MORE REPARATION
"That is all," said the fairer Honoré, outside Doctor Keene's sick-room
about ten o'clock at night. He was speaking to the black son of
Clemence, who had been serving as errand-boy for some hours. He spoke
in a low tone just without the half-open door, folding again a paper
which the lad had lately borne to the apothecary of the rue Royale, and
had now brought back with Joseph's answer written under
Honoré's inquiry.
"That is all," said the other Honoré, standing partly behind the first,
as the eyes of his little menial turned upon him that deprecatory glance
of inquiry so common to slave children. The lad went a little way down
the corridor, curled up upon the floor against the wall, and was soon
asleep. The fairer Honoré handed the darker the slip of paper; it was
received and returned in silence. The question was:
"_Can you state anything positive concerning the duel_?"
And the reply:
"_Positively there will be none. Sylvestre my sworn friend for
life_."
The half-brothers sat down under a dim hanging lamp in the corridor, and
except that every now and then one or the other stepped noiselessly to
the door to look in upon the sleeping sick man, or in the opposite
direction to moderate by a push with the foot the snoring of Clemence's
"boy," they sat the whole night through in whispered counsel.
The one, at the request of the other, explained how he had come to be
with the little doctor in such extremity.
It seems that Clemence, seeing and understanding the doctor's
imprudence, had sallied out with the resolve to set some person on his
track. We have said that she went in search of her master. Him she met,
and though she could not really count him one of the doctor's friends,
yet, rightly believing in his humanity, she told him the matter. He set
off in what was for him a quick pace in search of the rash invalid, was
misdirected by a too confident child and had given up the hope of
finding him, when a faint sound of distress just at hand drew him into
an alley, where, close down against a wall, with his face to the earth,
lay Doctor Keene. The f.m.c. had just raised him and borne him out of
the alley when Honoré came up.
"And you say that, when you would have inquired for him at Frowenfeld's,
you saw Palmyre there, standing and talking with Frowenfeld? Tell me
more exactly."
And the other, with that grave and gentle economy of words which made
his speech so unique, recounted what we amplify:
Palmyre had needed no pleading to induce her to exonerate Joseph. The
doctors were present at Frowenfeld's in more than usual number. There
was unusualness, too, in their manner and their talk. They were not
entirely free from the excitement of the day, and as they talked--with
an air of superiority, of Creole inflammability, and with some
contempt--concerning Camille Brahmin's and Charlie Mandarin's efforts to
precipitate a war, they were yet visibly in a state of expectation.
Frowenfeld, they softly said, had in his odd way been indiscreet among
these inflammables at Maspero's just when he could least afford to be
so, and there was no telling what they might take the notion to do to
him before bedtime. All that over and above the independent, unexplained
scandal of the early morning. So Joseph and his friends this evening,
like Aurora and Clotilde in the morning, were, as we nowadays say of
buyers and sellers, "apart," when suddenly and unannounced, Palmyre
presented herself among them. When the f.m.c. saw her, she had already
handed Joseph his hat and with much sober grace was apologizing for her
slave's mistake. All evidence of her being wounded was concealed. The
extraordinary excitement of the morning had not hurt her, and she seemed
in perfect health. The doctors sat or stood around and gave rapt
attention to her patois, one or two translating it for Joseph, and he
blushing to the hair, but standing erect and receiving it at second hand
with silent bows. The f.m.c. had gazed on her for a moment, and then
forced himself away. He was among the few who had not heard the morning
scandal, and he did not comprehend the evening scene. He now asked
Honoré concerning it, and quietly showed great relief when it was
explained.
Then Honoré, breaking a silence, called the attention of the f.m.c. to
the fact that the latter had two tenants at Number 19 rue Bienville.
Honoré became the narrator now and told all, finally stating that the
die was cast--restitution made.
And then the darker Honoré made a proposition to the other, which, it
is little to say, was startling. They discussed it for hours.
"So just a condition," said the merchant, raising his whisper so much
that the rentier laid a hand in his elbow,--"such mere justice," he
said, more softly, "ought to be an easy condition. God knows"--he lifted
his glance reverently--"my very right to exist comes after yours. You
are the elder."
The solemn man offered no disclaimer.
What could the proposition be which involved so grave an issue, and to
which M. Grandissime's final answer was "I will do it"?
It was that Honoré f.m.c. should become a member of the mercantile house
of H. Grandissime, enlisting in its capital all his wealth. And the one
condition was that the new style should be _Grandissime Brothers_.