Long Distance Life Part 26

"That little girl," Monsieur Philippe said, looking warily up and down the narrow street. He stepped back into the gate. "What was she doing in your room this morning, would you tell me, please?"

His blue eyes, shot with red from the night's drinking, were strikingly cold. He had seldom taken such a tone with Marcel and Marcel felt a curious humiliation.

"Monsieur, she and I are like brother and sister, we played together when we were children, why, she lives just up the street..."

"I know where she lives," said Monsieur Philippe, his voice flat, and somehow filled with meaning. "You're spoilt," he said, his lips moving in a loose smile. It was a smile of the mouth only. "That's your trouble, spoilt from the day you were born. Have you ever wanted for anything?" he asked with a haughty lift of his head.

"No, Monsieur," Marcel muttered.

"You're just a boy, you don't know anything about this world, do you?" And doubling his large white hand into a fist, he tapped Marcel's shoulder playfully. Marcel felt a peculiar chill. "That little girl's too old for you now, she's a young woman!" he said. "Now I don't want to hear of her being back there again."

The carriage had appeared at the corner, turning from the Rue Burgundy into the Rue Ste. Anne. It stopped before the boardinghouse four doors away.

"No, Monsieur, never again," Marcel murmured mechanically.

A slender young man with jet black hair came down the boardinghouse steps, bounding easily to the granite carriage block over the water that still ran in the street.

So they're going back to Bontemps Bontemps together, or to their family in the St. Louis Hotel. And they've conferred in this little matter of Anna Bella, Monsieur Philippe had known of it when he saw her in the yard. An unpleasant shock went through Marcel. He did not immediately understand why he was so astonished when the carriage lumbered to the gate, or why his lips drew back in an irresistibly bitter smile. Felix had jumped down to open the door. Marcel looked away. together, or to their family in the St. Louis Hotel. And they've conferred in this little matter of Anna Bella, Monsieur Philippe had known of it when he saw her in the yard. An unpleasant shock went through Marcel. He did not immediately understand why he was so astonished when the carriage lumbered to the gate, or why his lips drew back in an irresistibly bitter smile. Felix had jumped down to open the door. Marcel looked away.

"You remember what I said to you," Monsieur Philippe said with a warning finger. "You study your lessons, and be good to your mother. And don't forget Lisette's birthday this week, that girl will be twenty-three if you can believe it, buy her something nice." He fetched that money clip for the third time. Marcel stuffed the bills into his pocket murmuring that he would take care of it, of course.

"And you watch out for your sister!" Monsieur Philippe said lastly. "You see she doesn't go out without Lisette or Zazu, or you go with her yourself." Sister, sister, the word emerged with clarity in the swirl of Marcel's thoughts. His wife's brother, that was who this Dazincourt was, the brother of Philippe's white wife. And he brings the man here to the gate of his mistress's house. Marcel regarded him as if Monsieur Philippe were not still murmuring some vague admonition, as if he were not squeezing Marcel's arm a little too hard as he mounted the carriage step.

It disgusted him suddenly, these two fine gentlemen, this brother, who must surely sit at his sister's table to eat her food, to drink her wine, and here he comes to town with her unfaithful husband and takes a mistress only a few doors from his brother-in-law's mistress. The door of the carriage had shut. The whip cracked, and the great wheels ground into the deep ruts as it moved slowly forward and gaining speed with the trotting hooves pa.s.sed from his sight.

Oh, what did he care about these white people, their entanglements, their lies? Didn't he know that they had shaped his very world with their domestic treachery, built the cottage in which he lived, hung the very pictures on the walls? Yet he stood still at the gate, gazing toward Madame Elsie's boardinghouse, Anna Bella's words running like a thread through his mind. "He's a gentleman just like your father, a fine gentleman just like your father." Gentleman, indeed. Would he kiss his sister when he saw her next, having just pa.s.sed the gate where he had seen her husband's b.a.s.t.a.r.d child? Mistress, b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he abhorred these words, what had they to do with him? I love you, Anna Bella love you, Anna Bella.

