a wee bit, like the shell of a terrapin; Presently the manager lifted
his foot and put forward an arm, as though he would enter the gate by
pushing, but as quick as gunpowder it clapped--in his face!
You could hear the fleeing feet of Zalli pounding up the staircase.
As the panting mother re-entered her room, "See, Maman," said 'Tite
Poulette, peeping at the window, "the young gentleman from over the way
has crossed!"
"Holy Mary bless him!" said the mother.
"I will go over," thought Kristian Koppig, "and ask him kindly if he is
not making a mistake."
"What are they doing, dear?" asked the mother, with clasped hands.
"They are talking; the young man is tranquil, but 'Sieur de la Rue is
very angry," whispered the daughter; and just then--pang! came a sharp,
keen sound rattling up the walls on either side of the narrow way, and
"Aha!" and laughter and clapping of female hands from two or three
windows.
"Oh! what a slap!" cried the girl, half in fright, half in glee, jerking
herself back from the casement simultaneously with the report. But the
"ahas" and laughter, and clapping of feminine hands, which still
continued, came from another cause. 'Tite Poulette's rapid action had
struck the slender cord that held up an end of her hanging garden, and
the whole rank of cigar-boxes slid from their place, turned gracefully
over as they shot through the air, and emptied themselves plump upon the
head of the slapped manager. Breathless, dirty, pale as whitewash, he
gasped a threat to be heard from again, and, getting round the corner as
quick as he could walk, left Kristian Koppig, standing motionless, the
most astonished man in that street.
"Kristian Koppig, Kristian Koppig," said Greatheart to himself, slowly
dragging up-stairs, "what a mischief you have done. One poor woman
certainly to be robbed of her bitter wages, and another--so lovely!--put
to the burning shame of being the subject of a street brawl! What will
this silly neighborhood say? 'Has the gentleman a heart as well as a
hand?' 'Is it jealousy?'" There he paused, afraid himself to answer the
supposed query; and then--"Oh! Kristian Koppig, you have been such a
dunce!" "And I cannot apologize to them. Who in this street would carry
my note, and not wink and grin over it with low surmises? I cannot even
make restitution. Money? They would not dare receive it. Oh! Kristian
Koppig, why did you not mind your own business? Is she any thing to you?
Do you love her? _Of course not_! Oh!--such a dunce!"
The reader will eagerly admit that however faulty this young man's
course of reasoning, his conclusion was correct. For mark what he did.
He went to his room, which was already growing dark, shut his window,
lighted his big Dutch lamp, and sat down to write. "Something _must_ be
done," said he aloud, taking up his pen; "I will be calm and cool; I
will be distant and brief; but--I shall have to be kind or I may offend.
Ah! I shall have to write in French; I forgot that; I write it so
poorly, dunce that I am, when all my brothers and sisters speak it so
well." He got out his French dictionary. Two hours slipped by. He made a
new pen, washed and refilled his inkstand, mended his "abominable!"
chair, and after two hours more made another attempt, and another
failure. "My head aches," said he, and lay down on his couch, the better
to frame his phrases.
He was awakened by the Sabbath sunlight. The bells of the Cathedral and
the Ursulines' chapel were ringing for high mass, and a mocking-bird,
perching on a chimney-top above Madame John's rooms, was carolling,
whistling, mewing, chirping, screaming, and trilling with the ecstasy of
a whole May in his throat. "Oh! sleepy Kristian Koppig," was the young
man's first thought, "--such a dunce!"
Madame John and daughter did not go to mass. The morning wore away, and
their casement remained closed. "They are offended," said Kristian
Koppig, leaving the house, and wandering up to the little Protestant
affair known as Christ Church.
"No, possibly they are not," he said, returning and finding the shutters
thrown back.
By a sad accident, which mortified him extremely, he happened to see,
late in the afternoon,--hardly conscious that he was looking across the
street,--that Madame John was--dressing. Could it be that she was going
to the _Salle de Condé_? He rushed to his table, and began to write.
He had guessed aright. The wages were too precious to be lost. The
manager had written her a note. He begged to assure her that he was a
gentleman of the clearest cut. If he had made a mistake the previous
afternoon, he was glad no unfortunate result had followed except his
having been assaulted by a ruffian; that the _Danse du Shawl_ was
promised in his advertisement, and he hoped Madame John (whose wages
were in hand waiting for her) would not fail to assist as usual. Lastly,
and delicately put, he expressed his conviction that Mademoiselle was
wise and discreet in declining to entertain gentlemen at her home.
So, against much beseeching on the part of 'Tite Poulette, Madame John
was going to the ball-room. "Maybe I can discover what 'Sieur de la Rue
is planning against Monsieur over the way," she said, knowing certainly
the slap would not be forgiven; and the daughter, though tremblingly, at
once withdrew her objections.
The heavy young Dutchman, now thoroughly electrified, was writing like
mad. He wrote and tore up, wrote and tore up, lighted his lamp, started
again, and at last signed his name. A letter by a Dutchman in
French!--what can be made of it in English? We will see:
"MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE:
"A stranger, seeking not to be acquainted, but seeing and admiring all
days the goodness and high honor, begs to be pardoned of them for the
mistakes, alas! of yesterday, and to make reparation and satisfaction in
destroying the ornaments of the window, as well as the loss of
compensation from Monsieur the manager, with the enclosed bill of the
_Banque de la Louisiane_ for fifty dollars ($50). And, hoping they will
seeing what he is meaning, remains, respectfully,
"KRISTIAN KOPPIG.
"P.S.--Madame must not go to the ball."
He must bear the missive himself. He must speak in French. What should
the words be? A moment of study--he has it, and is off down the long
three-story stairway. At the same moment Madame John stepped from the
wicket, and glided off to the _Salle de Condé_, a trifle late.
"I shall see Madame John, of course," thought the young man, crushing a
hope, and rattled the knocker. 'Tite Poulette sprang up from praying for
her mother's safety. "What has she forgotten?" she asked herself, and
hastened down. The wicket opened. The two innocents were stunned.
"Aw--aw"--said the pretty Dutchman, "aw,"--blurted out something in
virgin Dutch, ... handed her the letter, and hurried down street.
"Alas! what have I done?" said the poor girl, bending over her candle,
and bursting into tears that fell on the unopened letter. "And what
shall I do! It may be wrong to open it--and worse not to." Like her sex,
she took the benefit of the doubt, and intensified her perplexity and
misery by reading and misconstruing the all but unintelligible contents.
What then? Not only sobs and sighs, but moaning and beating of little
fists together, and outcries of soul-felt agony stifled against the
bedside, and temples pressed into knitted palms, because of one who
"sought _not to be_ acquainted," but offered money--money!--in pity to a
poor--shame on her for saying that!--a poor _nigresse_.
And now our self-confessed dolt turned back from a half-hour's walk,
concluding there might be an answer to his note. "Surely Madame John
will appear this time." He knocked. The shutter stirred above, and
something white came fluttering wildly down like a shot dove. It was his
own letter containing the fifty-dollar bill. He bounded to the wicket,
and softly but eagerly knocked again.
"Go away," said a trembling voice from above.
"Madame John?" said he; but the window closed, and he heard a step, the
same step on the stair. Step, step, every step one step deeper into his
heart. 'Tite Poulette came to the closed door.
"What will you?" said the voice within.
"I--I--don't wish to see you. I wish to see Madame John."
"I must pray Monsieur to go away. My mother is at the _Salle de Condé_."
"At the ball!" Kristian Koppig strayed off, repeating the words for want
of definite thought. All at once it occurred to him that at the ball he
could make Madame John's acquaintance with impunity. "Was it courting
sin to go?" By no means; he should, most likely, save a woman from
trouble, and help the poor in their distress.
Behold Kristian Koppig standing on the floor of the _Salle de Condé_. A
large hall, a blaze of lamps, a bewildering flutter of fans and floating
robes, strains of music, columns of gay promenaders, a long row of
turbaned mothers lining either wall, gentlemen of the portlier sort
filling the recesses of the windows, whirling waltzers gliding here and
there--smiles and grace, smiles and grace; all fair, orderly, elegant,
bewitching. A young Creole's laugh mayhap a little loud, and--truly
there were many sword-canes. But neither grace nor foulness satisfied
the eye of the zealous young Dutchman.
Suddenly a muffled woman passed him, leaning on a gentleman's arm. It
looked like--it must be, Madame John. Speak quick, Kristian Koppig; do
not stop to notice the man!
"Madame John"--bowing--"I am your neighbor, Kristian Koppig."
Madame John bows low, and smiles--a ball-room smile, but is frightened,
and her escort,--the manager,--drops her hand and slips away.
"Ah! Monsieur," she whispers excitedly, "you will be killed if you stay
here a moment. Are you armed? No. Take this." She tried to slip a dirk
into his hands, but he would not have it.
"Oh, my dear young man, go! Go quickly!" she plead, glancing furtively
down the hall.
"I wish you not to dance," said the young man.
"I have danced already; I am going home. Come; be quick! we will go
together." She thrust her arm through his, and they hastened into the
street. When a square had been passed there came a sound of men running
behind them.
"Run, Monsieur, run!" she cried, trying to drag him; but Monsieur
Dutchman would not.
"_Run,_ Monsieur! Oh, my God! it is 'Sieur"--
"_That_ for yesterday!" cried the manager, striking fiercely with his
cane. Kristian Koppig's fist rolled him in the dirt.
"_That_ for 'Tite Poulette!" cried another man dealing the Dutchman a
terrible blow from behind.
"And _that_ for me!" hissed a third, thrusting at him with something
bright.
"_That_ for yesterday!" screamed the manager, bounding like a tiger;
"That!" "THAT!" "Ha!"
Then Kristian Koppig knew that he was stabbed.
"That!" and "That!" and "That!" and the poor Dutchman struck wildly here
and there, grasped the air, shut his eyes, staggered, reeled, fell, rose
half up, fell again for good, and they were kicking him and jumping on
him. All at once they scampered. Zalli had found the night-watch.
"Buz-z-z-z!" went a rattle. "Buz-z-z-z!" went another.
"Pick him up."
"Is he alive?"
"Can't tell; hold him steady; lead the way, misses."
"He's bleeding all over my breeches."
"This way--here--around this corner."
"This way now--only two squares more."
"Here we are."
"Rap-rap-rap!" on the old brass knocker. Curses on the narrow wicket,
more on the dark archway, more still on the twisting stairs.
Up at last and into the room.
"Easy, easy, push this under his head: never mind his boots!"
So he lies--on 'Tite Poulette's own bed.
