AN INDIGNANT FAMILY AND A SMASHED SHOP
It was indeed a fierce storm that had passed over the head of Honoré
Grandissime. Taken up and carried by it, as it seemed to him, without
volition, he had felt himself thrown here and there, wrenched, torn,
gasping for moral breath, speaking the right word as if in delirium,
doing the right deed as if by helpless instinct, and seeing himself in
every case, at every turn, tricked by circumstance out of every vestige
of merit. So it seemed to him. The long contemplated restitution was
accomplished. On the morning when Aurora and Clotilde had expected to be
turned shelterless into the open air, they had called upon him in his
private office and presented the account of which he had put them in
possession the evening before. He had honored it on the spot. To the two
ladies who felt their own hearts stirred almost to tears of gratitude,
he was--as he sat before them calm, unmoved, handling keen-edged facts
with the easy rapidity of one accustomed to use them, smiling
courteously and collectedly, parrying their expressions of
appreciation--to them, we say, at least to one of them, he was "the
prince of gentlemen." But, at the same time, there was within him,
unseen, a surge of emotions, leaping, lashing, whirling, yet ever
hurrying onward along the hidden, rugged bed of his honest intention.
The other restitution, which even twenty-four hours earlier might have
seemed a pure self-sacrifice, became a self-rescue. The f.m.c. was the
elder brother. A remark of Honoré made the night they watched in the
corridor by Doctor Keene's door, about the younger's "right to exist,"
was but the echo of a conversation they had once had together in
Europe. There they had practised a familiarity of intercourse which
Louisiana would not have endured, and once, when speaking upon the
subject of their common fatherhood, the f.m.c., prone to melancholy
speech, had said:
"You are the lawful son of Numa Grandissime; I had no right to be born."
But Honoré quickly answered:
"By the laws of men, it may be; but by the law of God's justice, you are
the lawful son, and it is I who should not have been born."
But, returned to Louisiana, accepting with the amiable, old-fashioned
philosophy of conservatism the sins of the community, he had forgotten
the unchampioned rights of his passive half-brother. Contact with
Frowenfeld had robbed him of his pleasant mental drowsiness, and the
oft-encountered apparition of the dark sharer of his name had become a
slow-stepping, silent embodiment of reproach. The turn of events had
brought him face to face with the problem of restitution, and he had
solved it. But where had he come out? He had come out the beneficiary of
this restitution, extricated from bankruptcy by an agreement which gave
the f.m.c. only a public recognition of kinship which had always been
his due. Bitter cup of humiliation!
Such was the stress within. Then there was the storm without. The
Grandissimes were in a high state of excitement. The news had reached
them all that Honoré had met the question of titles by selling one of
their largest estates. It was received with wincing frowns, indrawn
breath, and lifted feet, but without protest, and presently with a smile
of returning confidence.
"Honoré knew; Honoré was informed; they had all authorized Honoré; and
Honoré, though he might have his odd ways and notions, picked up during
that unfortunate stay abroad, might safely be trusted to stand by the
interests of his people."
After the first shock some of them even raised a laugh:
"Ha, ha, ha! Honoré would show those Yankees!"
They went to his counting-room and elsewhere, in search of him, to smite
their hands into the hands of their far-seeing young champion. But, as
we have seen, they did not find him; none dreamed of looking for him in
an enemy's camp (19 Bienville) or on the lonely suburban commons,
talking to himself in the ghostly twilight; and the next morning, while
Aurora and Clotilde were seated before him in his private office,
looking first at the face and then at the back of two mighty drafts of
equal amount on Philadelphia, the cry of treason flew forth to these
astounded Grandissimes, followed by the word that the sacred fire was
gone out in the Grandissime temple (counting-room), that Delilahs in
duplicate were carrying off the holy treasures, and that the
uncircumcised and unclean--even an f.m.c.--was about to be inducted into
the Grandissime priesthood.
Aurora and Clotilde were still there, when the various members of the
family began to arrive and display their outlines in impatient
shadow-play upon the glass door of the private office; now one, and now
another, dallied with the doorknob and by and by obtruded their lifted
hats and urgent, anxious faces half into the apartment; but Honoré would
only glance toward them, and with a smile equally courteous,
authoritative and fleeting, say:
"Good-morning, Camille" (or Charlie--or Agamemnon, as the case might
be); "I will see you later; let me trouble you to close the door."
