The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the earth like
a benediction. Along the leafy road which skirted a narrow, tortuous
stream in central Louisiana, rumbled an old fashioned cabriolet, much
the worse for hard and rough usage over country roads and lanes. The
fat, black horses went in a slow, measured trot, notwithstanding
constant urging on the part of the fat, black coachman. Within the
vehicle were seated the fair Octavie and her old friend and neighbor,
Judge Pillier, who had come to take her for a morning drive.
Octavie wore a plain black dress, severe in its simplicity. A narrow
belt held it at the waist and the sleeves were gathered into close
fitting wristbands. She had discarded her hoopskirt and appeared not
unlike a nun. Beneath the folds of her bodice nestled the old locket.
She never displayed it now. It had returned to her sanctified in her
eyes; made precious as material things sometimes are by being forever
identified with a significant moment of one’s existence.
A hundred times she had read over the letter with which the locket had
come back to her. No later than that morning she had again pored over
it. As she sat beside the window, smoothing the letter out upon her
knee, heavy and spiced odors stole in to her with the songs of birds
and the humming of insects in the air.
She was so young and the world was so beautiful that there came over
her a sense of unreality as she read again and again the priest’s
letter. He told of that autumn day drawing to its close, with the gold
and the red fading out of the west, and the night gathering its shadows
to cover the faces of the dead. Oh! She could not believe that one of
those dead was her own! with visage uplifted to the gray sky in an
agony of supplication. A spasm of resistance and rebellion seized and
swept over her. Why was the spring here with its flowers and its
seductive breath if he was dead! Why was she here! What further had she
to do with life and the living!
Octavie had experienced many such moments of despair, but a blessed
resignation had never failed to follow, and it fell then upon her like
a mantle and enveloped her.
“I shall grow old and quiet and sad like poor Aunt Tavie,” she murmured
to herself as she folded the letter and replaced it in the secretary.
Already she gave herself a little demure air like her Aunt Tavie. She
walked with a slow glide in unconscious imitation of Mademoiselle Tavie
whom some youthful affliction had robbed of earthly compensation while
leaving her in possession of youth’s illusions.
As she sat in the old cabriolet beside the father of her dead lover,
again there came to Octavie the terrible sense of loss which had
assailed her so often before. The soul of her youth clamored for its
rights; for a share in the world’s glory and exultation. She leaned
back and drew her veil a little closer about her face. It was an old
black veil of her Aunt Tavie’s. A whiff of dust from the road had blown
in and she wiped her cheeks and her eyes with her soft, white
handkerchief, a homemade handkerchief, fabricated from one of her old
fine muslin petticoats.
“Will you do me the favor, Octavie,” requested the judge in the
courteous tone which he never abandoned, “to remove that veil which you
wear. It seems out of harmony, someway, with the beauty and promise of
the day.”
The young girl obediently yielded to her old companion’s wish and
unpinning the cumbersome, sombre drapery from her bonnet, folded it
neatly and laid it upon the seat in front of her.
“Ah! that is better; far better!” he said in a tone expressing
unbounded relief. “Never put it on again, dear.” Octavie felt a little
hurt; as if he wished to debar her from share and parcel in the burden
of affliction which had been placed upon all of them. Again she drew
forth the old muslin handkerchief.
They had left the big road and turned into a level plain which had
formerly been an old meadow. There were clumps of thorn trees here and
there, gorgeous in their spring radiance. Some cattle were grazing off
in the distance in spots where the grass was tall and luscious. At the
far end of the meadow was the towering lilac hedge, skirting the lane
that led to Judge Pillier’s house, and the scent of its heavy blossoms
met them like a soft and tender embrace of welcome.
As they neared the house the old gentleman placed an arm around the
girl’s shoulders and turning her face up to him he said: “Do you not
think that on a day like this, miracles might happen? When the whole
earth is vibrant with life, does it not seem to you, Octavie, that
heaven might for once relent and give us back our dead?” He spoke very
low, advisedly, and impressively. In his voice was an old quaver which
was not habitual and there was agitation in every line of his visage.
She gazed at him with eyes that were full of supplication and a certain
terror of joy.
They had been driving through the lane with the towering hedge on one
side and the open meadow on the other. The horses had somewhat
quickened their lazy pace. As they turned into the avenue leading to
the house, a whole choir of feathered songsters fluted a sudden torrent
of melodious greeting from their leafy hiding places.
Octavie felt as if she had passed into a stage of existence which was
like a dream, more poignant and real than life. There was the old gray
house with its sloping eaves. Amid the blur of green, and dimly, she
saw familiar faces and heard voices as if they came from far across the
fields, and Edmond was holding her. Her dead Edmond; her living Edmond,
and she felt the beating of his heart against her and the agonizing
rapture of his kisses striving to awake her. It was as if the spirit of
life and the awakening spring had given back the soul to her youth and
bade her rejoice.
It was many hours later that Octavie drew the locket from her bosom and
looked at Edmond with a questioning appeal in her glance.
“It was the night before an engagement,” he said. “In the hurry of the
encounter, and the retreat next day, I never missed it till the fight
was over. I thought of course I had lost it in the heat of the
struggle, but it was stolen.”
“Stolen,” she shuddered, and thought of the dead soldier with his face
uplifted to the sky in an agony of supplication.
Edmond said nothing; but he thought of his messmate; the one who had
lain far back in the shadow; the one who had said nothing.