The watch are gone. They pause under the corner lamp to count
profits;--a single bill--_Banque de la Louisiane_, fifty dollars.
Providence is kind--tolerably so. Break it at the "Guillaume Tell." "But
did you ever hear any one scream like that girl did?"
And there lies the young Dutch neighbor. His money will not flutter back
to him this time; nor will any voice behind a gate "beg Monsieur to go
away." O, Woman!--that knows no enemy so terrible as man! Come nigh,
poor Woman, you have nothing to fear. Lay your strange, electric touch
upon the chilly flesh; it strikes no eager mischief along the fainting
veins. Look your sweet looks upon the grimy face, and tenderly lay back
the locks from the congested brows; no wicked misinterpretation lurks to
bite your kindness. Be motherly, be sisterly, fear nought. Go, watch him
by night; you may sleep at his feet and he will not stir. Yet he lives,
and shall live--may live to forget you, who knows? But for all that, be
gentle and watchful; be womanlike, we ask no more; and God reward you!
Even while it was taking all the two women's strength to hold the door
against Death, the sick man himself laid a grief upon them.
"Mother," he said to Madame John, quite a master of French in his
delirium, "dear mother, fear not; trust your boy; fear nothing. I will
not marry 'Tite Poulette; I cannot. She is fair, dear mother, but ah!
she is not--don't you know, mother? don't you know? The race! the race!
Don't you know that she is jet black. Isn't it?"
The poor nurse nodded "Yes," and gave a sleeping draught; but before the
patient quite slept he started once and stared.
"Take her away,"--waving his hand--"take your beauty away. She is jet
white. Who could take a jet white wife? O, no, no, no, no!"
Next morning his brain was right.
"Madame," he weakly whispered, "I was delirious last night?"
Zalli shrugged. "Only a very, very, wee, wee trifle of a bit."
"And did I say something wrong or--foolish?"
"O, no, no," she replied; "you only clasped your hands, so, and prayed,
prayed all the time to the dear Virgin."
"To the virgin?" asked the Dutchman, smiling incredulously.
"And St. Joseph--yes, indeed," she insisted; "you may strike me dead."
And so, for politeness' sake, he tried to credit the invention, but grew
suspicions instead.
Hard was the battle against death. Nurses are sometimes amazons, and
such were these. Through the long, enervating summer, the contest
lasted; but when at last the cool airs of October came stealing in at
the bedside like long-banished little children, Kristian Koppig rose
upon his elbow and smiled them a welcome.
The physician, blessed man, was kind beyond measure; but said some
inexplicable things, which Zalli tried in vain to make him speak in an
undertone. "If I knew Monsieur John?" he said, "certainly! Why, we were
chums at school. And he left you so much as that, Madame John? Ah! my
old friend John, always noble! And you had it all in that naughty bank?
Ah, well, Madame John, it matters little. No, I shall not tell 'Tite
Poulette. Adieu."
And another time:--"If I will let you tell me something? With pleasure,
Madame John. No, and not tell anybody, Madame John. No, Madame, not even
'Tite Poulette. What?"--a long whistle--"is that pos-si-ble?--and
Monsieur John knew it?--encouraged it?--eh, well, eh, well!--But--can I
believe you, Madame John? Oh! you have Monsieur John's sworn statement.
Ah! very good, truly, but--you _say_ you have it; but where is it? Ah!
to-morrow!" a sceptical shrug. "Pardon me, Madame John, I think perhaps,
_perhaps_ you are telling the truth.
"If I think you did right? Certainly! What nature keeps back, accident
sometimes gives, Madame John; either is God's will. Don't cry. 'Stealing
from the dead?' No! It was giving, yes! They are thanking you in heaven,
Madame John."
Kristian Koppig, lying awake, but motionless and with closed eyes, hears
in part, and, fancying he understands, rejoices with silent intensity.
When the doctor is gone he calls Zalli.
"I give you a great deal of trouble, eh, Madame John?"
"No, no; you are no trouble at all. Had you the yellow fever--ah! then!"
She rolled her eyes to signify the superlative character of the
tribulations attending yellow fever.
"I had a lady and gentleman once--a Spanish lady and gentleman, just off
the ship; both sick at once with the fever--delirious--could not tell
their names. Nobody to help me but sometimes Monsieur John! I never had
such a time,--never before, never since,--as that time. Four days and
nights this head touched not a pillow."
"And they died!" said Kristian Koppig.
"The third night the gentleman went. Poor Senor! 'Sieur John,--he did
not know the harm,--gave him some coffee and toast! The fourth night it
rained and turned cool, and just before day the poor lady"--
"Died!" said Koppig.
Zalli dropped her arms listlessly into her lap and her eyes ran brimful.
"And left an infant!" said the Dutchman, ready to shout with exultation.
"Ah! no, Monsieur," said Zalli.
The invalid's heart sank like a stone.
"Madame John,"--his voice was all in a tremor,--"tell me the truth. Is
'Tite Poulette your own child?"
"Ah-h-h, ha! ha! what foolishness! Of course she is my child!" And
Madame gave vent to a true Frenchwoman's laugh.
It was too much for the sick man. In the pitiful weakness of his
shattered nerves he turned his face into his pillow and wept like a
child. Zalli passed into the next room to hide her emotion.
"Maman, dear Maman," said 'Tite Poulette, who had overheard nothing, but
only saw the tears.
"Ah! my child, my child, my task--my task is too great--too great for
me. Let me go now--another time. Go and watch at his bedside."
"But, Maman,"--for 'Tite Poulette was frightened,--"he needs no care
now."
"Nay, but go, my child; I wish to be alone."
The maiden stole in with averted eyes and tiptoed to the window--_that
window_. The patient, already a man again, gazed at her till she could
feel the gaze. He turned his eyes from her a moment to gather
resolution. And now, stout heart, farewell; a word or two of friendly
parting--nothing more.
"'Tite Poulette."
The slender figure at the window turned and came to the bedside.
"I believe I owe my life to you," he said.
She looked down meekly, the color rising in her cheek.
"I must arrange to be moved across the street tomorrow, on a litter."
She did not stir or speak.
"And I must now thank you, sweet nurse, for your care. Sweet nurse!
Sweet nurse!"
She shook her head in protestation.
"Heaven bless you, 'Tite Poulette!"
Her face sank lower.
"God has made you very beautiful, Tite Poulette!"
She stirred not. He reached, and gently took her little hand, and as he
drew her one step nearer, a tear fell from her long lashes. From the
next room, Zalli, with a face of agonized suspense, gazed upon the pair,
undiscovered. The young man lifted the hand to lay it upon his lips,
when, with a mild, firm force, it was drawn away, yet still rested in
his own upon the bedside, like some weak thing snared, that could only
not get free.
"Thou wilt not have my love, 'Tite Poulette?"
No answer.
"Thou wilt not, beautiful?"
"Cannot!" was all that she could utter, and upon their clasped hands the
tears ran down.
"Thou wrong'st me, 'Tite Poulette. Thou dost not trust me; thou fearest
the kiss may loosen the hands. But I tell thee nay. I have struggled
hard, even to this hour, against Love, but I yield me now; I yield; I am
his unconditioned prisoner forever. God forbid that I ask aught but that
you will be my wife."
Still the maiden moved not, looked not up, only rained down tears.
"Shall it not be, 'Tite Poulette?" He tried in vain to draw her.
"'Tite Poulette?" So tenderly he called! And then she spoke.
"It is against the law."
"It is not!" cried Zalli, seizing her round the waist and dragging her
forward. "Take her! she is thine. I have robbed God long enough. Here
are the sworn papers--here! Take her; she is as white as snow--so! Take
her, kiss her; Mary be praised! I never had a child--she is the
Spaniard's daughter!"
'SIEUR GEORGE.
In the heart of New Orleans stands a large four-story brick building,
that has so stood for about three-quarters of a century. Its rooms are
rented to a class of persons occupying them simply for lack of activity
to find better and cheaper quarters elsewhere. With its gray stucco
peeling off in broad patches, it has a solemn look of gentility in rags,
and stands, or, as it were, hangs, about the corner of two ancient
streets, like a faded fop who pretends to be looking for employment.
Under its main archway is a dingy apothecary-shop. On one street is the
bazaar of a _modiste en robes et chapeaux_ and other humble shops; on
the other, the immense batten doors with gratings over the lintels,
barred and bolted with masses of cobwebbed iron, like the door of a
donjon, are overhung by a creaking sign (left by the sheriff), on which
is faintly discernible the mention of wines and liquors. A peep through
one of the shops reveals a square court within, hung with many lines of
wet clothes, its sides hugged by rotten staircases that seem vainly
trying to clamber out of the rubbish.
The neighborhood is one long since given up to fifth-rate shops, whose
masters and mistresses display such enticing mottoes as "_Au gagne
petit!_" Innumerable children swarm about, and, by some charm of the
place, are not run over, but obstruct the sidewalks playing their
clamorous games.
The building is a thing of many windows, where passably good-looking
women appear and disappear, clad in cotton gowns, watering little
outside shelves of flowers and cacti, or hanging canaries' cages. Their
husbands are keepers in wine-warehouses, rent-collectors for the agents
of old Frenchmen who have been laid up to dry in Paris, custom-house
supernumeraries and court-clerks' deputies (for your second-rate Creole
is a great seeker for little offices). A decaying cornice hangs over,
dropping bits of mortar on passers below, like a boy at a
boarding-house.
The landlord is one Kookoo, an ancient Creole of doubtful purity of
blood, who in his landlordly old age takes all suggestions of repairs as
personal insults. He was but a stripling when his father left him this
inheritance, and has grown old and wrinkled and brown, a sort of
periodically animate mummy, in the business. He smokes cascarilla, wears
velveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner.
To Kookoo's venerable property a certain old man used for many years to
come every evening, stumbling through the groups of prattling children
who frolicked about in the early moonlight--whose name no one knew, but
whom all the neighbors designated by the title of 'Sieur George. It was
his wont to be seen taking a straight--too straight--course toward his
home, never careening to right or left, but now forcing himself slowly
forward, as though there were a high gale in front, and now scudding
briskly ahead at a ridiculous little dog-trot, as if there were a
tornado behind. He would go up the main staircase very carefully,
sometimes stopping half-way up for thirty or forty minutes' doze, but
getting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in the
second story, with no little elation to find it still there. Were it not
for these slight symptoms of potations, he was such a one as you would
pick out of a thousand for a miser. A year or two ago he suddenly
disappeared.
