose could not keep her child away from the
handsome stranger. Narcisse had fallen into a passionate adoration for
him, and even in his dreams prattled of the Englishman from Boston.
On the third night of Vesper's stay in Sleeping Water a violent
thunder-storm arose. Lying in his bed and watching the weird lighting up
of the Bay under the vivid discharges of electricity, he heard a
fumbling at his door-knob, and, upon unlocking the door, discovered
Narcisse, pale and seraphic, in a long white nightgown, and with beads
of distress on his forehead.
"Mr. Englishman," he said to Vesper, who now understood his childish
lingo, "I come to you, for my mother sleeps soundly, and she cannot tell
me when she wakes,--the trees and the flowers, are they not in a
terrible fright?" and, holding up his gown with one hand, he went
swiftly to the window, and pointed out towards the willows, writhing and
twisting in the wind, and the gentle flowers laid low on the earth.
A yellow glare lighted up the room, a terrible peal of thunder shook the
house, but the child did not quail, and stood waiting for an answer to
his question.
"Come here," said Vesper, calmly, "and I will explain to you that the
thunder does not hurt them, and that they have a way of bending before
the blast."
Narcisse immediately drew his pink heels up over the side of Vesper's
bed. He was unspeakably soothed by the merest word of this stranger, in
whose nervous sensitiveness and reserve he found a spirit more congenial
to his own than in that of his physically perfect mother.
Vesper talked to him for some time, and the child at last fell asleep,
his tiny hand clasping a scapulary on his breast, his pretty lips
murmuring to the picture on it, "Good St. Joseph, Mr. Englishman says
that only a few of the trees and flowers are hurt by the storm. Watch
over the little willows and the small lilies while I sleep, and do not
let them be harmed."
Vesper at first patiently and kindly endured the pressure of the curly
head laid on his arm. He would like to have a beautiful child like this
for his own. Then thoughts of his childhood began to steal over him. He
remembered climbing into his father's bed, gazing worshipfully into his
face, and stroking his handsome head.
"O God, my father!" he muttered, "I have lost him," and, unable to
endure the presence of the child, he softly waked him. "Go back to your
mother, Narcisse. She may miss you."
The child sleepily obeyed him, and went to continue his dreams by his
mother's side, while Vesper lay awake until the morning, a prey to
recollections at once tender and painful.
Vesper's second friend, the mail-driver, never failed to call on him
every morning. If one could put a stamp on a letter it was permissible
at any point on the route to call, "_Arrête-toi_" (stop), to the crimson
flying bird. If one could not stamp a letter, it was illegal to detain
him.
Vesper never had, however, to call "_Arrête-toi_." Of his own accord
Emmanuel Victor de la Rive, upon arriving before the inn, would fling
the reins over his pony's back, and spring nimbly out. He was sure to
find Vesper lolling on the seat under the willows, or lying in the
hammock, with Narcisse somewhere near, whereupon he would seat himself
for a few minutes, and in his own courteous and curious way would ask
various and sundry questions of this stranger, who had fascinated him
almost as completely as he had Narcisse.
On the morning after the thunder-storm he had fallen into an admiration
of Vesper's beautiful white teeth. Were they all his own, and not
artificial? With such teeth he could marry any woman. He was a bachelor
now, was he not? Did he always intend to remain one? How much longer
would he stay in Sleeping Water? And Vesper, parrying his questions with
his usual skill, sent him away with his ears full of polite sentences
that, when he came to analyze them, conveyed not a single item of
information to his surprised brain.
However, he felt no resentment towards Vesper. His admiration rose
superior to any rebuffs. It even soared above the warning intimations he
received from many Acadiens to the effect that he was laying himself
open to hostile criticism by his intercourse with the enemy within the
camp.
Vesper was amused by him, and on this particular morning, after he
left, he lay back in the hammock, his mind enjoyably dwelling on the
characteristics of the volatile Acadien.
