LA MIGNONNE
A cool sea breeze blew through the half-opened lattice, and a ray of
sunshine quivered upon the ocher-colored wall, when Dick awoke from a
refreshing sleep. He felt helplessly weak, and his side, which was
covered by a stiff bandage, hurt him when he moved, but his head was
clear at last and he languidly looked about. The room was spacious, but
rather bare. There was no carpet, but a rug made a blotch of cool green
on the smooth, dark floor. Two or three religious pictures hung upon the
wall and he noted how the soft blue of the virgin's dress harmonized with
the yellow background. An arch at one end was covered by a leather
curtain like those in old Spanish churches, but it had been partly drawn
back to let the air circulate. Outside the hooked-back lattice he saw the
rails of a balcony, and across the narrow patio a purple creeper spread
about a dazzling white wall.
All this was vaguely familiar, because it was some days since Dick had
recovered partial consciousness, though he had been too feeble to notice
his surroundings much or find out where he was. Now he studied the room
with languid interest as he tried to remember what had led to his being
brought there. The scanty furniture was dark and old; and he knew the
wrinkled, brown-faced woman in black who sat by the window with a dark
shawl wound round her head. She had a place in his confused memories; as
had another woman with a curious lifeless face and an unusual dress, who
had once or twice lifted him and done something to his bandages. Still,
it was not of her Dick was thinking. There had been somebody else,
brighter and fresher than either, who sat beside him when he lay in
fevered pain and sometimes stole in and vanished after a pitiful glance.
A bunch of flowers stood upon the table; and their scent mingled with the
faint smell of decay that hung about the room. Lying still, Dick heard
the leather curtain rustle softly in the draught, muffled sounds of
traffic, and the drowsy murmur of the surf. Its rhythmic beat was
soothing and he thought he could smell the sea. By and by he made an
abrupt move that hurt him as a voice floated into the room. It was
singularly clear and sweet, and he thought he knew it, as he seemed to
know the song, but could not catch the words and the singing stopped.
Then light footsteps passed the arch and there was silence again.
"Who's that?" he asked with an energy he had not been capable of until
then.
"_La mignonne_," said the old woman with a smile that showed her thick,
red lips and firm white teeth.
"And who's Mignonne?"
"_La, la!_" said the woman soothingly. "_C'est ma mignonne._ But you jess
go to sleep again."
"How can I go to sleep when I'm not sleepy and you won't tell me what I
want to know?" Dick grumbled, but the woman raised her hand and began to
sing an old plantation song.
"I'm not a child," he protested weakly. "But that's rather nice."
Closing his eyes, he tried to think. His nurse was not a Spanish mulatto,
as her dark dress suggested. It was more likely that she came from
Louisiana, where the old French stock had not died out; but Dick felt
puzzled. She had spoken, obviously with affection, of _ma mignonne_; but
he was sure the singer was no child of hers. There was no Creole accent
in that clear voice, and the steps he heard were light. The feet that had
passed his door were small and arched; not flat like a negro's. He had
seen feet of the former kind slip on an iron staircase and brush, in
pretty satin shoes, across a lawn on which the moonlight fell. Besides, a
girl whose skin was fair and whose movements were strangely graceful had
flitted about his room. While he puzzled over this he went to sleep and
on waking saw with a start of pleasure Jake sitting near his bed. His
nurse had gone.
"Hullo!" he said. "I'm glad you've come. There are a lot of things I want
to know."
"The trouble is I've been ordered not to tell you much. It's a comfort to
see you looking brighter."
"I feel pretty well. But can you tell me where I am and how I got there?"
"Certainly. We'll take the last question first. Somebody tore off a
shutter and we carried you on it. I guess you know you got a dago's knife
between your ribs."
"I seem to remember something like that," said Dick; who added with
awkward gratitude: "I believe the brutes would have killed me if you
hadn't been there."
"It was a pretty near thing. Does it strike you as curious that while you
made yourself responsible for me I had to take care of you?"
"You did so, anyhow," Dick remarked with feeling. "But go on."
"Somebody brought a Spanish doctor, who said you couldn't be moved much
and must be taken into the nearest house, so we brought you here."
"Where is 'here'? That's what I want to know?"
"My orders are not to let you talk. We've changed our positions now;
you've got to listen. For all that, you ought to be thankful you're not
in the Santa Brigida hospital, which was too far away. It's three hundred
years old and smells older. Felt as if you could bake bricks in it, and
no air gets in."