A great many years ago, when the old house was still new, a young man
with no baggage save a small hair-trunk, came and took the room I have
mentioned and another adjoining. He supposed he might stay fifty
days--and he staid fifty years and over. This was a very fashionable
neighborhood, and he kept the rooms on that account month after month.
But when he had been here about a year something happened to him, so it
was rumored, that greatly changed the tenor of his life; and from that
time on there began to appear in him and to accumulate upon each other
in a manner which became the profound study of Kookoo, the symptoms of a
decay, whose cause baffled the landlord's limited powers of conjecture
for well-nigh half a century. Hints of a duel, of a reason warped, of
disinheritance, and many other unauthorized rumors, fluttered up and
floated off, while he became recluse, and, some say, began incidentally
to betray the unmanly habit which we have already noticed. His neighbors
would have continued neighborly had he allowed them, but he never let
himself be understood, and _les Américains_ are very droll anyhow; so,
as they could do nothing else, they cut him.
So exclusive he became that (though it may have been for economy) he
never admitted even a housemaid, but kept his apartments himself. Only
the merry serenaders, who in those times used to sing under the
balconies, would now and then give him a crumb of their feast for pure
fun's sake; and after a while, because they could not find out his full
name, called him, at hazard, George--but always prefixing Monsieur.
Afterward, when he began to be careless in his dress, and the fashion of
serenading had passed away, the commoner people dared to shorten the
title to "'Sieur George."
Many seasons came and went. The city changed like a growing boy;
gentility and fashion went uptown, but 'Sieur George still retained his
rooms. Every one knew him slightly, and bowed, but no one seemed to know
him well, unless it were a brace or so of those convivial fellows in
regulation-blue at little Fort St. Charles. He often came home late,
with one of these on either arm, all singing different tunes and
stopping at every twenty steps to tell secrets. But by and by the fort
was demolished, church and goverment property melted down under the warm
demand for building-lots, the city spread like a ringworm,--and one day
'Sieur George steps out of the old house in full regimentals!
The Creole neighbors rush bareheaded into the middle of the street, as
though there were an earthquake or a chimney on fire. What to do or say
or think they do not know; they are at their wits' ends, therefore
well-nigh happy. However, there is a German blacksmith's shop near by,
and they watch to see what _Jacob_ will do. Jacob steps into the street
with every eye upon him; he approaches Monsieur--he addresses to him a
few remarks--they shake hands--they engage in some conversation--Monsieur
places his hand on his sword!--now Monsieur passes.
The populace crowd around the blacksmith, children clap their hands
softly and jump up and down on tiptoes of expectation--'Sieur George is
going to the war in Mexico!
"Ah!" says a little girl in the throng, '"Sieur George's two rooms will
be empty; I find that very droll."
The landlord,--this same Kookoo,--is in the group. He hurls himself into
the house and up the stairs. "Fifteen years pass since he have been in
those room!" He arrives at the door--it is shut--"It is lock!"
In short, further investigation revealed that a youngish lady in black,
who had been seen by several neighbors to enter the house, but had not,
of course, been suspected of such remarkable intentions, had, in company
with a middle-aged slave-woman, taken these two rooms, and now, at the
slightly-opened door, proffered a month's rent in advance. What could a
landlord do but smile? Yet there was a pretext left "the rooms must need
repairs?"--"No, sir; he could look in and see." Joy! he looked in. All
was neatness. The floor unbroken, the walls cracked but a little, and
the cracks closed with new plaster, no doubt by the jealous hand of
'Sieur George himself Kookoo's eyes swept sharply round the two
apartments. The furniture was all there. Moreover, there was Monsieur's
little hair-trunk. He should not soon forget that trunk. One day,
fifteen years or more before, he had taken hold of that trunk to assist
Monsieur to arrange his apartment, and Monsieur had drawn his fist back
and cried to him to "drop it!" _Mais!_ there it was, looking very
suspicious in Kookoo's eyes, and the lady's domestic, as tidy as a
yellow-bird, went and sat on it. Could that trunk contain treasure? It
might, for Madame wanted to shut the door, and, in fact, did so.
The lady was quite handsome--had been more so, but was still
young--spoke the beautiful language, and kept, in the inner room, her
discreet and taciturn mulattress, a tall, straight woman, with a fierce
eye, but called by the young Creoles of the neighborhood "confound' good
lookin'."
Among _les Américaines_, where the new neighbor always expects to be
called upon by the older residents, this lady might have made friends in
spite of being as reserved as 'Sieur George; but the reverse being the
Creole custom, and she being well pleased to keep her own company, chose
mystery rather than society.
The poor landlord was sorely troubled; it must not that any thing _de
trop_ take place in his house. He watched the two rooms narrowly, but
without result, save to find that Madame plied her needle for pay, spent
her money for little else besides harpstrings, and took good care of the
little trunk of Monsieur. This espionage was a good turn to the mistress
and maid, for when Kookoo announced that all was proper, no more was
said by outsiders. Their landlord never got but one question answered by
the middle-aged maid:
"Madame, he feared, was a litt' bit embarrass' _pour_ money, eh?"
"_Non_; Mademoiselle [Mademoiselle, you notice!] had some property, but
did not want to eat it up."
Sometimes lady-friends came, in very elegant private carriages, to see
her, and one or two seemed to beg her--but in vain--to go away with
them; but these gradually dropped off, until lady and servant were alone
in the world. And so years, and the Mexican war, went by.
The volunteers came home; peace reigned, and the city went on spreading
up and down the land; but 'Sieur George did not return. It overran the
country like cocoa-grass. Fields, roads, woodlands, that were once
'Sieur George's places of retreat from mankind, were covered all over
with little one-story houses in the "Old Third," and fine residences and
gardens up in "Lafayette." Streets went slicing like a butcher's knife,
through old colonial estates, whose first masters never dreamed of the
city reaching them,--and 'Sieur George was still away. The four-story
brick got old and ugly, and the surroundings dim and dreamy. Theatres,
processions, dry-goods stores, government establishments, banks, hotels,
and all spirit of enterprise were gone to Canal Street and beyond, and
the very beggars were gone with them. The little trunk got very old and
bald, and still its owner lingered; still the lady, somewhat the worse
for lapse of time, looked from the balcony-window in the brief southern
twilights, and the maid every morning shook a worn rug or two over the
dangerous-looking railing; and yet neither had made friends or enemies.
The two rooms, from having been stingily kept at first, were needing
repairs half the time, and the occupants were often moving, now into
one, now back into the other; yet the hair-trunk was seen only by
glimpses, the landlord, to his infinite chagrin, always being a little
too late in offering his services, the women, whether it was light or
heavy, having already moved it. He thought it significant.
Late one day of a most bitter winter,--that season when, to the ecstatic
amazement of a whole city-full of children, snow covered the streets
ankle-deep,--there came a soft tap on the corridor-door of this pair of
rooms. The lady opened it, and beheld a tall, lank, iron-gray man, a
total stranger, standing behind--Monsieur George! Both men were
weather-beaten, scarred, and tattered. Across 'Sieur George's crown,
leaving a long, bare streak through his white hair, was the souvenir of
a Mexican sabre.
The landlord had accompanied them to the door: it was a magnificent
opportunity. Mademoiselle asked them all in, and tried to furnish a seat
to each; but failing, 'Sieur George went straight across the room and
_sat on the hair-trunk_. The action was so conspicuous, the landlord
laid it up in his penetrative mind.
'Sieur George was quiet, or, as it appeared, quieted. The mulattress
stood near him, and to her he addressed, in an undertone, most of the
little he said, leaving Mademoiselle to his companion. The stranger was
a warm talker, and seemed to please the lady from the first; but if he
pleased, nothing else did. Kookoo, intensely curious, sought some
pretext for staying, but found none. They were, altogether, an
uncongenial company. The lady seemed to think Kookoo had no business
there; 'Sieur George seemed to think the same concerning his companion;
and the few words between Mademoiselle and 'Sieur George were cool
enough. The maid appeared nearly satisfied, but could not avoid casting
an anxious eye at times upon her mistress. Naturally the visit was
short.
The next day but one the two gentlemen came again in better attire.
'Sieur George evidently disliked his companion, yet would not rid
himself of him. The stranger was a gesticulating, stagy fellow, much
Monsieur's junior, an incessant talker in Creole-French, always excited
on small matters and unable to appreciate a great one. Once, as they
were leaving, Kookoo,--accidents will happen,--was under the stairs. As
they began to descend the tall man was speaking: "--better to bury
it,"--the startled landlord heard him say, and held his breath, thinking
of the trunk; but no more was uttered.
A week later they came again.
A week later they came again.
A week later they came yet again!
The landlord's eyes began to open. There must be a courtship in
progress. It was very plain now why 'Sieur George had wished not to be
accompanied by the rail gentleman; but since his visits had become
regular and frequent, it was equally plain why he did not get rid of
him;--because it would not look well to be going and coming too often
alone. Maybe it was only this tender passion that the tall man had
thought "better to bury." Lately there often came sounds of gay
conversation from the first of the two rooms, which had been turned into
a parlor; and as, week after week, the friends came down-stairs, the
tall man was always in high spirits and anxious to embrace 'Sieur
George, who,--"sly dog," thought the landlord,--would try to look
grave, and only smiled in an embarrassed way. "Ah! Monsieur, you tink to
be varry conning; _mais_ you not so conning as Kookoo, no;" and the
inquisitive little man would shake his head and smile, and shake his
head again, as a man has a perfect right to do under the conviction that
he has been for twenty years baffled by a riddle and is learning to read
it at last; he had guessed what was in 'Sieur George's head, he would by
and by guess what was in the trunk.
A few months passed quickly away, and it became apparent to every eye in
or about the ancient mansion that the landlord's guess was not so bad;
in fact, that Mademoiselle was to be married.
On a certain rainy spring afternoon, a single hired hack drove up to the
main entrance of the old house, and after some little bustle and the
gathering of a crowd of damp children about the big doorway, 'Sieur
George, muffled in a newly-repaired overcoat, jumped out and went
up-stairs. A moment later he re-appeared, leading Mademoiselle, wreathed
and veiled, down the stairway. Very fair was Mademoiselle still. Her
beauty was mature,--fully ripe,--maybe a little too much so, but only a
little; and as she came down with the ravishing odor of bridal flowers
floating about her, she seemed the garlanded victim of a pagan
sacrifice. The mulattress in holiday gear followed behind.
The landlord owed a duty to the community. He arrested the maid on the
last step: "Your mistress, she goin' _pour marier_ 'Sieur George? It
make me glad, glad, glad!"
"Marry 'Sieur George? Non, Monsieur."