To add yet another strain, the two ladies, like frightened, rescued
children, would cling to their deliverer. They wished him to become the
custodian and investor of their wealth. Ah, woman! who is a tempter like
thee? But Honoré said no, and showed them the danger of such a course.
"Suppose I should die suddenly. You might have trouble with my
executors."
The two beauties assented pensively; but in Aurora's bosom a great throb
secretly responded that as for her, in that case, she should have no use
for money--in a nunnery.
"Would not Monsieur at least consent to be their financial adviser?"
He hemmed, commenced a sentence twice, and finally said:
"You will need an agent; some one to take full charge of your affairs;
some person on whose sagacity and integrity you can place the fullest
dependence."
"Who, for instance?" asked Aurora.
"I should say, without hesitation, Professor Frowenfeld, the apothecary.
You know his trouble of yesterday is quite cleared up. You had not
heard? Yes. He is not what we call an enterprising man, but--so much the
better. Take him all in all, I would choose him above all others;
if you--"
Aurora interrupted him. There was an ill-concealed wildness in her eye
and a slight tremor in her voice, as she spoke, which she had not
expected to betray. The quick, though quiet eye of Honoré Grandissime
saw it, and it thrilled him through.
"'Sieur Grandissime, I take the risk; I wish you to take care of my
money."
"But, Maman," said Clotilde, turning with a timid look to her mother,
"If Monsieur Grandissime would rather not--"
Aurora, feeling alarmed at what she had said, rose up. Clotilde and
Honoré did the same, and he said:
"With Professor Frowenfeld in charge of your affairs, I shall feel them
not entirely removed from my care also. We are very good friends."
Clotilde looked at her mother. The three exchanged glances. The ladies
signified their assent and turned to go, but M. Grandissime
stopped them.
"By your leave, I will send for him. If you will be seated again--"
They thanked him and resumed their seats; he excused himself, passed
into the counting-room, and sent a messenger for the apothecary.
M. Grandissime's meeting with his kinsmen was a stormy one. Aurora and
Clotilde heard the strife begin, increase, subside, rise again and
decrease. They heard men stride heavily to and fro, they heard hands
smite together, palms fall upon tables and fists upon desks, heard
half-understood statement and unintelligible counter-statement and
derisive laughter; and, in the midst of all, like the voice of a man who
rules himself, the clear-noted, unimpassioned speech of Honoré, sounding
so loftily beautiful in the ear of Aurora that when Clotilde looked at
her, sitting motionless with her rapt eyes lifted up, those eyes came
down to her own with a sparkle of enthusiasm, and she softly said:
"It sounds like St. Gabriel!" and then blushed.
Clotilde answered with a happy, meaning look, which intensified the
blush, and then leaning affectionately forward and holding the maman's
eyes with her own, she said:
"You have my consent."
"Saucy!" said Aurora. "Wait till I get my own."
Some of his kinsmen Honoré pacified; some he silenced. He invited all to
withdraw their lands and moneys from his charge, and some accepted the
invitation. They spurned his parting advice to sell, and the policy they
then adopted, and never afterward modified, was that "all or nothing"
attitude which, as years rolled by, bled them to penury in those famous
cupping-leeching-and-bleeding establishments, the courts of Louisiana.
You may see their grandchildren, to-day, anywhere within the angle of
the old rues Esplanade and Rampart, holding up their heads in
unspeakable poverty, their nobility kept green by unflinching
self-respect, and their poetic and pathetic pride revelling in
ancestral, perennial rebellion against common sense.
"That is Agricola," whispered Aurora, with lifted head and eyes dilated
and askance, as one deep-chested voice roared above all others.
Agricola stormed.
"Uncle," Aurora by and by heard Honoré say, "shall I leave my own
counting-room?"
At that moment Joseph Frowenfeld entered, pausing with one hand on the
outer rail. No one noticed him but Honoré, who was watching for him, and
who, by a silent motion, directed him into the private office.
"H-whe shake its dust from our feet!" said Agricola, gathering some
young retainers by a sweep of his glance and going out down the stair in
the arched way, unmoved by the fragrance of warm bread. On the banquette
he harangued his followers.
