_The Family Circle_
On the morning of Elise's strike for freedom, Pierre came to breakfast
with his usual atmosphere of compressed wrath. He glanced at his
breakfast which Madame had placed on the table at the first sound which
heralded his approach. There was nothing there to break the tension and
to set free the pent-up storm within. Much meditation, with fear and
trembling, had taught Madame the proper amount of butter to apply to the
hot toast, the proportion of sugar and cream to add to the coffee, and
the exact shade of crisp and brown to put on his fried eggs. But a man
bent on trouble can invariably find a cause for turning it loose.
"Where is Elise?" he demanded.
"Elise," Madame answered, evasively, "she is around somewhere."
"Somewhere is nowhere. I demand to know." Pierre looked threatening.
"Shall I call her?" Madame vouchsafed.
"If you know not where she is, how shall you call her? Heh? If you know,
mek ansaire!"
"I don't know where she is."
"_Bien!_" Pierre reseated himself and began to munch his toast savagely.
Madame was having a struggle with herself. It showed plainly on the
thin, anxious face. The lips compressed with determination, the eyes
set, then wavered, and again the indeterminate lines of acquiescent
subjection gained their accustomed ascendency. Back and forth assertion
and complaisance fled and followed; only assertion was holding its own.
The eggs had disappeared, also the greater part of the toast. Pierre
swallowed the last of his coffee, and, without a look at his silent
wife, began to push his chair from the table. Madame's voice startled
him.
"Elise is sixteen," she ventured.
Pierre fell back in his chair, astonished. The words were simple and
uncompromising, but the intonation suggested that they were not final.
"Well?" he asked, explosively.
"When are you going to send Elise away to school?"
"To school?" Pierre was struggling with his astonishment.
"Yes." Madame was holding herself to her determination with an effort.
"To school? _Baste!_ She read, she write, she mek ze figure, is it not
suffice? Heh?"
"That makes no difference. You promised her father that you would send
her away to school."
Pierre looked around apprehensively.
"Shut up! Kip quiet!"
"I won't shut up, and I won't keep quiet." Madame's blood was warming.
The sensation was as pleasant as it was unusual. "I will keep quiet for
myself. I won't for Elise."
"Elise! Elise! Ain't I do all right by Elise?" Pierre asked,
aggressively. "She have plenty to eat, plenty to wear, you tek good care
of her. Don't I tek good care, also? Me? Pierre? She mek no complain,
heh?"
"That isn't what her father wanted, and it isn't what you promised him."
Pierre looked thoughtful; his face softened slightly.
"We have no children, you and me. We have honly Elise, one li'l girl,
_la bonne_ Elise. You wan' mek me give up _la bonne_ Elise? _P'quoi?_"
His face blazed again as he looked up wrathfully. "You wan' mek her go
to school! _P'quoi?_ So she learn mek _teedle, teedle_ on ze piano? So
she learn speak gran'? So she tink of me, Pierre, one li'l Frenchmens,
not good enough for her, for mek her shame wiz her gran' friends? Heh?
Who mek ze care for ze li'l babby? Who mek her grow up strong? Heh? You
mek her go school. You mek ze gran' dam-zelle. You mek her go back to
her pip'l. You mek me, Pierre, you, grow hol' wiz noddings? Hall ze res'
ze time wiz no li'l Elise? How you like li'l Elise go away and mek ze
marry, and w'en she have li'l children, she say to her li'l children,
'_Mes enfants, voila!_ Pierre and Madame, _tres bon_ Pierre and Madame,'
and _les petits enfants_ mek big eyes at Pierre and Madame and li'l
Elise? She say, '_Pauvres enfants_, Pierre and Madame will not hurt you.
_Bon_ Pierre! _Bonne_ Madame!'" Pierre made a gesture of deprecating
pity.
Madame was touched to the quick. Starting tears dimmed the heavy eyes.
Had she not thought of all this a thousand times? If Pierre cared so
much for li'l Elise how much more reason had she to care? Li'l Elise had
been the only bright spot in her dreary life, yet she was firm. Elise
had been very dear to her in the past, but her duty was plain. Her voice
was gentler.
"Elise is not ours, Pierre. It is harder to do now what we ought to have
done long ago."
Pierre rose and walked excitedly back and forth. He was speaking half to
himself, half to Madame.
"Sixtin year 'go li'l Elise mammy die. Sixtin year! She no say, 'Madame
Marie, tek my li'l babby back Eas' to my friend, _hein_? No. She say,
'Madame Marie, my poor li'l babby ain' got no mammy no mo'. Tek good
care my poor li'l babby.' Then she go die. We mek good care of ze li'l
Elise, me and you, heh? We sen' away Elise? _Sacre non!_ Nevaire!"
Pierre stopped, and looked fiercely at Madame.
"Yes," answered Madame. "Her mammy asked me to care for her little baby,
but it was for her father. When her father died he made you promise to
give her to her friends. Don't I know how hard it is?" Her tears were
flowing freely now. "Every year we said, 'She is yet too young to go.
Next year we will keep our promise,' and next year she was dearer to us.
And now she is sixteen. She must go."
Pierre broke in fiercely:
"She shall not! Sixtin year? Sixtin year she know honly me, Pierre, her
daddy, and you, her mammy. What you tink, heh? Elise go school in one
beeg city, heh? She mek herself choke wiz ze brick house and ze stone
street. She get sick and lonesome for ze mountain, for her hol' daddy
and her hol' mammy, for ze grass and ze flower."
"That is for her to say. Send her away as you promised. Then"--Madame's
heavy eyes grew deep, almost beautiful--"then, if she comes back to us!"
Pierre turned sullenly.
"She is mine. Mine and yours. She shall stay."
Madame's tears ceased flowing.