"But what were you doing at the hospital?"
"I went to see a fellow who told me he'd been fired out of our camp. He
came up just after the dago knifed you, and knocked out the man I was
grappling with, but got an ugly stab from one of the gang. We didn't find
this out until we had disposed of you. However, he's nearly all right and
they'll let him out soon."
"Ah!" said Dick. "That must be Payne, the storekeeper. But, you see, I
fired him. Why did he interfere?"
"I don't know. He said something about your being a white man and it was
three to one."
Dick pondered this and then his thoughts resumed their former groove.
"Who's the mulatto woman in black?"
"She's called Lucille. A nice old thing, and seems to have looked after
you well. When I came in she was singing you to sleep. Voice all gone, of
course, but I'd like to write down the song. It sounded like the genuine
article."
"What do you mean by the 'genuine article'?"
"Well, I think it was one of the plantation lullabies they used to sing
before the war; not the imitation trash fourth-rate composers turned out
in floods some years ago. That, of course, has no meaning, but the other
expressed the spirit of the race. Words quaint coon-English with a touch
of real feeling; air something after the style of a camp-meeting hymn,
and yet somehow African. In fact, it's unique music, but it's good."
"Hadn't I another nurse?" Dick asked.
Jake laughed. "I ought to have remembered that you're not musical. There
was a nursing sister of some religious order."
"I don't mean a nun," Dick persisted. "A girl came in now and then."
"It's quite possible. Some of them are sympathetic and some are curious.
No doubt, you were an interesting patient; anyhow, you gave the Spanish
doctor plenty trouble. He was rather anxious for a time; the fever you
had before the dago stabbed you complicated things." Jake paused and
looked at his watch. "Now I've got to quit. I had orders not to stay
long, but I'll come back soon to see how you're getting on."
Dick let him go and lay still, thinking drowsily. Jake had apparently not
meant to answer his questions. He wanted to know where he was and had not
been told. It looked as if his comrade had been warned not to enlighten
him; but there was no reason for this. Above all, he wanted to know who
was the girl with the sweet voice and light step. Jake, who had admitted
that she might have been in his room, had, no doubt, seen her, and Dick
could not understand why he should refuse to speak of her. While he
puzzled about it he went to sleep again.
It was dark when he awoke, and perhaps he was feverish or his brain was
weakened by illness, for it reproduced past scenes that were mysteriously
connected with the present. He was in a strange house in Santa Brigida,
for he remarked the shadowy creeper on the wall and a pool of moonlight
on the dark floor of his room. Yet the cornfields in an English valley,
through which he drove his motor bicycle, seemed more real, and he could
see the rows of stocked sheaves stretch back from the hedgerows he sped
past. Something sinister and threatening awaited him at the end of the
journey, but he could not tell what it was. Then the cornfields vanished
and he was crossing a quiet, walled garden with a girl at his side. He
remembered how the moonlight shone through the branches of a tree and
fell in silver, splashes on her white dress. Her face was in the shadow,
but he knew it well.
After a time he felt thirsty, and moving his head looked feebly about the
room. A slender, white figure sat near the wall, and he started, because
this must be the girl he had heard singing.
"I wonder if you could get me something to drink?" he said.
The girl rose and he watched her intently as she came towards him with a
glass. When she entered the moonlight his heart gave a sudden throb.
"Clare, Miss Kenwardine!" he said, and awkwardly raised himself on his
arm.
"Yes," she said, "I am Clare Kenwardine. But drink this; then I'll put
the pillows straight and you must keep still."
Dick drained the glass and lay down again, for he was weaker than he
thought.
"Thanks! Don't go back into the dark. You have been here all the time? I
mean, since I came."
"As you were seldom quite conscious until this morning, how did you
know?"
"I didn't know, in a way, and yet I did. There was somebody about who
made me think of England, and then, you see, I heard you sing."
"Still," she said, smiling, "I don't quite understand."
"Don't you?" said Dick, who felt he must make things plain. "Well, you
stole in and out and sat here sometimes when Lucille was tired. I didn't
exactly notice you--perhaps I was too ill--but I felt you were there, and
that was comforting."
"And yet you are surprised to see me now!"
"I can't have explained it properly. I didn't know you were Miss
Kenwardine; but I felt I knew you and kept trying to remember, but I was
feverish and my mind wouldn't take your image in. For all that, something
told me it was really there already, and I'd be able to recognize it if I
waited. It was like a photograph that wasn't developed."