He said that in such times as these every lover of liberty should go
armed; that the age of trickery had come; that by trickery Louisianians
had been sold, like cattle, to a nation of parvenues, to be dragged
before juries for asserting the human right of free trade or ridding the
earth of sneaks in the pay of the government; that laws, so-called, had
been forged into thumbscrews, and a Congress which had bound itself to
give them all the rights of American citizens--sorry boon!--was
preparing to slip their birthright acres from under their feet, and
leave them hanging, a bait to the vultures of the Américain immigration.
Yes; the age of trickery! Its apostles, he said, were even then at work
among their fellow-citizens, warping, distorting, blasting, corrupting,
poisoning the noble, unsuspecting, confiding Creole mind. For months the
devilish work had been allowed, by a patient, peace-loving people, to go
on. But shall it go on forever? (Cries of "No!" "No!") The smell of
white blood comes on the south breeze. Dessalines and Christophe had
recommenced their hellish work. Virginia, too, trembles for the safety
of her fair mothers and daughters. We know not what is being plotted in
the canebrakes of Louisiana. But we know that in the face of these
things the prelates of trickery are sitting in Washington allowing
throats to go unthrottled that talked tenderly about the "negro slave;"
we know worse: we know that mixed blood has asked for equal rights from
a son of the Louisiana noblesse, and that those sacred rights have been
treacherously, pusillanimously surrendered into its possession. Why did
we not rise yesterday, when the public heart was stirred? The
forbearance of this people would be absurd if it were not saintly. But
the time has, come when Louisiana must protect herself! If there is one
here who will not strike for his lands, his rights and the purity of his
race, let him speak! (Cries of "We will rise now!" "Give us a leader!"
"Lead the way!")
"Kinsmen, friends," continued Agricola, "meet me at nightfall before the
house of this too-long-spared mulatto. Come armed. Bring a few feet of
stout rope. By morning the gentlemen of color will know their places
better than they do to-day; h-whe shall understand each other! H-whe
shall set the negrophiles to meditating."
He waved them away.
With a huzza the accumulated crowd moved off. Chance carried them up the
rue Royale; they sang a song; they came to Frowenfeld's. It was an
Américain establishment; that was against it. It was a gossiping place
of Américain evening loungers; that was against it. It was a sorcerer's
den--(we are on an ascending scale); its proprietor had refused
employment to some there present, had refused credit to others, was an
impudent condemner of the most approved Creole sins, had been beaten
over the head only the day before; all these were against it. But, worse
still, the building was owned by the f.m.c., and unluckiest of all,
Raoul stood in the door and some of his kinsmen in the crowd stopped to
have a word with him. The crowd stopped. A nameless fellow in the
throng--he was still singing--said: "Here's the place," and dropped two
bricks through the glass of the show-window. Raoul, with a cry of
retaliative rage, drew and lifted a pistol; but a kinsman jerked it
from him and three others quickly pinioned him and bore him off
struggling, pleased to get him away unhurt. In ten minutes, Frowenfeld's
was a broken-windowed, open-doored house, full of unrecognizable rubbish
that had escaped the torch only through a chance rumor that the
Governor's police were coming, and the consequent stampede of the mob.
Joseph was sitting in M. Grandissime's private office, in council with
him and the ladies, and Aurora was just saying:
"Well, anny'ow, 'Sieur Frowenfel', ad laz you consen'!" and gathering
her veil from her lap, when Raoul burst in, all sweat and rage.
"'Sieur Frowenfel', we ruin'! Ow pharmacie knock all in pieces! My
pigshoe is los'!"
He dropped into a chair and burst into tears.
Shall we never learn to withhold our tears until we are sure of our
trouble? Raoul little knew the joy in store for him. 'Polyte, it
transpired the next day, had rushed in after the first volley of
missiles, and while others were gleefully making off with jars of
asafoetida and decanters of distilled water, lifted in his arms and bore
away unharmed "Louisiana" firmly refusing to the last to enter the
Union. It may not be premature to add that about four weeks later Honoré
Grandissime, upon Raoul's announcement that he was "betrothed,"
purchased this painting and presented it to a club of _natural
connoisseurs_.