"She shall go." Her temerity frightened her. "I will tell her all if you
don't send her away."
Pierre did not explode, as she expected. Instead, there was the calm of
invincible purpose. He held up one finger impressively.
"I settle hall zis. _Ecoutez!_ She shall marry. Right away. Queek. Da's
hall." He left the room before Madame had time to reply.
Madame was too terrified to think. The possibility conveyed in her
husband's declaration had never suggested itself to her. Elise was still
the little baby nestling in her arms, the little girl prattling and
playing indoors and out, on the wide ranch, and later, Madame shuddered,
when Pierre had abandoned the ranch for the Blue Goose, waiting at the
bar, keeping Pierre's books, redeeming checks at the desk, moving out
and in among the throng of coarse, uncouth men, but through it all the
same beautiful, wilful, loving little girl, so dear to Madame's heart,
so much of her life. What did it matter that profanity died on the lips
of the men in her presence, that at her bidding they ceased to drink to
intoxication, that hopeless wives came to her for counsel, that their
dull faces lighted at her words, that in sickness or death she was to
them a comfort and a refuge?
What if Pierre had fiercely protected her from the knowledge of the more
loathsome vices of a mining camp? It was no more than right. Pierre
loved her. She knew that. Pierre was hoarding every shining dollar that
came to his hand. Was he lavish in his garnishment of the Blue Goose? It
was only for the more effective luring of other gold from the pockets of
the careless, unthinking men who worked in mines or mills, or roamed
among the mountains or washed the sands of every stream, spending all
they found, hoping for and talking of the wealth which, if it came,
would only smite them with more rapid destruction. And all these little
rivulets, small each one alone, united at the Blue Goose into a growing
stream that went no farther. For what end? Madame knew. For Pierre, life
began and ended in Elise. Madame knew, and sympathized with this; but
her purpose was not changed. She knew little of life beyond the
monotonous desolation of a western ranch, the revolting glamour of a
gambling resort, where men revelled in the fierce excitement of
shuffling cards and clicking chips, returning to squalid homes and to
spiritless women, weighed down and broken with the bearing of many
children, and the merciless, unbroken torture of thankless, thoughtless
demands upon their lives. Madame saw all this. She saw and felt the
dreary hopelessness of it all. Much as she loved Elise, if it parted her
from all that made life endurable she would not shrink from the
sacrifice. She knew nothing of life beyond her restricted circle, but
anything outside this circle was a change, and any change must be for
the better.
"She shall marry. Right away." Pierre's words came to her again with
overwhelming terror. Overwhelming, because she saw no way of averting
the threatened blow.
From behind, Madame felt two soft hands close on her straining eyes, and
a sympathetic voice:
"Has daddy been scolding you again? What was it about this time? Was it
because I ran away this morning? I did run away, you know."
For reply Madame only bowed her head from between the clasping hands
that for the first time had distress instead of comfort for her groping
soul. She did not pray for guidance. She never thought of praying. Why
should she? The prisoned seed, buried in the dank and quickening soil,
struggles instinctively toward the source of light and strength. But
what instinct is there to guide the human soul that, quickened by
unselfish love, is yet walled in by the Stygian darkness of an ignorant
life?
Madame's hands were clinched. Her hot eyes were dry and hard. No light!
No help! Only a fierce spirit of resistance. At length she was conscious
of Elise standing before her, half terrified, but wholly determined. Her
eyes moistened, then grew soft. Her outstretched arms sought the girl
and drew her within their convulsive grasp.
"My poor Elise! My poor little girl, with no one to help her but me!"
"What is it, mammy? What is it?"
Madame only moaned.
"My poor little Elise! My poor little girl!"
Elise freed herself from the resisting arms.
"Tell me at once!" She stamped her foot impatiently.
Madame sprang to her feet.
"You shall not marry that man. You shall not!" Her voice rose. "I will
tell you all--everything. I will, if he kills me. I will! I will!"
The door from the saloon was violently opened, and Pierre strode in. He
pushed Elise aside, and, with narrowed eyes and uplifted hand,
approached his wife.
"You will? You will, heh?"
The threatening blow fell heavily, but upon Elise. She thrust forth her
hands. Pierre stumbled backward before the unexpected assault. His eyes,
blazing with ungoverned fury, swept around the room. They rested upon a
stick. He grasped it, and turned once more toward Madame.
"You will! You will! I teach you bettaire. I teach you say 'I will' to
me! I teach you!" Then he stopped. He was looking squarely into the
muzzle of a silver-mounted revolver held in a steady hand and levelled
by a steady eye.
Pierre was like a statue. Another look came into his eyes. Youth toyed
with death, and was not afraid. Pierre knew that. At threatening weapons
in the hands of drink-crazed men Pierre smiled with scorn. The bad man
stood in terror of the law as well as of Pierre. But when determined
youth laid hold on death and shook it in his face Pierre knew enough to
stand aside.
Elise broke the tense silence.
"Don't you ever dare to strike mammy again. Don't you dare!"
Without a word Pierre left the room. He had loved Elise before with as
unselfish a love as he could know. But hitherto he had not admired her.
Now he rubbed his hands and chuckled softly, baring his teeth with
unsmiling lips.
"A-a-ah!" he breathed forth. "_Magnifique! Superb! La petite diable!_
She mek ze shoot in her eye! In ze fingaire! She bin shoot her hol' man,
her hol' daddy, _moi!_ Pierre." Pierre thoughtfully rubbed his smooth
chin. "_La petite diable!_"
Poor Madame! Poor Pierre! The dog chases his tail with undiminished
zest, and is blissfully rewarded if a straggling hair but occasionally
brushes his nose. He licks his accessible paws, impelled alone by a
sense of duty.