The Moon in the Apple-bough
During all our conversation we had stood in plain view of the windows,
so that our friendly parting must have been visible to all the house. On
my return within doors I found Yvonne walking up and down in a graceful
impatience, her black lace shawl thrown lightly about her head.
“If you want to,” said she, “you may come out on the porch with me for a
little while, monsieur. I want you to talk to me.”
“Yvonne,” exclaimed her mother, in a rebuking voice, “will not this room
do as well?”
“No, indeed, little mamma,” said she wilfully. “_Nothing_ will do as
well as the porch, where the moonlight is, and the smell of the
apple-blossoms. You know, dear, Grand Pré is not Paris!”
“Nor yet is it Quebec,” said I pointedly.
Monsieur de Lamourie smiled. Whatever Yvonne would was in his eyes good.
But her mother yielded only with a little gesture of protest.
“Yvonne is always a law unto herself,” she murmured.
“And to others, I judge,” said I, following the light figure out upon
the porch, and closing the door behind me.
I praised the saints for the freedom of Grand Pré. At Quebec
Mademoiselle would have been the most formal of the formalists, because
in Quebec it was easy to be misjudged.
In the corner of the porch, where a huge apple-bough thrust its blossoms
in beneath the roof, was slung a stout hammock such as sailors use on
shipboard. Mademoiselle de Lamourie had seen these during a voyage down
the Gulf from Quebec, and had so fancied them that her father had been
impelled to have one netted for her by the shad-fishers. It was her
favoured lounging-place, and thither she betook herself now without
apology. In silence I held the tricksy netting for her. In silence I
placed the cushion beneath her head. Then she said:
“You may sit there,” and she pointed, with a little imperious motion, to
a stout bench standing against the wall.
I accepted the seat, but not its location. I brought it and placed it as
close as I dared to the hammock. In doing so I clumsily set the hammock
swinging.
“Please stop it,” said Mademoiselle; and as I seated myself I laid my
hand on the side of the hammock to arrest its motion. My fingers found
themselves in contact with other fingers, very slim and warm and soft.
My breath came in a quick gasp, and I drew away my hand in a strange and
overwhelming perturbation. The hammock was left to stop of itself—and,
indeed, its swinging was but slight. As for me, I was possessed by an
infinite amazement to find myself thus put to confusion by a touch. I
had no word to say, but sat gazing dumbly at the white figure in the
moonlight.
Her face was very pallid in that colorless light, and her eyes greater
and darker than ever, deeps of mystery,—and now, I thought, of grave
mockery as well. She watched me for a little in silence, and then said:
“I let you come out here to talk to me, monsieur!”
I straightened myself upon the bench, and tried my voice. My misgivings
were justified. It trembled, beyond a doubt. The witch had me at a grave
disadvantage. But I spoke on quietly.
“From my two years in the woods of the West, mademoiselle,” said I, “I
brought home to Grand Pré certain wonderful dreams. Of these I find some
more than realized; but one, which gave all meaning to the rest, has
been put to death this night.”
“Even in Grand Pré dreams are no new thing,” she said in haste. “I want
to hear of deeds, of brave and great action. Tell me what you have
done—for I know that will be brave.” And she smiled at me such kind
encouragement that my heart began thumping with vehemence. However, I
made shift to tell her a little of my wanderings—of a bush fight here, a
night march there, of the foiling of a foe, of the timely succour of a
friend—till I saw that I was pleasing her. Her face leaned a little
toward me. Her eyes spoke, dilating and contracting. Her lips were
slightly parted as she listened. And into every adventure, every
situation, every movement, I contrived to weave a suggestion of her
influence, of the thought of her guiding and upholding me. These things,
touched lightly and at once let pass, she did not rebuke. She feigned
not to understand them.
At last I paused and looked at her, waiting for a word of praise or
blame.
“And your poetry, monsieur?” she said gently. “Surely that was not all
the time forgotten. This Acadian land, with its wonder and its beauty,
has found no interpreter but you, and your brave work in the field would
be a misfortune, not a benefit, if it cost us your song.”
