WHEN A WOMAN WILL
“What ails the child?” inquired Mère Lunde. “She has not been like
herself the last fortnight. And now she is in there, crying as if her
heart would break. It is all that André Valbonais, I know. Why does he
not marry her and be done with it?”
“But if she will not?” Gaspard Denys shrugged his shoulders and drew his
brow into a frown.
“In my time a man knew how to make a woman say yes. And a woman knew
when she was going to get a good husband, which is of the Lord. Gaspard
Denys, you have spoiled her!”
Yes, he had spoiled her. A man did not know how to bring up a girl. But
she was so sweet in all her wilfulness, so loving in spite of little
tempers and authoritative ways, so dear to him, that if she had wanted
to walk over his body with her dainty feet he could hardly have refused
her. He went into her room and took her in his arms.
“You are too good to me!” she cried presently. “And I am a miserable,
hateful, quarrelsome, selfish little thing, wanting my own way and then
not happy or satisfied with it. Oh, how will you endure me years and
years, getting queerer as I grow old! For now we will have to live here
together always. I have sent André away. Oh, will you care?”
There was no use arguing. She had cried herself into an unreasonable
passion. She had had her way. How much of it was regret? None of it was
satisfaction.
“Well, dear, then we must get along,” and his tone had a tranquillizing
cheerfulness in it. “There is no one I would like as well for a son——”
“But you do not want to go to that wretched New Orleans?” in a tone of
incredulity.
She raised her head from his shoulder. Her swollen eyes and tear-stained
face melted his heart.
“You know we were going some time. It is well worth seeing. But we do
not need to take André.”
“Yet you like him so,” with her old waywardness.
“Yes. And I am sorry you do not.”
She hid her face again. She _did_ like him. She felt it in the hot color
that stained her cheek.
“He will be gone a year—that is not long,” she said in a rather hopeful
tone.
“Or, he might decide to stay longer. If he has nothing to call him
back——”
They would be lonely without him. She would be lonely. After all, there
were few young men to compare with him. And some time—if he was _quite_
sure she did not care for him, he might marry. She never could marry any
one else, but, then—men were different. Oh, here was one who had never
put a woman in his first love’s place! And André was all alone in the
world. Yes, he would need a wife——
“Oh, Uncle Gaspard, I am not worth all this love!” she cried
remorsefully.
“You will always be worth it to two men,” he said in so gentle a tone
that it pierced her heart. “I am much older than you, dear, and some day
I shall be called upon to take the journey from which one never returns.
Then you will be left quite alone.”
What made her think of the little girl in the old château to whom the
days were so long and lonesome? Yet, it would be very sad to be left
alone. And—after all——
There are so many “after alls” in life. And so many things seem
insurmountable when looked at in a moment of passion. Uncle Denys could
never give her wholly away, had never planned to do that. Fathers and
mothers were happy to have their children married, and here she would
not do this for the best friend she had, nor for the man who loved her
sincerely—that she loved—a little.
“You ought to shut me up in the loft and keep me on—on pemican, which
you know I hate, and declare you would never let me out until—until——”
“A woman’s love must always be a free gift, Renée, darling. And if you
do not love André it would be sinning against him to marry him.”
She knew down deep in her heart that she did love him, that she had
waited these two years because there was no one like him to her. Of
course, she had not really meant that he should throw up his fine
prospects, but be willing to for her sake. And she knew now it was all
very foolish and wicked, and that she deserved to be left alone for
years and years and have them all full of sorrowful regret.
“I am going to turn over a new leaf, indeed I am,” and she slipped out
of Uncle Gaspard’s arms. “See what a fright I have made of myself with
red eyes and swollen face, and my hair frousled. Dinner must be nearly
ready. Oh, what a long morning! And I have made you unhappy, when I love
you so much,” in accents of tenderest regret.
He kissed her and went away.
They were very silent at dinner. Mère Lunde grumbled because they ate so
little. Then Uncle Gaspard went out. The boats were loading up with
lead, as well as other materials, and he was interested in that, and
needed as well.
No one came during the evening. She heard the violins and singing up the
street, the fiddles and dancing down below. The fire was all out; no one
wanted it after the cooking was done. There were some black charred ends
and piles of ashes. It had a melancholy appearance. And then she fancied
herself as old as Mère Lunde, sitting by the chimney corner, only Mère
Lunde had married the man of her choice—it seemed now to Renée that
every one must have done so—and though her two sons were dead, she had
had them once; and everybody must die some time. But to die without
having been very happy, that made her shudder. And, then, to know that
one had cast it away rather than give up a whim of will.
