“W’y can’t you get married at home?” This was not the first thing that occurred to him to say, but this was the first thing he said.
“Ah, b’en oui!12 with perfec’ mules fo’ a father an’ mother! it’s good enough to talk.”
“W’y couldn’ he come an’ get you? W’at kine of a scound’el is that to let you go through the woods at night by yo’se’f?”
“You betta wait till you know who you talkin’ about. He didn’ come an’ get me because he knows I ain’t ’fraid; an’ because he’s got too much pride to ride in Jules Trodon’s buckboard afta he done been put out o’Jules Trodon’s house.”
“W’at’s his name an’ w’ere you goin’ to fine ’im?”
“Yonda on the other side the woods up at ole Wat Gibson’s—a kine of justice of the peace or something. Anyhow he’s goin’ to marry us. An’ afta we done married those têtes-de-mulets13 yonda on bayou de Glaize can say w’at they want.”
“W’at’s his name?”
“André Pascal.”
The name meant nothing to Telèsphore. For all he knew, André Pascal might be one of the shining lights of Avoyelles; but he doubted it.
“You betta turn ’roun’,” he said. It was an unselfish impulse that prompted the suggestion. It was the thought of this girl married to a man whom even Jules Trodon would not suffer to enter his house.
“I done give my word,” she answered.
“W’at’s the matta with ’im? W’y don’t yo’ father and mother want you to marry ’im?”
“W’y? Because it’s always the same tune! W’en a man’s down eve’ybody’s got stones to throw at ’im. They say he’s lazy. A man that will walk from St. Landry plumb to Rapides lookin’ fo’ work; an’ they call that lazy! Then, somebody’s been spreadin’ yonda on the Bayou that he drinks. I don’ b’lieve it. I neva saw ’im drinkin’, me. Anyway, he won’t drink afta he’s married to me; he’s too fon’ of me fo’ that. He say he’ll blow out his brains if I don’ marry ’im.”
“I reckon you betta turn roun’.”
“No, I done give my word.” And they went creeping on through the woods in silence.
“W’at time is it?” she asked after an interval. He lit a match and looked at his watch.
“It’s quarta to one. W’at time did he say?”
“I tole ’im I’d come about one o’clock. I knew that was a good time to get away f’om the ball.”
She would have hurried a little but the pony could not be induced to do so. He dragged himself, seemingly ready at any moment to give up the breath of life. But once out of the woods he made up for lost time. They were on the open prairie again, and he fairly ripped the air; some flying demon must have changed skins with him.
It was a few minutes of one o’clock when they drew up before Wat Gibson’s house. It was not much more than a rude shelter, and in the dim starlight it seemed isolated, as if standing alone in the middle of the black, far-reaching prairie. As they halted at the gate a dog within set up a furious barking; and an old negro who had been smoking his pipe at that ghostly hour, advanced toward them from the shelter of the gallery. Telèsphore descended and helped his companion to alight.
“We want to see Mr. Gibson,” spoke up Zaïda. The old fellow had already opened the gate. There was no light in the house.
“Marse Gibson, he yonda to ole Mr. Bodel’s playin’ kairds. But he neva’ stay atter one o’clock. Come in, ma’am; come in, suh; walk right ’long in.” He had drawn his own conclusions to explain their appearance. They stood upon the narrow porch waiting while he went inside to light the lamp.
Although the house was small, as it comprised but one room, that room was comparatively a large one. It looked to Telèsphore and Zaïda very large and gloomy when they entered it. The lamp was on a table that stood against the wall, and that held further a rusty looking ink bottle, a pen and an old blank book. A narrow bed was off in the corner. The brick chimney extended into the room and formed a ledge that served as mantel shelf. From the big, low-hanging rafters swung an assortment of fishing tackle, a gun, some discarded articles of clothing and a string of red peppers. The boards of the floor were broad, rough and loosely joined together.
Telèsphore and Zaïda seated themselves on opposite sides of the table and the negro went out to the wood pile to gather chips and pieces of bois-gras14 with which to kindle a small fire.