Go inside, put on your Sunday best, the table will be prepared for dinner, white lace, silver, Tante Louisa will be along shortly with pastries for dessert. Look at that gilt-framed picture of Sans Souci Sans Souci in the country, white columns, he ought to write Tante Josette a letter, they would all be talking about the opera, he had one hundred dollars in his pocket for the theater, so he'd ruined his new suit, there were half a dozen frock coats in his armoire and s.h.i.+rts with collars stiff as a board. in the country, white columns, he ought to write Tante Josette a letter, they would all be talking about the opera, he had one hundred dollars in his pocket for the theater, so he'd ruined his new suit, there were half a dozen frock coats in his armoire and s.h.i.+rts with collars stiff as a board. I love you, Anna Bella I love you, Anna Bella. "He's a fine gentleman just like your father," that's the point! Don't do it Don't do it.

He saw those hawk eyes peering through the shadows of Christophe's hallway, that white skin, the hand clutching the silver walking stick..."that a man of color cannot defend himself upon the field of honor...that a man of color cannot defend himself against a white man at all." I love you, Anna Bella, don't!

Down the Rue Ste. Anne came a cl.u.s.ter of gens de couleur gens de couleur wandering home from twelve o'clock Ma.s.s, pink and blue dresses lifted carefully over the mud, black frock coats, umbrellas picking at the wet brick banquette like walking sticks. wandering home from twelve o'clock Ma.s.s, pink and blue dresses lifted carefully over the mud, black frock coats, umbrellas picking at the wet brick banquette like walking sticks. "Bonjour "Bonjour, Marcel, and how is your Maman?" Don't, Anna Bella, don't Don't, Anna Bella, don't. He stood nodding, arms folded, as if in a dream. Bonjour Bonjour, Madame, Bonjour Bonjour, Monsieur! I won't ever see you again, will I? Not like this I won't ever see you again, will I? Not like this. Sunday dinner, white linen, red wine.

He turned suddenly, leaving the cottage yard behind him and walked steadily toward the Rue Dauphine.

He wasn't thinking anymore. It did not matter if Christophe cursed him, or what he would have to sweat on his knees. He found the latch of the gate broken just as he had left it the night before. The side door was open still where he had broken the lock, too. But he turned just before he entered. He looked down the narrow alley with its ivy spilling over the brick wall. Above hung those slatted blinds bolted over the windows as they had always been, and as he had seen them the first time he had ever pa.s.sed into this yard. And the tall banana trees, wet and flapping in the chill breeze, still hid all of the world outside except for the gray sky. The slime had been washed from the tiny window in the gate, and he could see only a blur of color there of the street beyond. Only he was not frightened this time as he had been on that first afternoon. He felt nothing of that instinctual wariness. Rather, turning to the door, he could not wait to push it back and enter the long hall.

It seemed they both saw him as soon as he appeared in the reading room door. Christophe at the round table ate his breakfast, the folded newspaper in his hand. And Juliet, her shawl drawn over her shoulders, huddled in the great wing chair by the fire. Coffee steamed on the fender. The air was warm here. Frost covered the panes.

"Cher!" she said. "Come in." she said. "Come in."

Christophe lifted his cup, eyes fixed on Marcel.

"Cher!" she said again with that same vague amazement. "Sit down." She came round to him as he settled at the table, she lifted his face, inspecting the cut on his chin. "Not so bad," she whispered, "why, it's hardly there at all." she said again with that same vague amazement. "Sit down." She came round to him as he settled at the table, she lifted his face, inspecting the cut on his chin. "Not so bad," she whispered, "why, it's hardly there at all."

"Did you read the reviews of the opera?" Christophe asked in a low voice.

She had set a cup before Marcel and was filling it with coffee and cream. "Here, cher," cher," she said. she said.