So the next day passed and the next. Sunday she and Uncle Gaspard went
to church. There would only be one Sunday more for André—ten days. For
her—how many?
Coming down the path they glanced at each other. What wonderful
languages live in the depths of the eyes! André came to her side, and
then she colored and the hand he took trembled, but she did not withdraw
it. They walked on homeward. She never knew whether any one spoke or
not. Uncle Gaspard was lingering behind, giving thanks that he was
likely to get his heart’s desire.
They paused at the garden gate. He opened it for her to pass. There was
midsummer richness and bloom in it, the homely every-day herbs giving
out a sweetness in their plain flowering that was reviving. He followed
her, but she made a little pause at the vine-clad arbor.
“I am wilful and delight in my own way,” she began, and the words
trembled on the fragrant air. “I am like a briar that pricks you when
you would gather the rose——”
“But the rose is sweet for all that. And—I will take the rose.”
Then he kissed her throbbing red lips, her fluttering eyelids, just as
he had dreamed of doing many a time. And the bliss was sweeter than any
dream.
There was not much time to waste. Mère Lunde protested at first at being
left alone, but there would be Chloe, and the Marchands to look after
her, and neighbors were kindly.
Not much fuss was made in those days over wedding trousseaus. Often one
dress went through families, was even borrowed. But Renée had no need of
that.
So they went to church on Sunday and heard the banns called, and every
one nodded to his next neighbor with the confident air of having known
it all along. The next day Gaspard Denys gave his darling away, and the
priest joined their hands and blessed them. Madame Chouteau gave them
the wedding feast, which was a mid-day dinner in the grand old house,
much the finest residence in St. Louis. It had not the boisterousness of
most weddings, for only the better part of the community were invited.
Madame Chouteau could do that.
They drank the bride’s health and gave her all good wishes. The men
considered André very lucky and he thought himself so, but Renée’s
fortune scarcely counted, since he would make one for himself.
Everything seemed sweet and solemn to Renée, and she was awed in a
sacred sort of way as this new life unfolded before her.
They walked in quite a procession afterward. Gaspard Denys had Madame
Gardepier. They talked a little about the bridegroom, then she said:
“Monsieur Denys, you have done a faithful duty toward the child. You
will miss her much. One can never be quite the same again. Is it true
you are going to New Orleans also?”
“Yes, madame. I have not been there for years.”
She had hoped it was not so. If he were lonely, he might turn to others
for consolation. And if the child went out of his life——
“But will her husband agree to share her love? Husbands are jealous
sometimes,” she commented rather gayly.
“He is like a son to me, and he knows it. You see, I am old enough to be
his father also.”
“Ah, M’sieu Denys, you should have had children of your very own, and a
woman to love in your home. You have such a noble and tender heart you
could have made some one so happy.”
Her heart beat as she said it. Why could he not be roused to the hope
even now?
“I think you know that I loved the child’s mother, and that we were
unfairly separated. If she had lived—but she died. And when I heard the
little one was sent across the sea by her father, who had small regard
for her, it was as if her mother, leaning over the wall of heaven,
called to me, and I did what I knew would set her heart at rest.”
“But she had heaven and all the saints. And in that land of the blest
one cannot long for human loves. It is to those left on earth to whom
they are precious,” she returned, with a little longing in her tone. She
had been waiting for Renée’s marriage to take her out of his life. Why
should the child have so much?
“I think they know, those blessed ones. Ah, madame, if you had been
dying, instead of your husband, and leaving the little one, would you
not have pleaded with the very angels that some one might be raised up
to care for her? And if that had been one to whom she would be doubly
dear! So the child in one sense has been like my own.”
And always her rival, Barbe Gardepier felt. Her last hope seemed to drop
as one lets fall a withered flower that has been sweet and is still
freighted with some dear remembrances.
They paused at her sister’s house.
“You will come in and say good-by to-morrow?”
“Yes,” and he bowed.
Why should things go so wrong in the world? Renée Freneau defrauded of a
lifelong happiness, of life itself, and she who had seen such a blissful
possibility twice in her short life shut out from what would have been
her brightest happiness.
He went his way thoughtfully. He had been so long used to a man’s
liberty that he did not care to enchain himself with matrimony. And
surely he would give Renée no rival to her children.