"Non? Not marrie 'Sieur George? _Mais comment_?"
"She's going to marry the tall gentleman."
"_Diable!_ ze long gentyman!"--With his hands upon his forehead, he
watched the carriage trundle away. It passed out of sight through the
rain; he turned to enter the house, and all at once tottered under the
weight of a tremendous thought--they had left the trunk! He hurled
himself up-stairs as he had done seven years before, but again--"Ah,
bah!!"--the door was locked, and not a picayune of rent due.
Late that night a small square man, in a wet overcoat, fumbled his way
into the damp entrance of the house, stumbled up the cracking stairs,
unlocked, after many languid efforts, the door of the two rooms, and
falling over the hair-trunk, slept until the morning sunbeams climbed
over the balcony and in at the window, and shone full on the back of his
head. Old Kookoo, passing the door just then, was surprised to find it
slightly ajar--pushed it open silently, and saw, within, 'Sieur George
in the act of rising from his knees beside the mysterious trunk! He had
come back to be once more the tenant of the two rooms.
'Sieur George, for the second time, was a changed man--changed from bad
to worse; from being retired and reticent, he had come, by reason of
advancing years, or mayhap that which had left the terrible scar on his
face, to be garrulous. When, once in a while, employment sought him (for
he never sought employment), whatever remuneration he received went its
way for something that left him dingy and threadbare. He now made a
lively acquaintance with his landlord, as, indeed, with every soul in
the neighborhood, and told all his adventures in Mexican prisons and
Cuban cities; including full details of the hardships and perils
experienced jointly with the "long gentleman" who had married
Mademoiselle, and who was no Mexican or Cuban, but a genuine
Louisianian.
"It was he that fancied me," he said, "not I him; but once he had fallen
in love with me I hadn't the force to cast him off. How Madame ever
should have liked him was one of those woman's freaks that a man mustn't
expect to understand. He was no more fit for her than rags are fit for a
queen; and I could have choked his head off the night he hugged me round
the neck and told me what a suicide she had committed. But other fine
women are committing that same folly every day, only they don't wait
until they're thirty-four or five to do it.--'Why don't I like him?'
Well, for one reason, he's a drunkard!" Here Kookoo, whose imperfect
knowledge of English prevented his intelligent reception of the story,
would laugh as if the joke came in just at this point.
However, with all Monsieur's prattle, he never dropped a word about the
man he had been before he went away; and the great hair-trunk puzzle was
still the same puzzle, growing greater every day.
Thus the two rooms had been the scene of some events quite queer, if not
really strange; but the queerest that ever they presented, I guess, was
'Sieur George coming in there one day, crying like a little child, and
bearing in his arms an infant--a girl--the lovely offspring of the
drunkard whom he so detested, and poor, robbed, spirit-broken and now
dead Madame. He took good care of the orphan, for orphan she was very
soon. The long gentleman was pulled out of the Old Basin one morning,
and 'Sieur George identified the body at the Trémé station. He never
hired a nurse--the father had sold the lady's maid quite out of sight;
so he brought her through all the little ills and around all the sharp
corners of baby-life and childhood, without a human hand to help him,
until one evening, having persistently shut his eyes to it for weeks and
months, like one trying to sleep in the sunshine, he awoke to the
realization that she was a woman. It was a smoky one in November, the
first cool day of autumn. The sunset was dimmed by the smoke of burning
prairies, the air was full of the ashes of grass and reeds, ragged
urchins were lugging home sticks of cordwood, and when a bit of coal
fell from a cart in front of Kookoo's old house, a child was boxed half
across the street and robbed of the booty by a _blanchisseuse de fin_
from over the way.
The old man came home quite steady. He mounted the stairs smartly
without stopping to rest, went with a step unusually light and quiet to
his chamber and sat by the window opening upon the rusty balcony.
It was a small room, sadly changed from what it had been in old times;
but then so was 'Sieur George. Close and dark it was, the walls stained
with dampness and the ceiling full of bald places that showed the
lathing. The furniture was cheap and meagre, including conspicuously the
small, curious-looking hair-trunk. The floor was of wide slabs fastened
down with spikes, and sloping up and down in one or two broad
undulations, as if they had drifted far enough down the current of time
to feel the tide-swell.
However, the floor was clean, the bed well made, the cypress table in
place, and the musty smell of the walls partly neutralized by a geranium
on the window-sill.
He so coming in and sitting down, an unseen person called from the room
adjoining (of which, also, he was still the rentee), to know if he were
he, and being answered in the affirmative, said, "Papa George guess who
was here to-day?"
"Kookoo, for the rent?"
"Yes, but he will not come back."
"No? why not?"
"Because you will not pay him."
"No? and why not?"
"Because I have paid him."
"Impossible! where did you get the money?"
"Cannot guess?--Mother Nativity."
"What, not for embroidery?"
"No? and why not? _Mais oui!_"--saying which, and with a pleasant laugh,
the speaker entered the room. She was a girl of sixteen or thereabout,
very beautiful, with very black hair and eyes. A face and form more
entirely out of place you could not have found in the whole city. She
sat herself at his feet, and, with her interlocked hands upon his knee,
and her face, full of childish innocence mingled with womanly wisdom,
turned to his, appeared for a time to take principal part in a
conversation which, of course, could not be overheard in the corridor
outside.
Whatever was said, she presently rose, he opened his arms, and she sat
on his knee and kissed him. This done, there was a silence, both smiling
pensively and gazing out over the rotten balcony into the street. After
a while she started up, saying something about the change of weather,
and, slipping away, thrust a match between the bars of the grate. The
old man turned about to the fire, and she from her little room brought a
low sewing-chair and sat beside him, laying her head on his knee, and he
stroking her brow with his brown palm.
And then, in an altered--a low, sad tone--he began a monotonous recital.
Thus they sat, he talking very steadily and she listening, until all the
neighborhood was wrapped in slumber,--all the neighbors, but not Kookoo.
Kookoo in his old age had become a great eavesdropper; his ear and eye
took turns at the keyhole that night, for he tells things that were not
intended for outside hearers. He heard the girl sobbing, and the old man
saying, "But you must go now. You cannot stay with me safely or
decently, much as I wish it. The Lord only knows how I'm to bear it, or
where you're to go; but He's your Lord, child, and He'll make a place
for you. I was your grandfather's death; I frittered your poor, dead
mother's fortune away: let that be the last damage I do.
"I have always meant everything for the best," he added half in
soliloquy.
From all Kookoo could gather, he must have been telling her the very
story just recounted. She had dropped quite to the floor, hiding her
face in her hands, and was saying between her sobs, "I cannot go, Papa
George; oh, Papa George, I cannot go!"
Just then 'Sieur George, kaving kept a good resolution all day, was
encouraged by the orphan's pitiful tones to contemplate the most
senseless act he ever attempted to commit. He said to the sobbing girl
that she was not of his blood; that she was nothing to him by natural
ties; that his covenant was with her grandsire to care for his
offspring; and though it had been poorly kept, it might be breaking it
worse than ever to turn her out upon ever so kind a world.
"I have tried to be good to you all these years. When I took you, a wee
little baby, I took you for better or worse. I intended to do well by
you all your childhood-days, and to do best at last. I thought surely we
should be living well by this time, and you could choose from a world
full of homes and a world full of friends.
"I don't see how I missed it!" Here he paused a moment in meditation,
and presently resumed with some suddenness:
"I thought that education, far better than Mother Nativity has given
you, should have afforded your sweet charms a noble setting; that good
mothers and sisters would be wanting to count you into their families,
and that the blossom of a happy womanhood would open perfect and full of
sweetness.
"I would have given my life for it. I did give it, such as it was; but
it was a very poor concern, I know--my life--and not enough to buy any
good thing.
"I have had a thought of something, but I'm afraid to tell it. It didn't
come to me to-day or yesterday; it has beset me a long time--for
months."
The girl gazed into the embers, listening intensely.
"And oh! dearie, if I could only get you to think the same way, you
might stay with me then."
"How long?" she asked, without stirring.
"Oh, is long as heaven should let us. But there is only one chance," he
said, as it were feeling his way.
"only one way for us to stay together. Do you understand me?"
She looked up at the old man with a glance of painful inquiry.
"If you could be--my wife, dearie?"
She uttered a low, distressful cry, and, gliding swiftly into her room,
for the first time in her young life turned the key between them.
And the old man sat and wept.
Then Kookoo, peering through the keyhole, saw that they had been looking
into the little trunk. The lid was up, but the back was toward the door,
and he could see no more than if it had been closed.
He stooped and stared into the aperture until his dry old knees were
ready to crack. It seemed as if 'Sieur George was stone, only stone
couldn't weep like that.
Every separate bone in his neck was hot with pain. He would have given
ten dollars--ten sweet dollars!--to have seen 'Sieur George get up and
turn that trunk around.
There! 'Sieur George rose up--what a face!
He started toward the bed, and as he came to the trunk he paused, looked
at it, muttered something about "ruin," and something about "fortune,"
kicked the lid down and threw himself across the bed.
Small profit to old Kookoo that he went to his own couch; sleep was not
for the little landlord. For well-nigh half a century he had suspected
his tenant of having a treasure hidden in his house, and to-night he had
heard his own admission that in the little trunk was a fortune. Kookoo
had never felt so poor in all his days before. He felt a Creole's anger,
too, that a tenant should be the holder of wealth while his landlord
suffered poverty.
And he knew very well, too, did Kookoo, what the tenant would do. If he
did not know what he kept in the trunk, he knew what he kept behind it,
and he knew he would take enough of it to-night to make him sleep
soundly.
No one would ever have supposed Kookoo capable of a crime. He was too
fearfully impressed with the extra-hazardous risks of dishonesty; he was
old, too, and weak, and, besides all, intensely a coward. Nevertheless,
while it was yet two or three hours before daybreak, the sleep-forsaken
little man arose, shuffled into his garments, and in his stocking-feet
sought the corridor leading to 'Sieur George's apartment. The November
night, as it often does in that region, had grown warm and clear; the
stars were sparkling like diamonds pendent in the deep blue heavens, and
at every window and lattice and cranny the broad, bright moon poured
down its glittering beams upon the hoary-headed thief, as he crept along
the mouldering galleries and down the ancient corridor that led to
'Sieur George's chamber.
