Bonaventure Part 31

As the sun was rising, one of the timber-cutters from the steamer stood up in his canoe about half a mile away, near the wood and beside some willows, and halloed and beckoned. And when those on the steamer hearkened he called again, bidding them tell "de boss" that he had found a canoe adrift, an anch.o.r.ed boat, and a white man in her, dead.

Tarbox and St. Pierre came in a skiff.

"Is he drowned?" asked Mr. Tarbox, while still some distance off.

"Been struck by lightnin' sim like," replied the negro who had found the body.--"Watch out, Mistoo Tah-bawx!" he added, as the skiff drew near; "dat boat dess lousy wid snake'!"

Tarbox stood up in the skiff and looked sadly upon the dead face.

"It's our man," he said to St. Pierre.

"Da.s.s what I say!" exclaimed the negro. "Yes, seh, so soon I see him I say, mos' sholy da.s.s de same man what Mistoo Tah-bawx lookin' faw to show him 'roun' 'bout de swamp! Yes, seh, not-instandin' I never see him befo'! No, seh.--Lawd! look yondeh! look dat big bahsta'd hawn-snake! He kyant git away: he's hu't! Lawd! da.s.s what kill dat man! Dat man trawmp on him in de dark, and he strack him wid his hawny tail! Look at dem fo' li'l' spot' on de man' foot! Now, Mistoo Tah-bawx! You been talk' 'bout dem ah bahsta'd hawn-snake not pizen!

Well, mos' sholy dey _bite_ ain't pizen; but if dat hawn on de een of his tail dess on'y tetch you, you' gone! Look at dat man! Kill' him so quick dey wa'n't time for de place to swell whah he was. .h.i.t!" But Tarbox quietly pointed out to St. Pierre that the tiny wounds were made by the reptile's teeth.

"The coroner's verdict will probably be 'privation and exposure,'"

said he softly; "but it ought to be, 'killed by fright and the bite of a harmless snake.'"

On his murmured suggestion, St. Pierre gave orders that, with one exception, every woodsman go to his tree-felling, and that the lugger and canoe, with the dead man lying untouched, be towed by skiff and a single pair of oars to the head of the ca.n.a.l for inquest and burial.

"I'll go with him," said Tarbox softly to St. Pierre. "We owe him all we're going to get out of these woods, and I owe him a great deal more." When a little later he was left for a moment without a hearer, he said to the prostrate form, "Poor fellow! And to think I had her message to you to come out of this swamp and begin to live the life of a live man!"

The rude funeral moved away, and soon the woods were ringing with the blow of axes and the shout and song of black timber-men as gayly as though there never had been or was to be a storm or a death.

CHAPTER XIX.

"TEARS AND SUCH THINGS."

Marguerite and her friend had no sooner taken their seats to drive home from the studio the day the sketch was made than Marguerite began a perfect prattle. Her eyes still shone exaltedly, and leaped and fell and darkened and brightened with more than the swift variety of a fountain in the moonlight, while she kept trying in vain to meet her companion's looks with a moment's steady regard.

Claude was found! and she trembled with delight. But, alas! he had heard her pa.s.sionate call and yet stood still; had looked down upon her in silence, and drawn again the curtain between them. She had thought until the last moment, "He will come; he will confront us as we pa.s.s out the door--will overtake us at the foot of the stairs--on the sidewalk--at the carriage window." But it had not been so; and now they were gone from the place; and here sat this friend, this gay, cynical knower of men's and women's ways, answering her chatter in short, smiling responses, with a steady eye fixed on her, and reading, Marguerite believed, as plainly as if it were any of the sign-boards along the rattling street, the writing on her fluttering heart. And so, even while she trembled with strange delight, pain, shame, and alarm pleaded through her dancing glances, now by turns and now in confusion together, for mercy and concealment. But in fact, as this friend sat glancing upon the young face beside her with secret sympathy and admiration, it was only this wild fear of betrayal that at length betrayed.

Reaching the house, the street door was hardly shut behind them when Marguerite would have darted up to her chamber; but her friend caught her hands across the bal.u.s.trade, and said, with roguery in her own eyes:

"Marguerite, you sweet rowdy--"

"W'at?"

"Yes, _what_. There's something up; what is it?"

The girl tried to put on surprise; but her eyes failed her again. She leaned on the rail and looked down, meanwhile trying softly to draw away up-stairs; but her friend held on to one hand and murmured:

"Just one question, dearie, just one. I'll not ask another: I'll die first. You'll probably find me _in articulo mortis_ when you come down-stairs. Just one question, lovie."