It was a gorgeous day and the fleet of boats glided out with music and
many a “_Bon voyage!_” The little girl had vanished, but Renée
remembered the first night she came, when in the bend of the river they
passed the old ruined heap, and the old French post-house going to
decay. Was it in some other life? She still had Uncle Denys, and she was
glad. What a wonderful thing it was to love a woman’s memory all these
years!
It was a pleasant journey, with only a few storms, one severe enough to
make them run into an inlet to get out of the fierce sweep of the river.
There was Cahokia, whose ruins were still visible. Kaskaskia, despoiled
of much of its valuable front, the town high now above the river.
Strange and curious sights to one who had been no farther than St.
Charles.
How would St. Louis look when they went back to it? Renée wondered. For
this to her was a marvellous city, more brilliant than any dream ever
made it. It seemed as if the whole world must have been gathered in it
when one heard the confusion of tongues.
They did not return the next summer, for still the business could not
spare André. But Monsieur Chouteau came down, and there were journeys
about to places of such bloom and beauty and mystery that one almost had
to hold one’s breath.
Strange things, too, were happening in the world beyond the great river
that seemed all to them. The colonies were growing more stable, being
welded together by chains of interest and pride and patriotism into a
grand country, but the Mississippi River would always be its boundary.
It could not pass that, men thought.
Over seas there were tumults and wars, and France in the throes of a
most fearful revolution. They heard a great deal about it here. How
hundreds of the nobility were thrown in prison, the King and Queen
executed and the mob quarrelling with its leaders.
Renée thought of the two little brothers in Paris that she had seen on
the day of her journey. And the Count. He was among the nobility, and he
was her father. She shuddered over the horrible doings. And here was her
other father, bright and happy and always considering what would be for
her pleasure.
Sometimes they read an unspoken wish in each other’s eyes.
“It is not quite St. Louis,” she would say, with a half smile meant to
be gay, but was pensive instead.
“No. But we will return presently,” the eyes full of cheerful light and
the tone hopeful.
“And never leave it again?”
“I am glad you cannot forget it.”
“Oh, there is no place like the home and the friends of childhood—the
larger childhood, when everything is impressed on one’s heart. The old
house and the shop and the wide chimneys and Mère Lunde, and the
Marchands with their babies. I know what it is to be an exile.”
Still she and André were very happy, taking the leisure of life like two
children, growing into each other’s souls, laughing over some of the old
times. And she would say:
“How could you love me so well when I was horrid and provoking and
tormented you so?”
“But you had moments of rare sweetness, ma’m’selle; and sometimes the
bee works a long while before he can extract the honey.”
“And you have never once been sorry?”
“The sorrow would have come if I had not gained you—a lifelong sorrow.”
“And I like your strength, your determination, your resolution, André.
Oh, I like you altogether. I would not have one thought or line of you
changed.”
“You yielded so sweetly, ma’m’selle. It is the rose without the thorns.
And such tenderness! Ah, I do not wonder Father Gaspard gave up all
other women for love of you!” kissing the crown of her head, a trick he
had learned from Denys.
“Not altogether for me,” smiling with the distant look in her eyes, as
if she saw a heavenly vision. “For my mother as well. I wish I could
remember her better, but I was so small. And do you know, André, I used
to act like a fiend sometimes, I was so afraid he would love Barbe. And
now and then a great wave of sorrow sweeps over me, thinking of all she
has missed.”
“Madame Gardepier is a lovely woman. Still she does not look like those
who have had their heart’s longing satisfied. There is something still
needed.”
“And I could not even yet give up Papa Gaspard. I am still selfish. Are
you jealous, André?” raising beauful, beseeching eyes to him.
“He gave you to me long before you gave yourself—the treasure of his
life. I lost my father so young that I cannot tell what such a love
would have been like, but I know it could not be any tenderer. One sees
it in his eyes and the comfort he takes, the immeasurable content. But
he is longing for home. Dear, we will never leave St. Louis again.”
They often made love to each other, she with a freedom that wifehood had
given her which was enchanting. Gaspard Denys took deep satisfaction in
his two children. There was one more dream, but that was for some
after-day fruition.
There was a much greater spirit of energy in this queer, half-submerged
town, with its muddy streets that sometimes were positive streams. The
ambition of the outside world was stirring them, the interest that
varied commerce brings. There were new boats being builded for the old
firm, and in one of these Renée went up the river again to her old home.