'Sieur George's door, though ever so slowly opened, protested with a
loud creak. The landlord, wet with cold sweat from head to foot, and
shaking till the floor trembled, paused for several minutes, and then
entered the moon-lit apartment. The tenant, lying as if he had not
moved, was sleeping heavily. And now the poor coward trembled so, that
to kneel before the trunk, without falling, he did not know how. Twice,
thrice, he was near tumbling headlong. He became as cold as ice. But the
sleeper stirred, and the thought of losing his opportunity strung his
nerves up in an instant. He went softly down upon his knees, laid his
hands upon the lid, lifted it, and let in the intense moonlight. The
trunk was full, full, crowded down and running over full, of the tickets
of the Havana Lottery!
A little after daybreak, Kookoo from his window saw the orphan, pausing
on the corner. She stood for a moment, and then dove into the dense fog
which had floated in from the river, and disappeared. He never saw her
again.
But her Lord is taking care of her. Once only she has seen 'Sieur
George. She had been in the belvedere of the house which she now calls
home, looking down upon the outspread city. Far away southward and
westward the great river glistened in the sunset. Along its sweeping
bends the chimneys of a smoking commerce, the magazines of surplus
wealth, the gardens of the opulent, the steeples of a hundred
sanctuaries and thousands on thousands of mansions and hovels covered
the fertile birthright arpents which 'Sieur George, in his fifty years'
stay, had seen tricked away from dull colonial Esaus by their blue-eyed
brethren of the North. Nearer by she looked upon the forlornly silent
region of lowly dwellings, neglected by legislation and shunned by all
lovers of comfort, that once had been the smiling fields of her own
grandsire's broad plantation; and but a little way off, trudging across
the marshy commons, her eye caught sight of 'Sieur George following the
sunset out upon the prairies to find a night's rest in the high grass.
She turned at once, gathered the skirt of her pink calico uniform, and,
watching her steps through her tears, descended the steep winding-stair
to her frequent kneeling-place under the fragrant candles of the
chapel-altar in Mother Nativity's asylum.
'Sieur George is houseless. He cannot find the orphan. Mother Nativity
seems to know nothing of her. If he could find her now, and could get
from her the use of ten dollars for but three days, he knows a
combination which would repair all the past; it could not fail,
he--thinks. But he cannot find her, and the letters he writes--all
containing the one scheme--disappear in the mail-box, and there's an
end.
MADAME DÉLICIEUSE
Just adjoining the old Café de Poésie on the corner, stood the little
one-story, yellow-washed tenement of Dr. Mossy, with its two glass doors
protected by batten shutters, and its low, weed-grown tile roof sloping
out over the sidewalk. You were very likely to find the Doctor in, for
he was a great student and rather negligent of his business--as
business. He was a small, sedate, Creole gentleman of thirty or more,
with a young-old face and manner that provoked instant admiration. He
would receive you--be you who you may--in a mild, candid manner, looking
into your face with his deep blue eyes, and re-assuring you with a
modest, amiable smile, very sweet and rare on a man's mouth.
To be frank, the Doctor's little establishment was dusty and
disorderly--very. It was curious to see the jars, and jars, and jars. In
them were serpents and hideous fishes and precious specimens of many
sorts. There were stuffed birds on broken perches; and dried lizards,
and eels, and little alligators, and old skulls with their crowns sawed
off, and ten thousand odd scraps of writing-paper strewn with crumbs of
lonely lunches, and interspersed with long-lost spatulas and rust-eaten
lancets.
All New Orleans, at least all Creole New Orleans, knew, and yet did not
know, the dear little Doctor. So gentle, so kind, so skilful, so
patient, so lenient; so careless of the rich and so attentive to the
poor; a man, all in all, such as, should you once love him, you would
love him forever. So very learned, too, but with apparently no idea of
how to _show himself_ to his social profit,--two features much more
smiled at than respected, not to say admired, by a people remote from
the seats of learning, and spending most of their esteem upon animal
heroisms and exterior display.
"Alas!" said his wealthy acquaintances, "what a pity; when he might as
well be rich."
"Yes, his father has plenty."
"Certainly, and gives it freely. But intends his son shall see none of
it."
"His son? You dare not so much as mention him."
"Well, well, how strange! But they can never agree--not even upon their
name. Is not that droll?--a man named General Villivicencio, and his
son, Dr. Mossy!"
"Oh, that is nothing; it is only that the Doctor drops the _de
Villivicencio_."
"Drops the _de Villivicencio?_ but I think the _de Villivicencio_ drops
him, ho, ho, ho,--_diable!_"
Next to the residence of good Dr. Mossy towered the narrow,
red-brick-front mansion of young Madame Délicieuse, firm friend at once
and always of those two antipodes, General Villivicencio and Dr. Mossy.
Its dark, covered carriage-way was ever rumbling, and, with nightfall,
its drawing-rooms always sent forth a luxurious light from the
lace-curtained windows of the second-story balconies.
It was one of the sights of the Rue Royale to see by night its tall,
narrow outline reaching high up toward the stars, with all its windows
aglow.
The Madame had had some tastes of human experience; had been betrothed
at sixteen (to a man she did not love, "being at that time a fool," as
she said); one summer day at noon had been a bride, and at sundown--a
widow. Accidental discharge of the tipsy bridegroom's own pistol. Pass
it by! It left but one lasting effect on her, a special detestation of
quarrels and weapons.
The little maidens whom poor parentage has doomed to sit upon street
door-sills and nurse their infant brothers have a game of "choosing" the
beautiful ladies who sweep by along the pavement; but in Rue Royale
there was no choosing; every little damsel must own Madame Délicieuse or
nobody, and as that richly adorned and regal favorite of old General
Villivicencio came along they would lift their big, bold eyes away up to
her face and pour forth their admiration in a universal--"Ah-h-h-h!"
But, mark you, she was good Madame Délicieuse as well as fair Madame
Délicieuse: her principles, however, not constructed in the austere
Anglo-Saxon style, exactly (what need, with the lattice of the
Confessional not a stone's throw off?). Her kind offices and beneficent
schemes were almost as famous as General Villivicencio's splendid alms;
if she could at times do what the infantile Washington said he could
not, why, no doubt she and her friends generally looked upon it as a
mere question of enterprise.
She had charms, too, of intellect--albeit not such a sinner against time
and place as to be an "educated woman"--charms that, even in a plainer
person, would have brought down the half of New Orleans upon one knee,
with both hands on the left side. _She_ had the _whole_ city at her
feet, and, with the fine tact which was the perfection of her character,
kept it there contented. Madame was, in short, one of the kind that
gracefully wrest from society the prerogative of doing as they please,
and had gone even to such extravagant lengths as driving out in the
_Américain_ faubourg, learning the English tongue, talking national
politics, and similar freaks whereby she provoked the unbounded worship
of her less audacious lady friends. In the centre of the cluster of
Creole beauties which everywhere gathered about her, and, most of all,
in those incomparable companies which assembled in her own splendid
drawing-rooms, she was always queen lily. Her house, her drawing-rooms,
etc.; for the little brown aunt who lived with her was a mere piece of
curious furniture.
There was this notable charm about Madame Délicieuse, she improved by
comparison. She never looked so grand as when, hanging on General
Villivicencio's arm at some gorgeous ball, these two bore down on you
like a royal barge lashed to a ship-of-the-line. She never looked so
like her sweet name, as when she seated her prettiest lady adorers close
around her, and got them all a-laughing.
Of the two balconies which overhung the _banquette_ on the front of the
Délicieuse house, one was a small affair, and the other a deeper and
broader one, from which Madame and her ladies were wont upon gala days
to wave handkerchiefs and cast flowers to the friends in the
processions. There they gathered one Eighth of January morning to see
the military display. It was a bright blue day, and the group that quite
filled the balcony had laid wrappings aside, as all flower-buds are apt
to do on such Creole January days, and shone resplendent in spring
attire.
The sight-seers passing below looked up by hundreds and smiled at the
ladies' eager twitter, as, flirting in humming-bird fashion from one
subject to another, they laughed away the half-hours waiting for the
pageant. By and by they fell a-listening, for Madame Délicieuse had
begun a narrative concerning Dr. Mossy. She sat somewhat above her
listeners, her elbow on the arm of her chair, and her plump white hand
waving now and then in graceful gesture, they silently attending with
eyes full of laughter and lips starting apart.
"_Vous savez_," she said (they conversed in French of course), "you know
it is now long that Dr. Mossy and his father have been in disaccord.
Indeed, when have they not differed? For, when Mossy was but a little
boy, his father thought it hard that he was not a rowdy. He switched him
once because he would not play with his toy gun and drum. He was not so
high when his father wished to send him to Paris to enter the French
army; but he would not go. We used to play often together on the
_banquette_--for I am not so very many years younger than he, no
indeed--and, if I wanted some fun, I had only to pull his hair and run
into the house; he would cry, and monsieur papa would come out with his
hand spread open and"--
Madame gave her hand a malicious little sweep, and Joined heartily in
the laugh which followed.
"That was when they lived over the way. But wait! you shall see: I have
something. This evening the General"--
The houses of Rue Royale gave a start and rattled their windows. In the
long, irregular line of balconies the beauty of the city rose up. Then
the houses jumped again and the windows rattled; Madame steps inside the
window and gives a message which the housemaid smiles at in receiving.
As she turns the houses shake again, and now again; and now there comes
a distant strain of trumpets, and by and by the drums and bayonets and
clattering hoofs, and plumes and dancing banners; far down the long
street stretch out the shining ranks of gallant men, and the fluttering,
over-leaning swarms of ladies shower down their sweet favors and wave
their countless welcomes.
In the front, towering above his captains, rides General Villivicencio,
veteran of 1814-15, and, with the gracious pomp of the old-time
gentleman, lifts his cocked hat, and bows, and bows.
Madame Délicieuse's balcony was a perfect maze of waving kerchiefs. The
General looked up for the woman of all women; she was not there. But he
remembered the other balcony, the smaller one, and cast his glance
onward to it. There he saw Madame and one other person only. A small
blue-eyed, broad-browed, scholarly-looking man whom the arch lady had
lured from his pen by means of a mock professional summons, and who now
stood beside her, a smile of pleasure playing on his lips and about his
eyes.
"_Vite!_" said Madame, as the father's eyes met the son's. Dr. Mossy
lifted his arm and cast a bouquet of roses. A girl in the crowd bounded
forward, caught it in the air, and, blushing, handed it to the plumed
giant. He bowed low, first to the girl, then to the balcony above; and
then, with a responsive smile, tossed up two splendid kisses, one to
Madame, and one, it seemed--
"For what was that cheer?"
"Why, did you not see? General Villivicencio cast a kiss to his son."