"What did I tell you, the baritone stole the show." Christophe said. "Get him something to eat." She lifted a piece of cake from the plate with a knife.

"You ought to read it," Christophe sighed, laying the paper aside. He sat musing. His brown eyes appeared tired. He pushed his cup forward and his mother filled it. Then she moved slowly back to the fire. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, the light glinting on her face, and she wore that same peac.o.c.k shawl threaded with silver that she had worn on the day Marcel first met her in the street.

"Go on," Christophe said softly, "have a little coffee, you look as if you're still asleep."

Marcel parted his lips. He wanted to say something. But suddenly there were no words. He started to speak, but it was as if his voice had left him, words had left him, he could only sit there, staring forward, his lips working silently, and then, his brows knit, he was still.

Christophe rose, stretching, and said that he would go out.

"But it's raining again," Juliet said.

"Hmmm, it's always raining," Christophe answered, b.u.t.toning his coat. He looked down at Marcel.

"You stay here with my mother," he said in a low voice. "Keep her company for a while. I don't know when I'll be back. And I haven't fixed those locks yet. I don't like to leave her alone."

Their eyes met as Christophe took his wool scarf from the back of the chair. He put his hand on Marcel's shoulder, "Just keep her company for a little while."

Marcel looked at Juliet as Christophe left the room. He could hear Christophe's step in the hallway, and then the closing of the front door.

"Come on upstairs with me, cher," cher," she breathed as she came toward him. "We'll build a little fire in my room and make it warm." she breathed as she came toward him. "We'll build a little fire in my room and make it warm."

VOLUME.

TWO

PART ONE.

I.

MONSIEUR P PHILIPPE F FERRONAIRE had reached his full five feet eleven inches by eighteen years, a majestic height in those times for which he was very much admired, along with his golden hair and blue eyes, these traits being not at all common among the white Creole aristocracy, rife with French ancestors, who were his people and his friends along the prospering river coast. had reached his full five feet eleven inches by eighteen years, a majestic height in those times for which he was very much admired, along with his golden hair and blue eyes, these traits being not at all common among the white Creole aristocracy, rife with French ancestors, who were his people and his friends along the prospering river coast.

His was the world of the Creole sugar plantation, come into its own at the turn of the century, with its rambling raised cottage of white columnettes and broad verandas over which the roses twined and the river breezes blew. Seated on these deep porches on summer evenings, one could watch the boats beyond the levee on the high water of the river, moving as if they floated against the sky. Being the youngest of four brothers he was the baby there, and evinced from childhood that mixture of sparkle and easy charm which endears itself at once to adults, so that he grew up on the laps of doting aunts who pushed cake on him at table and sent for a portrait painter from New Orleans to fix him forever in a gilt frame on the wall.

He rode his pony on rampages through the oaks, flushed the ducks from the marshes with the crack of his gun, and dancing at his brothers' weddings, drew squeals from his little nieces with the golden coins he plucked magically from their curls.

Months pa.s.sed in the languid rural summers of his twenties when disdaining to make the Grand Tour, he seldom rose before noon in the lonely luxury of the garconniere garconniere, lingered at table with his white wine and tobacco, and at last rode off to race friends along the spine of the levee or call upon the local belles. He was good to his mother in her old age, liking to stroll with her through the orange trees, and evenings found him spruced to go to town.

Of course there was the Mardi Gras, plays at the Theatre St. Philippe, billiards at which he proved to be excellent to a degree, and finally his perennial luck at cards. He had missed the war of 1814, obliged as he was to take the women out of the battlefields, but he fought a duel when he was twenty-one and seeing his opponent die instantly in the damp morning mist beneath the Metairie Oaks was overcome with horror for this senseless act. It had not seemed real to him before. After that he still played with the rapier, loving to advance with perfect form and rapid steps across the polished floor, but this he confined to Sat.u.r.days in fas.h.i.+onable upstairs city salons.