There had been no great freshet since the one that had wrought such
destruction, but the swift current of spring had torn away some of the
old obstructions. Noble bluffs had settled to sunken ridges, banks had
slipped into the river and formed other high places full of greenery and
wild bloom. Caves of rocks swept out and left high in some other place.
It was wild and curious with a peculiar beauty. Its partly ruined towns
were recovering. There were little hamlets set so near the river’s edge
one wondered people had the courage to plant them there. And there was
all the Illinois side, the new country showing already the energy of the
new race combined of many peoples.
Renée might have left St. Louis yesterday, so little had it changed in
the two years. The levee was in a better condition, some new docks had
been built. And, as usual, there was the throng to see the boats come
in, pouring down from the Rue de la Tour and the Rue de la Place into
the Rue Royale. Yet it was like an everyday sight at New Orleans. Only
the welcomes gave it a rapture she had never known before. Madame
Marchand had her arms about her. Other old friends of girlhood, wives
and mothers now, voices so confused, yet so glad, that it was music to
listen to them.
It was old St. Louis, but the little girl had gone forever. Madame
Valbonais, prettier than ever and with a style that was foreign to the
small town. Monsieur, grown a little stouter, fine and strong, yet
smiling with a face of gladness. Gaspard Denys, keeping close watch over
the mulatto nurse in gay coif and bright gown, who had in her arms the
little son of madame.
A triumphal procession escorted her home. How curiously dry the streets
were, and almost prim after the southern irregularity; the riotous
tangle of vines, the balconies full of ladies with fans, chatting and
waving to the passers-by, throwing coquettish smiles. The old French air
that had grown settled in fifty years, the queer houses, and oh, yes,
here was the garden, and Mère Lunde watching at the gate, more bent than
ever, crying tears of joy, and in her broken voice repeating, “Oh, my
little one! Oh, my little one!”
Yet it was strange, too, after all that luxuriance of growth and bloom
and fragrance, queer, crooked, busy streets, gay wine shops with open
doors and tables of men within playing cards or fiddling or singing
songs. Birds of every color and richest plumage filling the air with
melody, iridescent lizards creeping about winking with their bright
black eyes, alligators sunning themselves in the ooze, snakes gliding
about unmolested, throngs of almost naked children shining in their
blackness, ready to sing and dance, turn a dozen somersaults or walk
upside down for a copper—the vivid panorama still floated before her
eyes and gave her queer, mixed impressions.
Most of the people seemed to have stood still. Two or three very old
ones had died and several babies, but others had come to replace them.
Not a new house had been built; the stockade was getting dilapidated.
The Government House had been painted afresh, but the old court-house
was dingy enough. The priest’s house had been repaired, the little
garden was lovely with roses that were always blooming, and the Chouteau
grounds were like a beautiful park, so well kept and thrifty.
“Oh,” André said, “I wonder if you will be sick with longing for all the
gayety and loveliness we have left behind?”
“Why, then, we can go there again,” she answered merrily, with bright,
contented eyes and a winsome smile. “It is so restful here. And Papa
Gaspard is so happy.”
He was hale and hearty and had not turned the half-century yet. Then he
was full of plans. They would move the shop down on the Rue Royale and
build a new room on to the old house. He had brought home some ideas of
improvement and comfort, of larger living. It was not likely St. Louis
would always stand still.
Madame Marchand was delighted to get her friend back again. There was a
new little girl, but Renée kept her beauty and winsomeness. Wawataysee
was still lithe and slim—it belonged to her tribe—and M. Marchand was as
devoted as ever. Oh, what days of talk it took to make up all the past!
And Madame Gardepier had married and gone over to the Illinois side to
live on a big plantation. Pierre Menard had a mill for sawing boards and
a brewery for beer, no end of slaves and servants, full fifty years of
age, and two grown sons married. He coveted the little Angelique
Gardepier and sued hard for the mother, who would have a luxurious life.
“But thou wilt be an American truly,” sighed Madame Renaud.
There was still a great prejudice against the Illinois people. Their
religion, or, rather, lack of religion, was a great stumbling-block.
Then their roaming lives, their apparent disregard of home ties, that
were so strong with the French.
But monsieur adored her in a very complimentary fashion, and she was
fain to satisfy her heart with it. Sometimes when the red-gold splendors
were fading from the sky, leaving the bluffs and pearl-gray spaces on
the opposite side like long avenues where the light shone through, Barbe
Menard would glance over and wonder what particular merit there was in
Renée de Longueville that the good God should have given so much to her.