As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmondé drove over to L’Abri to see
Désirée and the baby.
It made her laugh to think of Désirée with a baby. Why, it seemed but
yesterday that Désirée was little more than a baby herself; when
Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmondé had found her lying
asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar.
The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for “Dada.” That was
as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she might have
strayed there of her own accord, for she was of the toddling age. The
prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of
Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the
ferry that Coton Maïs kept, just below the plantation. In time Madame
Valmondé abandoned every speculation but the one that Désirée had been
sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her
affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl
grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,—the idol of
Valmondé.
It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone pillar in
whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before, that Armand
Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her.
That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a
pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he
had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of
eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that
day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or
like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over all
obstacles.
Monsieur Valmondé grew practical and wanted things well considered:
that is, the girl’s obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did
not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter
about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in
Louisiana? He ordered the _corbeille_ from Paris, and contained himself
with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married.
Madame Valmondé had not seen Désirée and the baby for four weeks. When
she reached L’Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she
always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not
known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur Aubigny having
married and buried his wife in France, and she having loved her own
land too well ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black like
a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the
yellow stuccoed house. Big, solemn oaks grew close to it, and their
thick-leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall. Young
Aubigny’s rule was a strict one, too, and under it his negroes had
forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old master’s
easy-going and indulgent lifetime.
The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her
soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her,
upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow
nurse woman sat beside a window fanning herself.
Madame Valmondé bent her portly figure over Désirée and kissed her,
holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the
child.
“This is not the baby!” she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was
the language spoken at Valmondé in those days.
“I knew you would be astonished,” laughed Désirée, “at the way he has
grown. The little _cochon de lait!_ Look at his legs, mamma, and his
hands and finger-nails,—real finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them
this morning. Isn’t it true, Zandrine?”
The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, “Mais si, Madame.”
“And the way he cries,” went on Désirée, “is deafening. Armand heard
him the other day as far away as La Blanche’s cabin.”
Madame Valmondé had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted
it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned
the baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face
was turned to gaze across the fields.
“Yes, the child has grown, has changed,” said Madame Valmondé, slowly,
as she replaced it beside its mother. “What does Armand say?”
Désirée’s face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.
“Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly
because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not,—that he
would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn’t true. I know he
says that to please me. And mamma,” she added, drawing Madame
Valmondé’s head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, “he hasn’t
punished one of them—not one of them—since baby is born. Even
Négrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from
work—he only laughed, and said Négrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma,
I’m so happy; it frightens me.”
What Désirée said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son
had softened Armand Aubigny’s imperious and exacting nature greatly.
This was what made the gentle Désirée so happy, for she loved him
desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he
smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand’s dark,
handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he
fell in love with her.
When the baby was about three months old, Désirée awoke one day to the
conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace. It
was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting
suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from
far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a
strange, an awful change in her husband’s manner, which she dared not
ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes,
from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented
himself from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her
child, without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to
take hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Désirée was miserable
enough to die.
She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her _peignoir_, listlessly
drawing through her fingers the strands of her long, silky brown hair
that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon
her own great mahogany bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its
satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche’s little quadroon boys—half
naked too—stood fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock
feathers. Désirée’s eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the
baby, while she was striving to penetrate the threatening mist that she
felt closing about her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood
beside him, and back again; over and over. “Ah!” It was a cry that she
could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The
blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon
her face.
She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound would come,
at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his
mistress was pointing to the door. He laid aside the great, soft fan,
and obediently stole away, over the polished floor, on his bare
tiptoes.
She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and her face
the picture of fright.
Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing her, went
to a table and began to search among some papers which covered it.
“Armand,” she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if
he was human. But he did not notice. “Armand,” she said again. Then she
rose and tottered towards him. “Armand,” she panted once more,
clutching his arm, “look at our child. What does it mean? tell me.”
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust
the hand away from him. “Tell me what it means!” she cried
despairingly.
“It means,” he answered lightly, “that the child is not white; it means
that you are not white.”
A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her nerved her
with unwonted courage to deny it. “It is a lie; it is not true, I am
white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand, you
know they are gray. And my skin is fair,” seizing his wrist. “Look at
my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,” she laughed hysterically.
“As white as La Blanche’s,” he returned cruelly; and went away leaving
her alone with their child.
When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to
Madame Valmondé.
“My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not
white. For God’s sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not
true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live.”
The answer that came was brief:
“My own Désirée: Come home to Valmondé; back to your mother who loves
you. Come with your child.”
When the letter reached Désirée she went with it to her husband’s
study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he sat. She was like
a stone image: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.
He said nothing. “Shall I go, Armand?” she asked in tones sharp with
agonized suspense.
“Yes, go.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“Yes, I want you to go.”
He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and
felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he stabbed thus
into his wife’s soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the
unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards
the door, hoping he would call her back.
“Good-by, Armand,” she moaned.
He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Désirée went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre
gallery with it. She took the little one from the nurse’s arms with no
word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked away, under the
live-oak branches.
It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in the still
fields the negroes were picking cotton.
Désirée had not changed the thin white garment nor the slippers which
she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun’s rays brought a golden
gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road
which led to the far-off plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a
deserted field, where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so
delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the
banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.
Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L’Abri. In the
centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand
Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle;
and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the material which
kept this fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid
upon the pyre, which had already been fed with the richness of a
priceless _layette_. Then there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin
ones added to these; laces, too, and embroideries; bonnets and gloves;
for the _corbeille_ had been of rare quality.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little
scribblings that Désirée had sent to him during the days of their
espousal. There was the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he
took them. But it was not Désirée’s; it was part of an old letter from
his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the
blessing of her husband’s love:—
“But above all,” she wrote, “night and day, I thank the good God for
having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that
his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the
brand of slavery.”