The staff of General Villivicencio were a faithful few who had not bowed
the knee to any abomination of the Américains, nor sworn deceitfully to
any species of compromise; their beloved city was presently to pass into
the throes of an election, and this band, heroically unconscious of
their feebleness, putting their trust in "re-actions" and like
delusions, resolved to make one more stand for the traditions of their
fathers. It was concerning this that Madame Délicieuse was incidentally
about to speak when interrupted by the boom of cannon; they had promised
to meet at her house that evening.
They met. With very little discussion or delay (for their minds were
made up beforehand), it was decided to announce in the French-English
newspaper that, at a meeting of leading citizens, it had been thought
consonant with the public interest to place before the people the name
of General Hercule Mossy de Villivicencio. No explanation was considered
necessary. All had been done in strict accordance with time-honored
customs, and if any one did not know it it was his own fault. No
eulogium was to follow, no editorial indorsement. The two announcements
were destined to stand next morning, one on the English side and one on
the French, in severe simplicity, to be greeted with profound
gratification by a few old gentlemen in blue cottonade, and by roars of
laughter from a rampant majority.
As the junto were departing, sparkling Madame Délicieuse detained the
General at the head of the stairs that descended into the tiled
carriage-way, to wish she was a man, that she might vote for him.
"But, General," she said, "had I not a beautiful bouquet of ladies on my
balcony this morning?"
The General replied, with majestic gallantry, that "it was as
magnificent as could be expected with the central rose wanting." And so
Madame was disappointed, for she was trying to force the General to
mention his son. "I will bear this no longer; he shall not rest," she
had said to her little aunt, "until he has either kissed his son or
quarrelled with him."
To which the aunt had answered that, "_coûte que coûte_, she need not
cry about it;" nor did she. Though the General's compliment had foiled
her thrust, she answered gayly to the effect that enough was enough;
"but, ah! General," dropping her voice to an undertone, "if you had
heard what some of those rosebuds said of you!"
The old General pricked up like a country beau. Madame laughed to
herself, "Monsieur Peacock, I have thee;" but aloud she said gravely:
"Come into the drawing-room, if you please, and seat yourself. You must
be greatly fatigued."
The friends who waited below overheard the invitation.
"_Au revoir, Général_," said they.
"_Au revoir, Messieurs,_" he answered, and followed the lady.
"General," said she, as if her heart were overflowing, "you have been
spoken against. Please sit down."
"Is that true, Madame?"
"Yes, General."
She sank into a luxurious chair.
"A lady said to-day--but you will be angry with me, General."
"With you, Madame? That is not possible."
"I do not love to make revelations, General; but when a noble friend is
evil spoken of"--she leaned her brow upon her thumb and forefinger, and
looked pensively at her slipper's toe peeping out at the edge of her
skirt on the rich carpet--"one's heart gets very big."
"Madame, you are an angel! But what said she, Madame?"
"Well, General, I have to tell you the whole truth, if you will not be
angry. We were all speaking at once of handsome men. She said to me:
'Well, Madame Délicieuse, you may say what you will of General
Villivicencio, and I suppose it is true; but everybody knows'--pardon
me, General, but just so she said--'all the world knows he treats his
son very badly.'"
"It is not true," said the General.
"If I wasn't angry!" said Madame, making a pretty fist. 'How can that
be?' I said. 'Well,' she said, 'mamma says he has been angry with his
son for fifteen years.' 'But what did his son do?' I said. 'Nothing,'
said she. '_Ma foi_,' I said, 'me, I too would be angry if my son had
done nothing for fifteen years'--ho, ho, ho!"
"It is not true," said the General.
The old General cleared his throat, and smiled as by compulsion.
"You know, General," said Madame, looking distressed, "it was nothing to
joke about, but I had to say so, because I did not know what your son
had done, nor did I wish to hear any thing against one who has the honor
to call you his father."
She paused a moment to let the flattery take effect, and then proceeded:
"But then another lady said to me; she said, 'For shame, Clarisse, to
laugh at good Dr. Mossy; nobody--neither General Villivicencio, neither
any other, has a right to be angry against that noble, gentle, kind,
brave'"--
"Brave!" said the General, with a touch of irony. "So she said,"
answered Madame Délicieuse, "and I asked her, 'how brave?' 'Brave?' she
said, 'why, braver than _any soldier_, in tending the small-pox, the
cholera, the fevers, and all those horrible things. Me, I saw his father
once run from a snake; I think _he_ wouldn't fight the small-pox--my
faith!' she said, 'they say that Dr. Mossy does all that and never wears
a scapula!--and does it nine hundred and ninety-nine times in a thousand
for nothing! _Is_ that brave, Madame Délicieuse, or is it not?'--And,
General,--what could I say?"
Madame dropped her palms on either side of her spreading robes and
waited pleadingly for an answer. There was no sound but the drumming of
the General's fingers on his sword-hilt. Madame resumed:
"I said, 'I do not deny that Mossy is a noble gentleman;'--I had to say
that, had I not, General?"
"Certainly, Madame," said the General, "my son is a gentleman, yes."
"'But,' I said, 'he should not make Monsieur, his father, angry.'"
"True," said the General, eagerly.
"But that lady said: 'Monsieur, his father, makes himself angry,' she
said. 'Do you know, Madame, why his father is angry so long?' Another
lady says, 'I know!' 'For what?' said I. 'Because he refused to become a
soldier; mamma told me that.' 'It cannot be!' I said."
The General flushed. Madame saw it, but relentlessly continued:
"'_Mais oui_,' said that lady. 'What!' I said, 'think you General
Villivicencio will not rather be the very man most certain to respect a
son who has the courage to be his own master? Oh, what does he want with
a poor fool of a son who will do only as he says? You think he will love
him less for healing instead of killing? Mesdemoiselles, you do not know
that noble soldier!'"
The noble soldier glowed, and bowed his acknowledgments in a dubious,
half remonstrative way, as if Madame might be producing material for her
next confession, as, indeed, she diligently was doing; but she went
straight on once more, as a surgeon would.
"But that other lady said: 'No, Madame, no, ladies, but I am going to
tell you why Monsieur, the General, is angry with his son.' 'Very well,
why?'--'Why? It is just--because--he is--a little man!'"
General Villivicencio stood straight up.
"Ah! mon ami," cried the lady, rising excitedly, "I have wounded you and
made you angry, with my silly revelations. Pardon me, my friend. Those
were foolish girls, and, anyhow, they admired you. They said you looked
glorious--grand--at the head of the procession."
Now, all at once, the General felt the tremendous fatigues of the day;
there was a wild, swimming, whirling sensation in his head that forced
him to let his eyelids sink down; yet, just there, in the midst of his
painful bewilderment, he realized with ecstatic complacency that the
most martial-looking man in Louisiana was standing in his spurs with the
hand of Louisiana's queenliest woman laid tenderly on his arm.
"I am a wretched tattler!" said she.
"Ah! no, Madame, you are my dearest friend, yes.'
"Well, anyhow, I called them fools. 'Ah! innocent creatures,' I said,
'think you a man of his sense and goodness, giving his thousands to the
sick and afflicted, will cease to love his only son because he is not
big like a horse or quarrelsome like a dog? No, ladies, there is a great
reason which none of you know.' 'Well, well,' they cried, 'tell it; he
has need of a very good reason; tell it now.' 'My ladies,' I said, 'I
must not'--for, General, for all the world I knew not a reason why you
should be angry against your son; you know, General, you have never told
me."
The beauty again laid her hand on his arm and gazed, with round-eyed
simplicity, into his sombre countenance. For an instant her witchery had
almost conquered.
"Nay, Madame, some day I shall tell you; I have more than one burden
_here_. But let me ask you to be seated, for I have a question, also,
for you, which I have longed to ask. It lies heavily upon my heart; I
must ask it now. A matter of so great importance"--
Madame's little brown aunt gave a faint cough from a dim corner of the
room.
"'Tis a beautiful night," she remarked, and stepped out on the balcony.
Then the General asked his question. It was a very long question, or,
maybe, repeated twice or thrice; for it was fully ten minutes before he
moved out of the room, saying good-evening.
Ah! old General Villivicencio. The most martial-looking man in
Louisiana! But what would the people, the people who cheered in the
morning, have said, to see the fair Queen Délicieuse at the top of the
stair, sweetly bowing you down into the starlight,--humbled,
crestfallen, rejected!
The campaign opened. The Villivicencio ticket was read in French and
English with the very different sentiments already noted. In the
Exchange, about the courts, among the "banks," there was lively talking
concerning its intrinsic excellence and extrinsic chances. The young
gentlemen who stood about the doors of the so-called "coffee-houses"
talked with a frantic energy alarming to any stranger, and just when you
would have expected to see them jump and bite large mouthfuls out of
each other's face, they would turn and enter the door, talking on in the
same furious manner, and, walking up to the bar, click their glasses to
the success of the Villivicencio ticket. Sundry swarthy and wrinkled
remnants of an earlier generation were still more enthusiastic. There
was to be a happy renaissance; a purging out of Yankee ideas; a blessed
home-coming of those good old Bourbon morals and manners which Yankee
notions had expatriated. In the cheerfulness of their anticipations they
even went the length of throwing their feet high in air, thus indicating
how the Villivicencio ticket was going to give "doze Américains" the
kick under the nose.
In the three or four weeks which followed, the General gathered a
surfeit of adulation, notwithstanding which he was constantly and with
pain imagining a confused chatter of ladies, and when he shut his eyes
with annoyance, there was Madame Délicieuse standing, and saying, "I
knew not a reason why you should be angry against your son," gazing in
his face with hardened simplicity, and then--that last scene on the
stairs wherein he seemed still to be descending, down, down.
Madame herself was keeping good her resolution.
"Now or never," she said, "a reconciliation or a quarrel."
When the General, to keep up appearances, called again, she so moved him
with an account of certain kindly speeches of her own invention, which
she imputed to Dr. Mossy, that he promised to call and see his son;
"perhaps;" "pretty soon;" "probably."
Dr. Mossy, sitting one February morning among his specimens and books of
reference, finishing a thrilling chapter on the cuticle, too absorbed to
hear a door open, suddenly realized that something was in his light,
and, looking up, beheld General Villivicencio standing over him.
Breathing a pleased sigh, he put down his pen, and, rising on tiptoe,
laid his hand upon his father's shoulder, and lifting his lips like a
little wife, kissed him.
"Be seated, papa," he said, offering his own chair, and perching on the
desk.
The General took it, and, clearing his throat, gazed around upon the
jars and jars with their little Adams and Eves in zoölogical gardens.
"Is all going well, papa?" finally asked Dr. Mossy.
"Yes."
Then there was a long pause.
