XIX

The sunbeams of a tedious Sabbath began noticeably to slant.

For two days, night, morning, noon, and afternoon, Geoffry Chester had

silently speculated on what he was to see, hear, and otherwise experience

when, as early as he might in keeping with the Chapdelaine dignity and

his, he should pull the tiny brass bell-knob on their tall gate-post.

Chapdelaine! Impressive, patrician title. Impressive too those

baptismal names; implying a refinement invincible in the vale of

adversity. Killing time up one street and down another--Rampart,

Ursuline, Burgundy--he pictured personalities to fit them: for Corinne a

presence stately in advanced years and preserved beauty; for Yvonne a

fragile form suggestive of mother-o'-pearl, of antique lace. Knowledge

of Aline justified such inferences--within bounds. With other charms she

had all these, and must have got them from ancestral sources as truly

Mlle. Corinne's and Mlle. Yvonne's as hers.

"Oh, of course," he pondered, "there are contrary possibilities. They

may easily fall short, far short, of her, in outer graces, and show their

kinship only in a reflection of her inner fineness. They may be no more

surprising than those dear old De l'Isles, or the Prieurs, or than Mrs.

Thorndyke-Smith. So let it be! Aline----"

"Aline-Aline!" alarmingly echoed his heart.

"Aline is enough." Enough? Alas, too much! He felt himself far too

forthpushing in--he would not confess more--a solicitude for her which he

could not stifle; an inextinguishable wish to disentangle her from the

officious care of those by whom she was surrounded--encumbered. "I've no

right to this state of mind," he thought; "none." He reached the gate.

He rang.

A footfall of daintiest lightness came running! ["Aline-Aline!"] So

might Allegro have tripped it. The key rasped round, ["Aline-Aline!"]

the portal drew in, and he found himself getting his first front view of

Cupid, the small black satellite.

A pleasing object. Smaller than ever. White-collared as ever, starched

and brushed to the sheen of a new penny and ugly of face as a

gargoyle--ugly as his goddess was beautiful. Not merely negroidal, in

lips, nose, ears, and tight black wool divided on the absolute equator;

not racially but uniquely ugly--till he smiled--and spoke. He smiled and

spoke with a joy of soul, a transparency of innocence, a rapture of love,

that made his ugliness positively endearing even apart from the entranced

recognition they radiated.

"Ladies at home? Yassuh," he said, with an ecstasy as if he announced

the world's war suddenly over, all oceans safe, all peoples free. He led

the way up the cramped white-shell walk with a ceremonial precision that

gave the caller time to notice the garden. It was hardly an empire. It

lay on either side in two right-angled figures, each, say, of sixty by

fourteen feet, every foot repeating florally the smile of the child. The

rigid beds were curbed with brick water-painted as red as Cupid's gums.

The three fences were green with vines, and here and there against them

bloomed tall evergreen shrubs. At one upper corner of the main path was

a camellia and at the other a crape-myrtle, symbols respectively, to the

visitor, of Aunt Corinne and Aunt Yvonne. The brick doorstep smiled as

red as the garden borders, and as he reached the open door Aline, with

her two aunts at her back, received him.

"Mr. Chester--Mlle. Chapdelaine. Mr. Chester--my Aunt Yvonne." Never

had the niece seemed quite so fair--in face, dress, figure, or mental

poise. She wore that rose whose petals are deep red in their outer

circle and pass from middle pink to central white and deepen in tints

with each day's age. If that rose could have been a girl, mind, soul,

and all, a Creole girl, there would have been two on one stem.

And there, on either side of her sat the aunts: the elder much too lean,

the younger much too dishevelled, and both as sun-tanned as harvesters,

betraying their poverty in flimsy, faded gowns which the dismayed youth

named to himself not draperies but hangings. Yet they were

sweet-mannered, fluent, gay, cordial, and unreserved, though fluttering,

twittering, and ultra-feminine.

The room was like the pair. "Doubtlezz Aline she's told you ab-out that

'ouse. No? Ah, chère! is that possible? 'Tis an ancient relique, that

'ouse. At the present they don't build any mo' like that 'ouse is

build'! You see those wall', those floor'? Every wall they are not of

lath an' plazter, like to-day; they are of solid plank' of a thicknezz of

two-inch'--and from Kentucky!"

The guest recognized the second-hand lumber of broken-up flatboats.

"Tha'z a genuine antique, that 'ouse! Sometime' we think we ought to

egspose that 'ouse, to those tourist', admission ten cent'." [A gay

laugh.]

"But tha'z only when Aline want' to compel us to buy some new dresses.

And tha'z pritty appropriate, that antique 'ouse, for two sizter'

themselve' pritty antique--ha, ha, ha!--as well as their anceztors."

"I fancy they're from 'way back," said Chester.

"We are granddaughter' of two _émigrés_ of the Revolution. The other two

they were decapitalize' on that gui'otine. Yet, still, ad the same time,

we don't _feel_ antique. We don't feel mo' than ten year'! And

especially when we are showing those souvenir' of our in-_fancy_. And

there is nothing we love like that."

"Aline, _chère_, doubtlezz Mr. Chezter will be very please' to see yo'

li'l' dress of baptism! Long time befo', that was also for me, and my

sizter. That has the lace and embro'derie of a hundred years aggo, that

li'l' dress of baptism. Show him that! Oh, that is no trouble, that is

a _dil_-ight! and if you are please' to enjoy that we'll show you our two

doll', age' forty-three!--bride an' bri'groom. Go, _you_, Yvonne, fedge

them."