It was a little chilly; he supposed the two would want coffee and he knew that Wat Gibson would ask for a cup the first thing on his arrival.
“I wonder w’at’s keepin’ ’im,” muttered Zaïda impatiently. Telèsphore looked at his watch. He had been looking at it at intervals of one minute straight along.
“It’s ten minutes pas’ one,” he said. He offered no further comment.
At twelve minutes past one Zaïda’s restlessness again broke into speech.
“I can’t imagine, me, w’at’s become of André! He said he’d be yere sho’ at one.” The old negro was kneeling before the fire that he had kindled, contemplating the cheerful blaze. He rolled his eyes toward Zaïda.
“You talkin’ ’bout Mr. André Pascal? No need to look fo’ him. Mr. André he b’en down to de P’int all day raisin’ Cain.”
“That’s a lie,” said Zaïda. Telèsphore said nothing.
“Tain’t no lie, ma’am; he b’en sho’ raisin’ de ole Nick.” She looked at him, too contemptuous to reply.
The negro told no lie so far as his bald statement was concerned. He was simply mistaken in his estimate of André Pascal’s ability to “raise Cain” during an entire afternoon and evening and still keep a rendezvous with a lady at one o’clock in the morning. For André was even then at hand, as the loud and menacing howl of the dog testified. The negro hastened out to admit him.
André did not enter at once; he stayed a while outside abusing the dog and communicating to the negro his intention of coming out to shoot the animal after he had attended to more pressing business that was awaiting him within.
Zaïda arose, a little flurried and excited when he entered. Telèsphore remained seated.
Pascal was partially sober. There had evidently been an attempt at dressing for the occasion at some early part of the previous day, but such evidences had almost wholly vanished. His linen was soiled and his whole appearance was that of a man who, by an effort, had aroused himself from a debauch. He was a little taller than Telèsphore, and more loosely put together. Most women would have called him a handsomer man. It was easy to imagine that when sober, he might betray by some subtle grace of speech or manner, evidences of gentle blood.
“W’y did you keep me waitin’, André? w’en you knew—” she got no further, but backed up against the table and stared at him with earnest, startled eyes.
“Keep you waiting, Zaïda? my dear li’le Zaïdé, how can you say such a thing! I started up yere an hour ago an’ that—w’ere’s that damned ole Gibson?” He had approached Zaïda with the evident intention of embracing her, but she seized his wrist and held him at arm’s length away. In casting his eyes about for old Gibson his glance alighted upon Telèsphore.
The sight of the ’Cadian seemed to fill him with astonishment. He stood back and began to contemplate the young fellow and lose himself in speculation and conjecture before him, as if before some unlabeled wax figure. He turned for information to Zaïda.
“Say, Zaïda, w’at you call this? W’at kine of damn fool you got sitting yere? Who let him in? W’at you reckon he’s lookin’ fo’? trouble?”
Telèsphore said nothing; he was awaiting his cue from Zaïda.
“André Pascal,” she said, “you jus’ as well take the do’ an’ go. You might stan’ yere till the day o’ judgment on yo’ knees befo’ me; an’ blow out yo’ brains if you a mine to. I ain’t neva goin’ to marry you.”
“The hell you ain’t!”
He had hardly more than uttered the words when he lay prone on his back. Telèsphore had knocked him down. The blow seeme
d to complete the process of sobering that had begun in him. He gathered himself together and rose to his feet; in doing so he reached back for his pistol. His hold was not yet steady, however, and the weapon slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor. Zaïda picked it up and laid it on the table behind her. She was going to see fair play.
The brute instinct that drives men at each other’s throat was awake and stirring in these two. Each saw in the other a thing to be wiped out of his way—out of existence if need be. Passion and blind rage directed the blows which they dealt, and steeled the tension of muscles and clutch of fingers. They were not skillful blows, however.
The fire blazed cheerily; the kettle which the negro had placed upon the coals was steaming and singing. The man had gone in search of his master. Zaïda had placed the lamp out of harm’s way on the high mantel ledge and she leaned back with her hands behind her upon the table.