"You're feverish now," Clare answered quietly. "I mustn't let you talk so
much."
"You're as bad as Jake; he wouldn't answer my questions," Dick grumbled.
"Then, you see, I want to talk."
Clare laughed, as if she found it a relief to do so. "That doesn't matter
if it will do you harm."
"I'll be very quiet," Dick pleaded. "I'll only speak a word or two now
and then. But don't go away!"
Clare sat down, and after a few minutes Dick resumed: "You passed my door
to-day, and it's curious that I knew your step, though, if you can
understand, without actually recognizing it. It was as if I was dreaming
something that was real. The worst of being ill is that your brain gets
working independently, bringing things up on its own account, without
your telling it. Anyhow, I remembered the iron steps with the glow of the
window through the curtain, and how you slipped--you wore little white
shoes, and the moonlight shone through the branches on your dress."
He broke off and frowned, for a vague, unpleasant memory obtruded itself.
Something that had had disastrous consequences had happened in the quiet
garden, but he could not remember what it was.
"Why did Lucille call you _ma mignonne_?" he asked. "Doesn't it mean a
petted child?"
"Not always. She was my nurse when I was young."
"Then you have lived here before?"
"Not here, but in a country where there are people like Lucille, though
it's long ago. But you mustn't speak another word. Go to sleep at once!"
"Then stay where I can see you and I'll try," Dick answered; and although
he did not mean to do so, presently closed his eyes.
Clare waited until his quiet breathing showed that he was asleep, and
then crossed the floor softly and stood looking down on him. There was
light enough to see his face and it was worn and thin. His weakness moved
her to pity, but there was something else. He had remembered that night
in England, he knew her step and voice, and his rambling talk had caused
her a thrill, for she remembered the night in England well. Brandon had
shielded her from a man whom she had good ground for wishing to avoid. He
had, no doubt, not quite understood the situation, but had seen that she
needed help and chivalrously offered it. She knew he could be trusted and
had without much hesitation made her unconventional request. He had then
been marked by strong vitality and cheerful confidence, but he was ill
and helpless now, and his weakness appealed to her as his vigor had not
done. He was, in a way, dependent on her, and Clare felt glad this was
so. She blushed as she smoothed the coverlet across his shoulders and
then quietly stole away.
There was no sea breeze next morning and the sun shone through a yellow
haze that seemed to intensify the heat. The white walls reflected a
curious subdued light that was more trying to the eyes than the usual
glare, and the beat of the surf was slow and languid. The air was still
and heavy, and Dick's fever, which had been abating, recovered force. He
was hot and irritable, and his restlessness did not vanish until Clare
came in at noon.
"I've been watching for you since daybreak, and you might have come
before," he said. "Lucille means well, but she's clumsy. She doesn't help
one to be quiet as you do."
"You're not quiet," Clare answered in a reproving tone. "Lucille is a
very good nurse; better than I am."
"Well," said Dick in a thoughtful tone, "perhaps she is, in a way. She
never upsets the medicine on my pillow, as you did the last time. The
nasty stuff got into my hair----"
Clare raised her hand in remonstrance. "You really mustn't talk."
"I'm going to talk," Dick answered defiantly. "It's bad for me to keep
puzzling over things, and I mean to get them straight. Lucille's very
patient, but she isn't soothing as you are. It rests one's eyes to look
at you, but that's not altogether why I like you about. I expect it's
because you knew I hadn't stolen those plans when everybody else thought
I had. But then why did I tear your letter up?"
Clare made an abrupt movement. She knew he must be kept quiet and his
brain was not working normally, but his statement was disturbing.
"You tore it up?" she asked, with some color in her face.
"Yes," said Dick in a puzzled voice, "I tore it all to bits. There was a
reason, though I can't remember it. In fact, I can't remember anything
to-day. But don't go off if I shut my eyes for a minute: it wouldn't be
fair."
Clare turned her head, but except for this she did not move, and it was a
relief when after a few disjointed remarks his voice died away. She was
moved to pity, but for a few moments she had quivered in the grasp of
another emotion. It was obvious that Dick did not altogether know what he
was saying, but he had shown her plainly the place she had in his mind,
and she knew she would not like to lose it.
Half an hour later Lucille came in quietly and Clare went away.