At twilight, pleasantly exhausted so that the muscles of his long legs tingled, he would wander back to the flat of his city cousins, singing aloud the saccharine airs of the Italian opera, and grooming for an hour or two, sup late, and then appear at the "quadroon b.a.l.l.s."

He loved the sang-melees sang-melees with whom he danced, certain that any one of them would have been his mistress, but being young yet, and free, and loath finally to tie himself in any alliance, he settled for listening with a smile to the gossip of his glamorously fettered friends. He liked his life, might visit for months on the plantations upriver, loving the luxury of long days on the steamboats, and at home was the pampered darling of his brothers' wives. with whom he danced, certain that any one of them would have been his mistress, but being young yet, and free, and loath finally to tie himself in any alliance, he settled for listening with a smile to the gossip of his glamorously fettered friends. He liked his life, might visit for months on the plantations upriver, loving the luxury of long days on the steamboats, and at home was the pampered darling of his brothers' wives.

After all, he had time to be courtly, made amusing stories, and sometimes in the dim light of some waning party found himself falling in love with a cousin who was about to be married so that he sighed sadly to the night air.

But what were his prospects, actually, asked the mothers of the girls with whom he danced the cotillions, though he had made such a handsome figure in the saddle riding to the front door. Of course he was graceful on the dance floor, played with the little ones, and always on hand to please the fathers, could while away the night with brandy, dominoes, cards. But Ferronaire was a struggling plantation, grown up with the industry, suffering with its experiments, and desperate at times still for capital, then swimming in the profits of a flush season which must sustain it through more mercurial times.

It was his brothers who had built the noisy mill with its belching chimneys and it was they who brooded over the bubbling vats. They led the blacks at dawn through the icy fields to slash the ripening cane before the coming of the frost. He did not care for these things, Philippe, grew bored around the plantation office, and only once in a while, lounging rather arrogantly in his saddle, with gleaming spurs, did he ride out with a friend or two through the fields.

Of course he had his share of these arpents, but what was that, and each of his brothers now with a wife, and children running through the garden and those airy immense rooms?

But Philippe's name was as old as Louisiana, a commodity that was priceless to the ancient families, and he spent his life in the parlors, on the veranda, sipping eau de sucre eau de sucre as he bided his time. And kissed the ladies' hands. as he bided his time. And kissed the ladies' hands.

Then one evening in New Orleans, meeting his older and very distant cousin Magloire Dazincourt among the quadroons of the ball-room, he perceived in an instant the poverty of this bachelor existence. It had wearied him in the extreme. For here was his cousin at sixty, master of twenty thousand arpents, and though a widower, had the consolation of one small son and four marriageable girls. La famille La famille was all, really. was all, really.

And by summer, Philippe had married Aglae, the eldest and Magloire's favorite, journeying upriver to the endless cane fields of his father-in-law's plantation, Bontemps Bontemps. Its wealth astonished him. Five hundred attended the wedding, dining on plate.

But before that happy event united two remote branches of the family, Magloire had become fast friends with his future son-in-law and entrusted to him (it was a simple matter for a bachelor who lived so much in town) a certain series of duties with regard to a beautiful little mulatto woman whom he kept in a flat in the Rue Rampart. He was building a house for her in the Rue Ste. Anne.

Kitchen and garconniere garconniere having survived an old Spanish dwelling recently destroyed by fire, he had got the land cheap and was building a cottage in front, a comfortable but modest establishment to have four princ.i.p.al rooms. But all was to be done as having survived an old Spanish dwelling recently destroyed by fire, he had got the land cheap and was building a cottage in front, a comfortable but modest establishment to have four princ.i.p.al rooms. But all was to be done as Ti Ti Cecile wanted it, his dark beauty, it was her future home. Could Philippe supervise these proceedings, that is, ride in at the first of each week to show these men the master was near at hand? He would appreciate it all the more, however, if on those days Philippe could bring himself to look in on the poor little woman herself, as she was all alone in the flat, and having lost two babies in the past, was again expecting a child. Cecile wanted it, his dark beauty, it was her future home. Could Philippe supervise these proceedings, that is, ride in at the first of each week to show these men the master was near at hand? He would appreciate it all the more, however, if on those days Philippe could bring himself to look in on the poor little woman herself, as she was all alone in the flat, and having lost two babies in the past, was again expecting a child.