She did not raise her voice or lift her finger to stay the combat that was acting before her. She was motionless, and white to the lips; only her eyes seemed to be alive and burning and blazing. At one moment she felt that André must have strangled Telèsphore; but she said nothing. The next instant she could hardly doubt that the blow from Telèsphore’s doubled fist could be less than a killing one; but she did nothing.
How the loose boards swayed and creaked beneth the weight of the struggling men! the very old rafters seemed to groan; and she felt that the house shook.
The combat, if fierce, was short, and it ended out on the gallery whither they had staggered through the open door—or one had dragged the other—she could not tell. But she knew when it was over, for there was a long moment of utter stillness. Then she heard one of the men descend the steps and go away, for the gate slammed after him. The other went out to the cistern; the sound of the tin bucket splashing in the water reached her where she stood. He must have been endeavoring to remove traces of the encounter.
Presently Telèsphore entered the room. The elegance of his apparel had been somewhat marred; the men over at the ’Cadian ball would hardly have taken exception now to his appearance.
“W’ere is André?” the girl asked.
“He’s gone,” said Telésphore.
She had never changed her position and now when she drew herself up her wrists ached and she rubbed them a little. She was no longer pale; the blood had come back into her cheeks and lips, staining them crimson. She held out her hand to him. He took it gratefully enough, but he did not know what to do with it; that is, he did not know what he might dare to do with it, so he let it drop gently away and went to the fire.
“I reckon we betta be goin’, too,” she said. He stooped and poured some of the bubbling water from the kettle upon the coffee which the negro had set upon the hearth.
“I’ll make a li’le coffee firs’,” he proposed, “an’ anyhow we betta wait till ole man w’at’s-his-name comes back. It wouldn’t look well to leave his house that way without some kine of excuse or explanation.”
She made no reply, but seated herself submissively beside the table.
Her will, which had been overmastering and aggressive, seemed to have grown numb under the disturbing spell of the past few hours. An illusion had gone from her, and had carried her love with it. The absence of regret revealed this to her. She realized, but could not comprehend it, not knowing that the love had been part of the illusion. She was tired in body and spirit, and it was with a sense of restfulness that she sat all drooping and relaxed and watched Telèsphore make the coffee.
He made enough for them both and a cup for old Wat Gibson when he should come in, and also one for the negro. He supposed the cups, the sugar and spoons were in the safe over there in the corner, and that is where he found them.
When he finally said to Zaïda, “Come, I’m going to take you home now,” and drew her shawl around her, pinning it under the chin, she was like a little child and followed whither he led in all confidence.
It was Telèsphore who drove on the way back, and he let the pony cut no capers, but held him to a steady and tempered gait. The girl was still quiet and silent; she was thinking tenderly—a little tearfully of those two old têtes-de-mulets yonder on Bayou de Glaize.
How they crept through the woods! and how dark it was and how still!
“W’at time it is?” whispered Zaïda. Alas! he could not tell her; his watch was broken. But almost for the first time in his life, Telèsphore did not care what time it was.
Athénaïse
I
ATHÉNAÏSE went away in the morning to make a visit to her parents, ten miles back on rigolet de Bon Dieu.1 She did not return in the evening, and Cazeau, her husband, fretted not a little. He did not worry much about Athénaïse, who, he suspected, was resting only too content in the bosom of her family; his chief solicitude was manifestly for the pony she had ridden. He felt sure those “lazy pigs,” her brothers, were capable of neglecting it seriously. This misgiving Cazeau communicated to his servant, old Félicité, who waited upon him at supper.
His voice was low pitched, and even softer than Félicité’s. He was tall, sinewy, swarthy, and altogether severe looking. His thick black hair waved, and it gleamed like the breast of a crow. The sweep of his mustache, which was not so black, outlined the broad contour of the mouth. Beneath the under lip grew a small tuft which he was much given to twisting, and which he permitted to grow, apparently for no other purpose. Cazeau’s eyes were dark blue, narrow and overshadowed. His hands were coarse and stiff from close acquaintance with farming tools and implements, and he handled his fork and knife clumsily. But he was distinguished looking, and succeeded in commanding a good deal of respect, and even fear sometimes.