"_W'at_ it is?"

"It's nothing but this; I ask for information." The voice dropped to a whisper,--"Is he as handsome as his portrait?"

The victim rallied all her poor powers of face, and turned feebly upon the questioner:

"Po'trait? Who?" Her voice was low, and she glanced furtively at the nearest door. "I dawn't awnstan you." Her hand pulled softly for its freedom, and she turned to go, repeating, with averted face, "I dawn't awnstan you 't all."

"Well, never mind then, dear, if you don't understand," responded the tease, with mock tenderness. "But, _ma belle Creole_--"

"_Je suis Acadienne._"

"You're an angel, faintly disguised. Only--look around here--only, Angelica, don't try to practise woman's humbug on a woman. At least, not on this old one. It doesn't work. I'll tell you whom I mean." She pulled, but Marguerite held off. "I mean," she hoa.r.s.ely whispered,--"I mean the young inventor that engineer told us about. Remember?"

Marguerite, with her head bowed low, slowly dragged her hand free, and moved with growing speed up the stairs, saying:

"I dawn't know what is dat. I dawn't awnstan you 't all." Her last words trembled as if nigh to tears. At the top of the stairs the searching murmur of her friend's voice came up, and she turned and looked back.

"Forgive me!" said the figure below. The girl stood a moment, sending down a re-a.s.suring smile.

"You young rogue!" murmured the lady, looking up with ravished eyes.

Then she lifted herself on tiptoe, made a trumpet of both little hands, and whispered:

"Don't--worry! We'll bring it out--all right!"

Whereat Marguerite blushed from temple to throat, and vanished.

The same day word came from her mother of her return from Terrebonne, and she hastened to rejoin her in their snug rooms over the Women's Exchange. When she s.n.a.t.c.hed Zosephine into her arms and shed tears, the mother merely wiped and kissed them away, and asked no explanation.

The two were soon apart. For Marguerite hungered unceasingly for solitude. Only in solitude could she, or dared she, give herself up to the constant recapitulation of every minutest incident of the morning.

And that was ample employment. They seemed the happenings of a month ago. She felt as if it were imperative to fix them in her memory now, or lose them in confusion and oblivion forever. Over them all again and again she went, sometimes quickening memory with half-spoken words, sometimes halting in long reverie at some intense juncture: now with tingling pleasure at the unveiling of the portrait, the painter's cautionary revelation of the personal presence above, or Claude's appearance at the window; now with burnings of self-abas.e.m.e.nt at the pa.s.sionate but ineffectual beseechings of her violin; and always ending with her face in her hands, as though to hide her face even from herself for shame that with all her calling--her barefaced, as it seemed to her, her abject calling--he had not come.

"Marguerite, my child, it is time for bed."

She obeyed. It was all one, the bed or the window. Her mother, weary with travel, fell asleep; but she--she heard the clock down-stairs strike, and a clock next door attest, twelve--one--two--three--four, and another day began to s.h.i.+ne in at the window. As it brightened, her spirits rose. She had been lying long in reverie; now she began once more the oft-repeated rehearsal. But the new day shone into it also.

When the silent recital again reached its end, the old distress was no longer there, but in its place was a new, sweet shame near of kin to joy. The face, unhidden, looked straight into the growing light.

Whatever else had happened, this remained,--that Claude was found. She silently formed the name on her parted lips--"Claude! Claude! Claude!

Claude!" and could not stop though it gave her pain, the pain was so sweet. She ceased only when there rose before her again the picture of him drawing the curtain and disappearing; but even then she remembered the words, "Don't worry; we'll bring it out all right," and smiled.

When Zosephine, as the first sunbeam struck the window-pane, turned upon her elbow and looked into the fair face beside her, the eyes were closed in sleep. She arose, darkened the room, and left it.

CHAPTER XX.

LOVE, ANGER, AND MISUNDERSTANDING.

The city bells had sounded for noon when the sleeper opened her eyes.

While she slept, Claude had arrived again at his father's cottage from the scene of the creva.s.se, and reported to Tarbox the decision of himself and the engineer, that the gap would not be closed for months to come. While he told it, they sat down with St. Pierre to breakfast.

Claude, who had had no chance even to seek sleep, ate like a starved horse. Tarbox watched him closely, with hidden and growing amus.e.m.e.nt.