Philippe smiled. And his respect for his father-in-law mounted. After all, the man was past sixty and worn out, and now in the midstream of such a romance. He had long suspected his own father had known such pleasures when he was young, and his brothers as well. But these were early escapades, and were supposedly stopped at the inevitable marriage, youth being the time for these luxurious alliances of the demi-monde. But whatever the man wanted, he was a widower after all. So one day in 1824, Philippe rode up the Rue Rampart and lifted the bra.s.s knocker of this woman's door.

That afternoon in the parlor left him with a lasting and somewhat seductive impression. Of course he had known the lovely quadroons, women so white no real trace of the African remained, and others darker but as charming with their heavily lashed eyes and mellow caramel skin reminding him of the pictures he had seen of Hindu women in books. There was about them an aura of the exotic and wild; and whirling with them over the polished floorboards, his hand lightly caressing this small waist or that rounded arm, he had dreamed of some savage pleasure he had never known. Pity they were so closely guarded, one had to "set them up" to have them, it was the custom, placage placage. Promises, rituals, and long-term means. Yet others, pale and stunning in their lofty refinement, struck him as white to the soul; they were all too much like the good women who surrounded him at home, he reasoned. Who would want such a mistress? One could see them shuddering on the pillow as they reached to make the Sign of the Cross.

But here in this long somewhat sumptuous flat maintained by his future father-in-law and cousin, Philippe encountered a piquant combination unexamined before. It was to enter his dreams. For though this woman was fragile and diminutive as a porcelain doll, and done up in the primmest fas.h.i.+on, she was dark, very dark, with skin the color of stained walnut such as one sees in the full-blooded Africans in the fields. It intrigued him, the fineness of her features, her small mouth with its lower lip trembling slightly as she approached him with all the shyness of a child. She was a pet.i.te white woman carved in dark stone. And he found himself drawn by this darkness, this glinting brown skin, and stifled the near-maddening desire to feel the backs of her hands for their texture, that silkiness perhaps that he had loved in all the black nurses of his youth.

Her eyes were wild with fear like those of some small animal captured in the wood; yet she was older, past twenty to be certain, and did not possess that irritating and dangerous flirtatiousness of ignorant young girls.

She spoke good French, would not sit in his presence until he insisted on it, and smiled now and again with an alluring spontaneity as he endeavored to put her at ease. Her tiny fingers played sometimes with a brooch at her throat; he had never seen such small hands. It would be a pleasure looking after her, and touched by what seemed her near reverence for him, he took his leave reluctantly for the long ride home. Winding his way in the slanting sun, he smiled, thinking his future father-in-law even more the man than he had known him to be before. Cecile, it was a lovely name, Cecile.

But Magloire was ailing by the time of the nuptials and knew it; and eager to acquaint his son-in-law with every detail of his vast plantation, he rode too long, stayed up too late, and at last went to bed with the first winter chill. His little boy Vincent he entrusted to Philippe and Aglae to rear as if he were their own son, and before New Year's, he was carried to the parish cemetery after a well-attended Requiem Ma.s.s. Philippe sitting alone that evening on the broad veranda saw in all directions nothing but land which belonged now to him.

He worked hard in these first few months. It was not only the newness of it, the power of ordering so many people about, but he was afraid. Nothing had prepared him for the immensities of responsibility all around. His brothers came when they could, he set his mind on nothing but management and riding the fields all day, ended with ledgers at midnight, almost blind.