He ate his supper alone, by the light of a single coal-oil lamp that but faintly illuminated the big room, with its bare floor and huge rafters, and its heavy pieces of furniture that loomed dimly in the gloom of the apartment. Félicité, ministering to his wants, hovered about the table like a little, bent, restless shadow.
She served him with a dish of sunfish fried crisp and brown. There was nothing else set before him beside the bread and butter and the bottle of red wine which she locked carefully in the buffet after he had poured his second glass. She was occupied with her mistress’s absence, and kept reverting to it after he had expressed his solicitude about the pony.
“Dat beat me! on’y marry two mont’, an’ got de head turn’ a’ready to go ’broad. C’est pas Chrétien, tenez!”2
Cazeau shrugged his shoulders for answer, after he had drained his glass and pushed aside his plate. Félicité’s opinion of the unchristianlike behavior of his wife in leaving him thus alone after two months of marriage weighed little with him. He was used to solitude, and did not mind a day or a night or two of it. He had lived alone ten years, since his first wife died, and Félicité might have known better than to suppose that he cared. He told her she was a fool. It sounded like a compliment in his modulated, caressing voice. She grumbled to herself as she set about clearing the table, and Cazeau arose and walked outside on the gallery; his spur, which he had not removed upon entering the house, jangled at every step.
The night was beginning to deepen, and to gather black about the clusters of trees and shrubs that were grouped in the yard. In the beam of light from the open kitchen door a black boy stood feeding a brace of snarling, hungry dogs; further away, on the steps of a cabin, some one was playing the accordion; and in still another direction a little negro baby was crying lustily. Cazeau walked around to the front of the house, which was square, squat and one-story.
A belated wagon was driving in at the gate, and the impatient driver was swearing hoarsely at his jaded oxen. Félicité stepped out on the gallery, glass and polishing towel in hand, to investigate, and to wonder, too, who could be singing out on the river. It was a party of young people paddling around, waiting for the moon to rise, and they were singing Juanita,3 their voices coming tempered and melodious through the distance and the night.
&n
bsp; Cazeau’s horse was waiting, saddled, ready to be mounted, for Cazeau had many things to attend to before bed-time; so many things that there was not left to him a moment in which to think of Athénaïse. He felt her absence, though, like a dull, insistent pain.
However, before he slept that night he was visited by the thought of her, and by a vision of her fair young face with its drooping lips and sullen and averted eyes. The marriage had been a blunder; he had only to look into her eyes to feel that, to discover her growing aversion. But it was a thing not by any possibility to be undone. He was quite prepared to make the best of it, and expected no less than a like effort on her part. The less she revisited the rigolet, the better. He would find means to keep her at home hereafter.
These unpleasant reflections kept Cazeau awake far into the night, notwithstanding the craving of his whole body for rest and sleep. The moon was shining, and its pale effulgence reached dimly into the room, and with it a touch of the cool breath of the spring night. There was an unusual stillness abroad; no sound to be heard save the distant, tireless, plaintive notes of the accordion.
II
Athénaïse did not return the following day, even though her husband sent her word to do so by her brother, Montéclin, who passed on his way to the village early in the morning.
On the third day Cazeau saddled his horse and went himself in search of her. She had sent no word, no message, explaining her absence, and he felt that he had good cause to be offended. It was rather awkward to have to leave his work, even though late in the afternoon,—Cazeau had always so much to do; but among the many urgent calls upon him, the task of bringing his wife back to a sense of her duty seemed to him for the moment paramount.
The Michés, Athénaïse’s parents, lived on the old Gotrain place. It did not belong to them; they were “running” it for a merchant in Alexandria. The house was far too big for their use. One of the lower rooms served for the storing of wood and tools; the person “occupying” the place before Miché having pulled up the flooring in despair of being able to patch it. Upstairs, the rooms were so large, so bare, that they offered a constant temptation to lovers of the dance, whose importunities Madame Miché was accustomed to meet with amiable indulgence. A dance at Miché’s and a plate of Madame Miché’s gumbo filé at midnight were pleasures not to be neglected or despised, unless by such serious souls as Cazeau.