“The loss of my verses were no great loss,” said I.
“Indeed, monsieur,” she said earnestly, “I do not think you can be as
modest as you pretend. But I am sincere. Since we have known your song
of them, I think that mamma and I have watched only through your eyes
the great sweep of the Minas tides. And only the other day I heard papa,
who cares for no poetry but his old ‘_Chansons de Gestes_,’ quoting you
to Father Fafard with evident enthusiasm.” She paused—but I said
nothing. I had talked long; and I wished her to continue. What she was
saying, the manner of her saying it, were such as I could long listen
to.
“As for me,” she went on, “I never walk down the orchard in summer time
without saying over to myself your song of the apple-leaves.”
“You do, really, remember my verses?” said I, flushing with surprise and
joy. I was not used to commendation for such things, my verses being
wont to win no more approval than they merited, which I felt to be very
little.
She laughed softly, and began to quote:
“O apple leaves, so cool and green
Against the summer sky,
You stir, although the wind is still
And not a bird goes by!
You start,
And softly move apart
In hushed expectancy.
Who is the gracious visitor
Whose form I cannot see?
“O apple leaves, the mystic light
All down your dim arcade!
Why do your shadows tremble so,
Half glad and half afraid?
The air
Is an unspoken prayer;
Your eyes look all one way.
Who is the secret visitor
Your tremors would betray?”
It was a slight thing, which I had never thought particularly well of;
but on her lips it achieved a music unimagined before.
“Your voice,” said I, “makes it beautiful, as it makes all words
beautiful. Yes, I have written some small bits of verse during my exile,
but they have been different from those of mine which you honour with
your praise. They have had another, a more wonderful, theme—a theme all
too high for them, which nevertheless spurred them to their best. They
have at least one merit—they speak the truth from my heart.” As I spoke
I felt myself leaning forward, though not of set purpose, and my voice
sank almost to a whisper.
“One of them,” I continued, begins in this way:
“A moonbeam or a breath, above thine eyes I bow,
Silent, unseen,
But not, ah! not unknown”—
“Wait!” she interrupted, in a voice that sounded a little faint. “Wait!
I want to hear them all, monsieur; but not to-night. You shall say them
to me to-morrow. I must not stay to listen to them to-night. I am a
little—cold, I think! Help me out, please!” And she rashly gave me her
hand.
Now, it was my honest intention at that instant to do just her bidding
and no more; but when I touched her fingers reason and judgment flowed
from me. I bowed my head over them to the edge of the hammock, and with
both my hands crushed them to my lips. She sank back upon her cushion,
with a little catching of her breath.
After a few moments I raised my head—but with no speech and with no set
purpose—and looked at her face. It was very grave, and curiously
troubled, but I detected no reproach in the great eyes that met mine. A
fierce impulse seized me to gather her in my arms—but I durst not, and
my eyes dropped as I thought of it. By chance they rested upon her
feet—upon the tiny, quill-worked, beaded white moccasins, demurely
crossed, the one over the other. Her skirt was so closely gathered about
her ankles that just an inch or two of one arched instep was visible
over the edge of the low-cut moccasin. Before I myself could realize
what I was about to do, or half the boldness of the act, in a passion
that was all worship I threw myself down beside her feet and kissed
them.
It was for an instant only that my daring so prevailed. Then she
suddenly slipped away. In a breathless confusion I sprang to my feet,
and found her standing erect at the other side of the hammock. Her eyes
blazed upon me; but one small hand was at her throat, as if she found it
hard to speak.
“How could you dare?” she panted. “What right did I give you? What right
did I ever give you?”
I leaned against the pillar that supported one end of the hammock.
“Forgive me! I could not help it. I have loved you, worshipped you, so
long!” I said in a very low voice.
“How dare you speak so?” she cried. “You forget that”—
“No, I remember!” I interrupted doggedly. “I forget nothing. You do not
love him. You are mine.”
“Oh!” she gasped, lifting both hands sharply to her face and dropping
them at once. “I shall never trust you again.”
And in a moment she had flashed past me, with a sob, and disappeared
into the house.