"'Tis a beautiful day," said the son.
"Very beautiful," rejoined the father.
"I thought there would have been a rain, but it has cleared off," said
the son.
"Yes," responded the father, and drummed on the desk.
"Does it appear to be turning cool?" asked the son.
"No; it does not appear to be turning cool at all," was the answer.
"H'm 'm!" said Dr. Mossy.
"Hem!" said General Villivicencio.
Dr. Mossy, not realizing his own action, stole a glance at his
manuscript.
"I am interrupting you," said the General, quickly, and rose.
"No, no! pardon me; be seated; it gives me great pleasure to--I did not
know what I was doing. It is the work with which I fill my leisure
moments."
So the General settled down again, and father and son sat very close to
each other--in a bodily sense; spiritually they were many miles apart.
The General's finger-ends, softly tapping the desk, had the sound of
far-away drums.
"The city--it is healthy?" asked the General.
"Did you ask me if"--said the little Doctor, starting and looking up.
"The city--it has not much sickness at present?" repeated the father.
"No, yes--not much," said Mossy, and, with utter unconsciousness, leaned
down upon his elbow and supplied an omitted word to the manuscript.
The General was on his feet as if by the touch of a spring.
"I must go!"
"Ah! no, papa," said the son.
"But, yes, I must."
"But wait, papa, I had just now something to speak of"--
"Well?" said the General, standing with his hand on the door, and with
rather a dark countenance.
Dr. Mossy touched his fingers to his forehead, trying to remember.
"I fear I have--ah! I rejoice to see your name before the public, dear
papa, and at the head of the ticket."
The General's displeasure sank down like an eagle's feathers. He smiled
thankfully, and bowed.
"My friends compelled me," he said.
"They think you will be elected?"
"They will not doubt it. But what think you, my son?"
Now the son had a conviction which it would have been madness to
express, so he only said:
"They could not elect one more faithful."
The General bowed solemnly.
"Perhaps the people will think so; my friends believe they will."
"Your friends who have used your name should help you as much as they
can, papa," said the Doctor. "Myself, I should like to assist you, papa,
if I could."
"A-bah!" said the pleased father, incredulously.
"But, yes," said the son.
A thrill of delight filled the General's frame. _This_ was like a son.
"Thank you, my son! I thank you much. Ah, Mossy, my dear boy, you make
me happy!"
"But," added Mossy, realizing with a tremor how far he had gone, "I see
not how it is possible."
The General's chin dropped.
"Not being a public man," continued the Doctor; "unless, indeed, my
pen--you might enlist my pen."
He paused with a smile of bashful inquiry. The General stood aghast for
a moment, and then caught the idea.
"Certainly! cer-tain-ly! ha, ha, ha!"--backing out of the
door--"certainly! Ah! Mossy, you are right, to be sure; to make a
complete world we must have swords _and_ pens. Well, my son, '_au
revoir;_' no, I cannot stay--I will return. I hasten to tell my friends
that the pen of Dr. Mossy is on our side! Adieu, dear son."
Standing outside on the _banquette_ he bowed--not to Dr. Mossy, but to
the balcony of the big red-brick front--a most sunshiny smile, and
departed.
The very next morning, as if fate had ordered it, the Villivicencio
ticket was attacked--ambushed, as it were, from behind the Américain
newspaper. The onslaught was--at least General Villivicencio said it
was--absolutely ruffianly. Never had all the lofty courtesies and
formalities of chivalric contest been so completely ignored. Poisoned
balls--at least personal epithets--were used. The General himself was
called "antiquated!" The friends who had nominated him, they were
positively sneered at; dubbed "fossils," "old ladies," and their caucus
termed "irresponsible"--thunder and lightning! gentlemen of honor to be
termed "not responsible!" It was asserted that the nomination was made
secretly, in a private house, by two or three unauthorized harum-scarums
(that touched the very bone) who had with more caution than propriety
withheld their names. The article was headed, "The Crayfish-eaters'
Ticket." It continued further to say that, had not the publication of
this ticket been regarded as a dull hoax, it would not have been
suffered to pass for two weeks unchallenged, and that it was now high
time the universal wish should be realized in its withdrawal.
Among the earliest readers of this production was the young Madame. She
first enjoyed a quiet gleeful smile over it, and then called:
"Ninide, here, take this down to Dr. Mossy--stop." She marked the
communication heavily with her gold pencil. "No answer; he need not
return it."
About the same hour, and in a neighboring street, one of the "not
responsibles" knocked on the Villivicencio castle gate. The General
invited him into his bedroom. With a short and strictly profane harangue
the visitor produced the offensive newspaper, and was about to begin
reading, when one of those loud nasal blasts, so peculiar to the Gaul,
resounded at the gate, and another "not responsible" entered, more
excited, if possible, than the first. Several minutes were spent in
exchanging fierce sentiments and slapping the palm of the left hand
rapidly with the back of the right. Presently there was a pause for
breath.
"Alphonse, proceed to read," said the General, sitting up in bed.
"De Crayfish-eaters' Ticket"--began Alphonse; but a third rapping at the
gate interrupted him, and a third "irresponsible" re-enforced their
number, talking loudly and wildly to the waiting-man as he came up the
hall.
Finally, Alphonse read the article. Little by little the incensed
gentlemen gave it a hearing, now two words and now three, interrupting
it to rip out long, rasping maledictions, and wag their forefingers at
each other as they strode ferociously about the apartment.
As Alphonse reached the close, and dashed the paper to the floor, the
whole quartet, in terrific unison, cried for the blood of the editor.
But hereupon the General spoke with authority.
"No, Messieurs," he said, buttoning his dressing-gown, savagely, "you
shall not fight him. I forbid it--you shall not!"
"But," cried the three at once, "one of us must fight, and you--you
cannot; if _you_ fight our cause is lost! The candidate must not fight."
"Hah-h! Messieurs," cried the hero, beating his breast and lifting his
eyes, "_grace au ciel_. I have a son. Yes, my beloved friends, a son who
shall call the villain out and make him pay for his impudence with
blood, or eat his words in to-morrow morning's paper. Heaven be thanked
that gave me a son for this occasion! I shall see him at once--as soon
as I can dress."
"We will go with you."
"No, gentlemen, let me see my son alone. I can meet you at Maspero's in
two hours. Adieu, my dear friends."
He was resolved.
"_Au, revoir,_," said the dear friends.
Shortly after, cane in hand, General Villivicencio moved with an ireful
stride up the _banquette_ of Rue Royale. Just as he passed the red-brick
front one of the batten shutters opened the faintest bit, and a certain
pair of lovely eyes looked after him, without any of that round
simplicity which we have before discovered in them. As he half turned to
knock at his son's door he glanced at this very shutter, but it was as
tightly closed as though the house were an enchanted palace.
Dr. Mossy's door, on the contrary, swung ajar when he knocked, and the
General entered.
"Well, my son, have you seen that newspaper? No, I think not. I _see_
you have not, since your cheeks are not red with shame and anger."
Dr. Mossy looked up with astonishment from the desk where he sat
writing.
"What is that, papa?"
"My faith! Mossy, is it possible you have not heard of the attack upon
me, which has surprised and exasperated the city this morning?"
"No," said Dr. Mossy, with still greater surprise, and laying his hand
on the arm of his chair.
His father put on a dying look. "My soul!" At that moment his glance
fell upon the paper which had been sent in by Madame Délicieuse. "But,
Mossy, my son," he screamed, "_there_ it is!" striking it rapidly with
one finger--"there! there! there! read it! It calls me 'not
responsible!' 'not responsible' it calls me! Read! read!"
"But, papa," said the quiet little Doctor, rising, and accepting the
crumpled paper thrust at him, "I have read this. If this is it, well,
then, already I am preparing to respond to it."
The General seized him violently, and, spreading a suffocating kiss on
his face, sealed it with an affectionate oath.
"Ah, Mossy, my boy, you are glorious! You had begun already to write!
You are glorious! Read to me what you have written, my son."
The Doctor took up a bit of manuscript, and resuming his chair, began:
"MESSRS. EDITORS: On your journal of this morning"--
"Eh! how! you have not written it in English, is it, son?"
"But, yes, papa."
"'Tis a vile tongue," said the General; "but, if it is
necessary--proceed."
"MESSRS. EDITORS: On your journal of this morning is published an
editorial article upon the Villivicencio ticket, which is plentiful and
abundant with mistakes. Who is the author or writer of the above said
editorial article your correspondent does at present ignore, but doubts
not he is one who, hasty to form an opinion, will yet, however, make his
assent to the correction of some errors and mistakes which"--
"Bah!" cried the General.
Dr. Mossy looked up, blushing crimson.
"Bah!" cried the General, still more forcibly. "Bêtise!"
"How?" asked the gentle son.
"'Tis all nonsent!" cried the General, bursting into English. "Hall you
'ave to say is: ''Sieur Editeurs! I want you s'all give de nem of de
indignan' scoundrel who meek some lies on you' paper about mon Père et
ses amis!"
"Ah-h!" said Dr. Mossy, in a tone of derision and anger.
His father gazed at him in mute astonishment. He stood beside his
disorderly little desk, his small form drawn up, a hand thrust into his
breast, and that look of invincibility in his eyes such as blue eyes
sometimes surprise us with.
"You want me to fight," he said.
"My faith!" gasped the General, loosening in all his joints. "I
believe--you may cut me in pieces if I do not believe you were going to
reason it out in the newspaper! Fight? If I want you to fight? Upon my
soul, I believe you do not want to fight!"
"No," said Mossy.
"My God!" whispered the General. His heart seemed to break.
"Yes," said the steadily gazing Doctor, his lips trembling as he opened
them. "Yes, your God. I am afraid"--
"Afraid!" gasped the General.
"Yes," rang out the Doctor, "afraid; afraid! God forbid that I should
not be afraid. But I will tell you what I do not fear--I do not fear to
call your affairs of honor--murder!"
"My son!" cried the father.
"I retract," cried the son; "consider it unsaid. I will never reproach
my father."
"It is well," said the father. "I was wrong. It is my quarrel. I go to
settle it myself."
Dr. Mossy moved quickly between his father and the door. General
Villivicencio stood before him utterly bowed down.
"What will you?" sadly demanded the old man.
"Papa," said the son, with much tenderness, "I cannot permit you.
Fifteen years we were strangers, and yesterday were friends. You must
not leave me so. I will even settle this quarrel for you. You must let
me. I am pledged to your service."