Narcisse, who stood beside him in the centre of the bare spot on the
lawn, by the hammock, in vain begged for a story, and at last, losing
patience, knelt down and put his head to the ground. The Englishman had
told him that each grass-blade came up from the earth with a tale on the
tip of its quivering tongue, and that all might hear who bent an ear to
listen. Narcisse wished to get news of the storm in the night, and
really fancied that the grass-blades told him it had prevailed in the
bowels of the earth. He sprang up to impart the news to Vesper, and
Agapit, who was passing down the lane by the house to the street,
scowled, disapprovingly, at the pretty, wagging head and animated
gestures.
Vesper gazed after him, and paid no attention to Narcisse. "I wonder,"
he murmured, languidly, "what spell holds me in the neighborhood of this
Acadien demagogue who has turned his following against me. It must be
the Bay," and in a trance of pleasure he surveyed its sparkling surface.
Always beautiful,--never the same. Was ever another sheet of water so
wholly charming, was ever another occupation so fitted for unstrung
nerves as this placid watching of its varying humors and tumults?
This morning it was like crystal. A fleet of small boats was dancing out
to the deep sea fishing-grounds, and three brown-sailed schooners were
gliding up the Bay to mysterious waters unknown to him. As soon as he
grew stronger, he must follow them up to the rolling country and the
fertile fields beyond Sleeping Water. Just now the mere thought of
leaving the inn filled him with nervous apprehension, and he started
painfully and irritably as the sharp clang of the dinner-bell rang out
through the open windows of the house.
Followed by Narcisse, he sauntered to the table, where he caused Rose à
Charlitte's heart a succession of pangs and anxieties.
"He does not like my cooking; he eats nothing," she said, mournfully, to
Agapit, who was taking a substantial dinner at the kitchen table.
"I wish that he would go away," said Agapit, "I hate his insolent face."
"But he is not insolent," said Rose, pleadingly. "It is only that he
does not care for us; he is likely rich, and we are but poor."
"Do many millionaires come to thy quiet inn?" asked Agapit, ironically.
Rose reluctantly admitted that, so far, her patrons had not been people
of wealth.
"He is probably a beggar," said Agapit. "He has paid thee nothing yet. I
dare say he has only old clothes in that trunk of his. Perhaps he was
forced to leave his home. He intends to spend the rest of his life
here."
"If he would work," said Rose, timidly, "he could earn his board. If
thou goest away, I shall need a man for the stable."
"Look at his white hands," said Agapit, "he is lazy,--and dost thou
think I would leave thee with that young sprig? His character may be of
the worst. What do we know of him?" and he tramped out to the stable,
while Mrs. Rose confusedly withdrew to her pantry.
An hour later, while Agapit was grooming Toochune, the thoroughbred
black horse that was the wonder of the Bay, Narcisse came and stood in
the stable door, and for a long time silently watched him.
Then he heaved a small sigh. He was thinking neither of the horse nor of
Agapit, and said, wistfully, "The Englishman from Boston sleeps as well
as my mother. I have tried to wake him, but I cannot."
Agapit paid no attention to him, but the matter was weighing on the
child's mind, and after a time he continued, "His face is very white, as
white as the breast of the ducks."
"His face is always white," growled Agapit.
Narcisse went away, and sat patiently down by the hammock, while Agapit,
who kept an eye on him despite himself, took occasion a little later to
go to the garden, ostensibly to mend a hole in the fence, in reality to
peer through the willows at Vesper.
What he saw caused him to drop his knife, and go to the well, where
Célina was drawing a bucket of water.
"The Englishman has fainted," he said, and he took the bucket from her.
Célina ran after him, and watched him thrust Narcisse aside and dash a
handful of water in Vesper's marble, immobile face.
Narcisse raised one of his tiny fists and struck Agapit a smart blow,
and, in spite of their concern for the Englishman, both the grown people
turned and stared in surprise at him. For the first time they saw the
sweet-tempered child in a rage.
"Go away," he said, in a choking voice, "you shall not hurt him."
"Hush, little rabbit," said the young man. "I try to do him good.
Christophe! Christophe!" and he hailed an Acadien who was passing along
the road. "Come assist me to carry the Englishman into the house. This
is something worse than a faint."