The sister rose but lingered: "Mr. Chezter, you will egscuse if that

bride an' groom don't look pritty fresh; biccause eighteen seventy-three

they have not change' their clothingg!"

"_Chérie_," said Aline, "I think first we better read the manuscript, and

_then_."

After a breath of hesitation--"Yes! read firs' and _then_. Alway'

businezz biffo'!"

All went into the garden; not the part Chester had come through, but

another only a trifle less pinched, at the back of the house. A few

steps of straight path led them through its stiff ranks of larkspurs,

carnations, and the like, to a bower of honeysuckle enclosing two rough

wooden benches that faced each other across a six-by-nine goldfish pool.

There they had hardly taken seats when Cupid reappeared bearing to the

visitor, on a silver tray, the manuscript.

It was not opened and dived into with the fine flurry of the modern

stage. Its recipient took time to praise the bower and pool, and the

sisters laughed gratefully, clutched hands, and merrily called their

niece "tantine." "You know, Mr. Chezter, 'tantine' tha'z 'auntie,' an'

tha'z j'uz' a li'l' name of affegtion for her, biccause she takes so much

mo' care of us than we of her; you see? But that bower an' that li'l'

lake, my sizter an' me we construc' them both, that bower an' that li'l'

lake."

Without blazoning it they would have him know they had not squandered

"tantine's" hard earnings on architects and contractors.

"And we assure you that was not ladies' work. 'Twas not till weeks we

achieve' that. That geniuz Aline! _she_ was the arshetec'. And those

goldfishes--like Aline--are self-su'porting! We dispose them at the

apothecary, Dauphine and Toulouse Street--ha, ha, ha! Corinne, tha'z the

egstent of commerce we ever been ab'e to make, eh?"

"And now," said Aline, "the story."

"Ah, yes," responded Mlle. Corinne, "at laz' the manuscrip'!" and Mlle.

Yvonne echoed, with a queer guilt in her gayety:

"The manuscrip'! the myzteriouz manuscrip'!"

But there the gate bell sounded and she sprang to her feet. Cupid could

answer it, but some one must be indoors to greet the caller.

"Yes, you, Yvonne," the elder sister said, and Aline added: "We'll not

read till you return."

"Ah, yes, yes! Read without me!"

"No-no-no-no-no! We'll wait!"

"We'll wait, Yvonne." The sister went.

Chester smoothed out the pages, but then smilingly turned them face

downward, and Aline said:

"First, Hector will tell us who's there."

Hector was Cupid. He came again, murmuring a name to Mlle. Corinne. She

rose with hands clasped. "C'est M. et Mme. Rene Ducatel!"

"Well? Hector will give your excuses; you are imperatively engaged."

"Ah, _chère_, on Sunday evening! Tha'z an incredibility! Must you not

let me go? You 'ave 'Ector."

"Ah-h! and we are here to read this momentous document to Hector?" The

sparkle of amused command was enchanting to at least one besides Cupid.

Yet it did not win. "Chère, you make me tremble. Those Ducatel',

they've come so far! How can we show them so li'l' civilization when

they've come so far? An' me I'm convince', and Yvonne she's convince',

that you an' Mr. Chezter you'll be ab'e to judge that manuscrip' better

al-lone. Oh, yes! we are convince' of that, biccause, you know--I'm

_sorrie_--we are prejudice' in its favor!"

Aline's lifted brows appealed to Chester. "Maybe hearing it," he

half-heartedly said, "may correct your aunts' judgment."

The aunt shook her head in a babe's despair. "No, we've tri' that." Her

smile was tearful. "Ah, _chérie_, you both muz' pardon. Laz' night we

was both so af-raid about that, an' of a so affegtionate curio-zitie,

that we was _compel_' to read that manuscrip' through! An' we are

convince'--though tha'z not ab-out clocks, neither angels, neither

lovers--yet same time tha'z a moz' marvellouz manuscrip'. Biccause, you

know, tha'z a true story, that 'Holy Crozz.' Tha'z concerning an

insurregtion of slave'--there in Santa Cruz. And 'a slave insurregtion,'

tha'z what they ought to call it, yes!--to prom-ote the sale. Already

laz' night Yvonne she say she's convince' that in those Northron citie',

where they are since lately _so fon_' of that subjec', there be people by

_dozen_'--will _devour_ that story!"

She tripped off to the house.

"Hector," said Aline, "you may sit down."

Cupid slid into the vacated seat. Chester dropped the document into his

pocket.

"For what?" the girl archly inquired.

"I want to take it to my quarters and judge it there. Why shouldn't I?"

"Yes, you may do that."

"And now tell me of your father, or his father--the one Beloiseau

knew--Théophile Chapdelaine."

"Both were Théophile. He knew them both."

"Then tell me of both."

"Mr. Chester, 'twould be to talk of myself!"

"I won't take it so. Tell the story purely as theirs. It must be fine.

They were set, in conscience, against the conscience of their day----"

"So is Mr. Chester."

"Never mind that, either. We're in a joint commercial enterprise; we

want a few good stories that will hang on one stem. Our business is

business; a primrose by the river's brim--nothing more! Although"--the

speaker reddened----

The girl blushed. "Mr. Chester, take away the 'although' and I'll tell

the story."

"I take it away. Although----"