"I am twenty-three," replied Alix, laughing again and again.
Another time my sister took a book, haphazard, from the shelves.
Ordinarily [audinaremend] Alix herself chose our reading, but she was busy
embroidering. Suzanne sat down and began to read aloud a romance entitled
"Two Destinies."
"Ah!" cried my sister, "these two girls must be Françoise and I."
"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Alix, with a heavy sigh, and Suzanne began her
reading. It told of two sisters of noble family. The elder had been
married to a count, handsome, noble, and rich; and the other, against her
parents' wish, to a poor workingman who had taken her to a distant
country, where she died of regret and misery. Alix and I listened
attentively; but before Suzanne had finished, Alix softly took the book
from her hands and replaced it on the shelf.
"I would not have chosen that book for you; it is full of exaggerations
and falsehoods."
"And yet," said Suzanne, "see with what truth the lot of the countess is
described! How happy she was in her emblazoned coach, and her jewels, her
laces, her dresses of velvet and brocade! Ah, Françoise! of the two
destinies I choose that one."
Alix looked at her for a moment and then dropped her head in silence.
Suzanne went on in her giddy way:
"And the other: how she was punished for her plebeian tastes!"
"So, my dear Suzanne," responded Alix, "you would not marry--"
"A man not my equal--a workman? Ah! certainly not."
Madame Carpentier turned slightly pale. I looked at Suzanne with eyes full
of reproach; and Suzanne remembering the gardener, at that moment in his
shirt sleeves pushing one of the boat's long sweeps, bit her lip and
turned to hide her tears. But Alix--the dear little creature!--rose, threw
her arms about my sister's neck, kissed her, and said:
"I know very well that you had no wish to give me pain, dear Suzanne. You
have only called up some dreadful things that I am trying to forget. I am
the daughter of a count. My childhood and youth were passed in châteaux
and palaces, surrounded by every pleasure that an immense fortune could
supply. As the wife of a viscount I have been received at court; I have
been the companion of princesses. To-day all that is a dreadful dream.
Before me I have a future the most modest and humble. I am the wife of
Joseph the gardener; but poor and humble as is my present lot, I would not
exchange it for the brilliant past, hidden from me by a veil of blood and
tears. Some day I will write and send you my history; for I want to make
it plain to you, Suzanne, that titles and riches do not make happiness,
but that the poorest fate illumined by the fires of love is very often
radiant with pleasure."
We remained mute. I took Alix's hand in mine and silently pressed it. Even
Suzanne, the inquisitive Suzanne, spoke not a word. She was content to
kiss Alix and wipe away her tears.
If the day had its pleasures, it was in the evenings, when we were all
reunited on deck, that the moments of gayety began. When we had brilliant
moonlight the flatboat would continue its course to a late hour. Then, in
those calm, cool moments, when the movement of our vessel was so slight
that it seemed to slide on the water, amid the odorous breezes of evening,
the instruments of music were brought upon deck and our concerts began. My
father played the flute delightfully; Carlo, by ear, played the violin
pleasantly; and there, on the deck of that old flatboat, before an
indulgent audience, our improvised instruments waked the sleeping
creatures of the centuries-old forest and called around us the wondering
fishes and alligators. My father and Alix played admirable duos on flute
and harp, and sometimes Carlo added the notes of his violin or played for
us cotillons and Spanish dances. Finally Suzanne and I, to please papa,
sang together Spanish songs, or songs of the negroes, that made our
auditors nearly die a-laughing; or French ballads, in which Alix would
mingle her sweet voice. Then Carlo, with gestures that always frightened
Patrick, made the air resound with Italian refrains, to which almost
always succeeded the Irish ballads of the Gordons.
But when it happened that the flatboat made an early stop to let our men
rest, the programme was changed. Celeste and Maggie went ashore to cook
the two suppers there. Their children gathered wood and lighted the
fires. Mario and Gordon, or Gordon and 'Tino, went into the forest with
their guns. Sometimes my father went along, or sat down by M. Carpentier,
who was the fisherman. Alix, too, generally sat near her husband, her
sketch-book on her knee, and copied the surrounding scene. Often, tired of
fishing, we gathered flowers and wild fruits. I generally staid near Alix
and her husband, letting Suzanne run ahead with Patrick and Tom. It was a
strange thing, the friendship between my sister and this little Irish boy.
Never during the journey did he address one word to me; he never answered
a question from Alix; he ran away if my father or Joseph spoke to him; he
turned pale and hid if Mario looked at him. But with Suzanne he talked,
laughed, obeyed her every word, called her Miss Souzie, and was never so
happy as when serving her. And when, twenty years afterward, she made a
journey to Attakapas, the wealthy M. Patrick Gordon, hearing by chance of
her presence, came with his daughter to make her his guest for a week,
still calling her Miss Souzie, as of old.