The peace-loving little doctor did not mean "to settle," but "to
adjust." He felt in an instant that he was misunderstood; yet, as quiet
people are apt to do, though not wishing to deceive, he let the
misinterpretation stand. In his embarrassment he did not know with
absolute certainty what he should do himself.
The father's face--he thought of but one way to settle a quarrel--began
instantly to brighten. "I would myself do it," he said, apologetically,
"but my friends forbid it."
"And so do I," said the Doctor, "but I will go myself now, and will not
return until all is finished. Give me the paper."
"My son, I do not wish to compel you."
There was something acid in the Doctor's smile as he answered:
"No; but give me the paper, if you please."
The General handed it.
"Papa," said the son, "you must wait here for my return."
"But I have an appointment at Maspero's at"--
"I will call and make excuse for you," said the son.
"Well," consented the almost happy father, "go, my son; I will stay. But
if some of your sick shall call?"
"Sit quiet," said the son. "They will think no one is here." And the
General noticed that the dust lay so thick on the panes that a person
outside would have to put his face close to the glass to see within.
In the course of half an hour the Doctor had reached the newspaper
office, thrice addressed himself to the wrong person, finally found the
courteous editor, and easily convinced him that his father had been
imposed upon; but when Dr. Mossy went farther, and asked which one of
the talented editorial staff had written the article:
"You see, Doctor," said the editor--"just step into my private office a
moment."
They went in together. The next minute saw Dr. Mossy departing hurriedly
from the place, while the editor complacently resumed his pen, assured
that he would not return.
General Villivicencio sat and waited among the serpents and innocents.
His spirits began to droop again. Revolving Mossy's words, he could not
escape the fear that possibly, after all, his son might compromise the
Villivicencio honor in the interests of peace. Not that he preferred to
put his son's life in jeopardy; he would not object to an adjustment,
provided the enemy should beg for it. But if not, whom would his son
select to perform those friendly offices indispensable in polite
quarrels? Some half-priest, half-woman? Some spectacled book-worm? He
suffered.
The monotony of his passive task was relieved by one or two callers who
had the sagacity (or bad manners) to peer through the dirty glass, and
then open the door, to whom, half rising from his chair, he answered,
with a polite smile, that the Doctor was out, nor could he say how long
he might be absent. Still the time dragged painfully, and he began at
length to wonder why Mossy did not return.
There came a rap at the glass door different from all the raps that had
forerun it--a fearless, but gentle, dignified, graceful rap; and the
General, before he looked round, felt in all his veins that it came from
the young Madame. Yes, there was her glorious outline thrown side wise
upon the glass. He hastened and threw open the door, bending low at the
same instant, and extending his hand.
She extended hers also, but not to take his. With a calm dexterity that
took the General's breath, she reached between him and the door, and
closed it.
"What is the matter?" anxiously asked the General--for her face, in
spite of its smile, was severe.
"General," she began, ignoring his inquiry--and, with all her Creole
bows, smiles, and insinuating phrases, the severity of her countenance
but partially waned--"I came to see my physician--your son. Ah! General,
when I find you reconciled to your son, it makes me think I am in
heaven. You will let me say so? You will not be offended with the old
playmate of your son?"
She gave him no time to answer.
"He is out, I think, is he not? But I am glad of it. It gives us
occasion to rejoice together over his many merits. For you know,
General, in all the years of your estrangement, Mossy had no friend like
myself. I am proud to tell you so now; is it not so?"
The General was so taken aback that, when he had thanked her in a
mechanical way, he could say nothing else. She seemed to fall for a
little while into a sad meditation that embarrassed him beyond measure.
But as he opened his mouth to speak, she resumed:
"Nobody knew him so well as I; though I, poor me, I could not altogether
understand him; for look you, General, he was--what do you think?--_a
great man_!--nothing less."
"How?" asked the General, not knowing what else to respond.
"You never dreamed of that, eh?" continued the lady. "But, of course
not; nobody did but me. Some of those Américains, I suppose, knew it;
but who would ever ask them? Here in Royal Street, in New Orleans, where
we people know nothing and care nothing but for meat, drink, and
pleasure, he was only Dr. Mossy, who gave pills. My faith! General, no
wonder you were disappointed in your son, for you thought the same. Ah!
yes, you did! But why did you not ask me, his old playmate? I knew
better. I could have told you how your little son stood head and
shoulders above the crowd. I could have told you some things too
wonderful to believe. I could have told you that his name was known and
honored in the scientific schools of Paris, of London, of Germany! Yes!
I could have shown you"--she warmed as she proceeded--"I could have
shown you letters (I begged them of him), written as between brother and
brother, from the foremost men of science and discovery!"
She stood up, her eyes flashing with excitement.
"But why did you never tell me?" cried the General.
"He never would allow me--but you--why did you not ask me? I will tell
you; you were too proud to mention your son. But he had pride to match
yours--ha!--achieving all--every thing--with an assumed name! 'Let me
tell your father,' I implored him; but--'let him find me out,' he said,
and you never found him out. Ah! there he was fine. He would not, he
said, though only for your sake, re-enter your affections as any thing
more or less than just--your son. Ha!"
And so she went on. Twenty times the old General was astonished anew,
twenty times was angry or alarmed enough to cry out, but twenty times
she would not be interrupted. Once he attempted to laugh, but again her
hand commanded silence.
"Behold, Monsieur, all these dusty specimens, these revolting fragments.
How have you blushed to know that our idle people laugh in their sleeves
at these things! How have you blushed--and you his father! But why did
you not ask me? I could have told you: 'Sir, your son is not an
apothecary; not one of these ugly things but has helped him on in the
glorious path of discovery; discovery, General--your son--known in
Europe as a scientific discoverer!' Ah-h! the blind people say, 'How is
that, that General Villivicencio should be dissatisfied with his son? He
is a good man, and a good doctor, only a little careless, that's all.'
But _you_ were more blind still, for you shut your eyes tight like this;
when, had you searched for his virtues as you did for his faults, you,
too, might have known before it was too late what nobility, what beauty,
what strength, were in the character of your poor, poor son!"
"Just Heaven! Madame, you shall not speak of my son as of one dead and
buried! But, if you have some bad news"--
"Your son took your quarrel on his hands, eh?"
"I believe so--I think"--
"Well; I saw him an hour ago in search of your slanderer!"
"He must find him!" said the General, plucking up.
"But if the search is already over," slowly responded Madame.
The father looked one instant in her face, then rose with an
exclamation:
"Where is my son? What has happened? Do you think I am a child, to be
trifled with--a horse to be teased? Tell me of my son!"
Madame was stricken with genuine anguish.
"Take your chair," she begged; "wait; listen; take your chair."
"Never!" cried the General; "I am going to find my son--my God! Madame,
you have _locked this door_! What are you, that you should treat me so?
Give me, this instant"--
"Oh! Monsieur, I beseech you to take your chair, and I will tell you
all. You can do nothing now. Listen! suppose you should rush out and
find that your son had played the coward at last! Sit down and"--
"Ah! Madame, this is play!" cried the distracted man.
"But no; it is not play. Sit down; I want to ask you something."
He sank down and she stood over him, anguish and triumph strangely
mingled in her beautiful face.
"General, tell me true; did you not force this quarrel into your son's
hand? I _know_ he would not choose to have it. Did you not do it to test
his courage, because all these fifteen years you have made yourself a
fool with the fear that he became a student only to escape being a
soldier? Did you not?"
Her eyes looked him through and through.
"And if I did?" demanded he with faint defiance.
"Yes! and if he has made dreadful haste and proved his courage?" asked
she.
"Well, then,"--the General straightened up triumphantly--"then he is my
son!"
He beat the desk.
"And heir to your wealth, for example?"
"Certainly."
The lady bowed in solemn mockery.
"It will make him a magnificent funeral!"
The father bounded up and stood speechless, trembling from head to foot.
Madame looked straight in his eye.
"Your son has met the writer of that article."
"Where?" the old man's lips tried to ask.
"Suddenly, unexpectedly, in a passage-way."
"My God! and the villain"--
"Lives!" cried Madame.
He rushed to the door, forgetting that it was locked.
"Give me that key!" he cried, wrenched at the knob, turned away
bewildered, turned again toward it, and again away; and at every step
and turn he cried, "Oh! my son, my son! I have killed my son! Oh! Mossy,
my son, my little boy! Oh! my son, my son!"
Madame buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud. Then the father
hushed his cries and stood for a moment before her.
"Give me the key, Clarisse, let me go."
She rose and laid her face on his shoulder.
"What is it, Clarisse?" asked he.
"Your son and I were ten years betrothed."
"Oh, my child!"
"Because, being disinherited, he would not be me husband."
"Alas! would to God I had known it! Oh! Mossy, my son."
"Oh! Monsieur," cried the lady, clasping her hands, "forgive me--mourn
no more--your son is unharmed! I wrote the article--I am your recanting
slanderer! Your son is hunting for me now. I told my aunt to misdirect
him. I slipped by him unseen in the carriage-way."
The wild old General, having already staggered back and rushed forward
again, would have seized her in his arms, had not the little Doctor
himself at that instant violently rattled the door and shook his finger
at them playfully as he peered through the glass.
"Behold!" said Madame, attempting a smile: "open to your son; here is
the key."
She sank into a chair.
Father and son leaped into each other's arms; then turned to Madame:
"Ah! thou lovely mischief-maker"--
She had fainted away.
"Ah! well, keep out of the way, if you please, papa," said Dr. Mossy, as
Madame presently reopened her eyes; "no wonder you fainted; you have
finished some hard work--see; here; no; Clarisse, dear, take this."
Father and son stood side by side, tenderly regarding her as she
revived.
"Now, papa, you may kiss her; she is quite herself again, already."
"My daughter!" said the stately General; "this--is my son's ransom; and,
with this,--I withdraw the Villivicencio ticket."
"You shall not," exclaimed the laughing lady, throwing her arms about
his neck.
"But, yes!" he insisted; "my faith! you will at least allow me to remove
my dead from the field."
"But, certainly;" said the son; "see, Clarisse, here is Madame, your
aunt, asking us all into the house. Let us go."
The group passed out into the Rue Royale, Dr. Mossy shutting the door
behind them. The sky was blue, the air was soft and balmy, and on the
sweet south breeze, to which the old General bared his grateful brow,
floated a ravishing odor of--
"Ah! what is it?" the veteran asked of the younger pair, seeing the
little aunt glance at them with a playful smile.
Madame Délicieuse for almost the first time in her life, and Dr. Mossy
for the thousandth--blushed.
It was the odor of orange-blossoms.
End of Project Gutenberg's Old Creole Days, by George Washington Cable