And it was time to cut the cane lest the frost come early and destroy it, the vast team of slaves galvanized and ready for the heaviest labor, cords of wood gathered from the mud beaches of the river and the back swampland to stock the roaring furnaces of the grinding house, the wind already sweeping the galleries with icy draughts.

His back ached, it seemed he lived in the saddle, his feet tingling when they at last touched the ground.

But he was resentful of all that fell on his shoulders. It seemed to him time and again that someone else ought to be doing all this, why should he? But under close examination, this made no sense finally. He was wealthy, master of twenty thousand arpents, the scepter was in his hand. But when was there time to enjoy the pleasures of this palatial home he had acquired, dwarfing as it did the old Creole style house in which he'd been born? Here were Grecian columns so wide he couldn't span them with his arms, the grace of spiral stairways, and all about, the sun striking prisms in the baubles of crystal chandeliers. He would have liked to take his ease as in the old days, becoming familiar at leisure with these fine things.

But his brothers drove him worse than he might ever have driven himself, the overseer was at his shoulder constantly, and he was visibly irritated at last with those around him and under him, becoming something of a gruff bully with his slaves. It was fear that lay behind this, naturally. He would rather be loved by them all. But doling out whippings which he himself would not watch, becoming imperious with his cook and his footman, he nevertheless at times lapsed into familiarity with everyone still hoping to be served and liked at the same time.

Yet by the end of the harvest he had learned the plantation. Her yield was enviable, fantastic. Consulting old diaries on the minutest problems, and the changing of the weather in past years, he buried the cane for the coming season, built up the levees, repaired the irrigation ca.n.a.ls. A great ball was given just before Advent, with carriages crowding the broad drive beneath the oaks. And Aglae was expecting a child.

Aglae.

Had he been a man of reflection he might have wondered afterward, could he not have seen her character in those first meetings, could he not have been wiser, could he not have opened his eyes?

What marvelous luck it had seemed that she was so pretty, this wealthy cousin, and that she ran her father's house with a firm hand. He liked the dishes she ordered in those early days especially for his pleasure, and at night sinking down into the ma.s.sive mattresses of her immense and ornate bed, he found her pliant like a child.

But she was more than level-headed and submissive, this dark-eyed girl who sat across from him at table, listening impa.s.sively to his rambling conversations, or boasts of overwork to his brothers, without so much as a nod of her head. There was something flinty and cold about her small mouth, her drawn cheeks, something calculating and mocking about those steady eyes. Twice she caught him in obvious exaggerations with a few frigid well-chosen words.

He would have liked her to laugh at his witticisms, think him splendid in his new riding coats, and cater to his exhaustion when at last he collapsed each night at her side. It was wise to be firm with her, he decided finally, find details where her domestic management was lacking as he had often seen his brothers do at home with their wives. He must make it clear to this remote girl he was not so easily pleased as she supposed.

But all this brought from her was an icy incredulity, and a near-venomous smile. Her mother had died when she was twelve. When she walked up the aisle in bridal white, she had been mistress of Bontemps Bontemps for five years. And realizing the stupidity of much of what he'd said, Philippe was pink with frustration to the roots of his hair. He sat sullenly at the breakfast table in his vast bedroom wis.h.i.+ng he were home again in his mother's house. for five years. And realizing the stupidity of much of what he'd said, Philippe was pink with frustration to the roots of his hair. He sat sullenly at the breakfast table in his vast bedroom wis.h.i.+ng he were home again in his mother's house.

Aglae's voice was monotone and low as she retaliated soon enough, reporting that the slaves complained of his contradictions, she would not allow her kitchen staff to be beaten, the overseer, old Langlois, were he not placated at once, might leave when he was in fact indispensable, having been at Bontemps Bontemps since before she was born. since before she was born.

This was spoilt behavior, unforgivably arrogant, Philippe declared. Was he not aching in every muscle? He would not tolerate such talk from his wife a moment longer. She merely laughed as she walked out the door.

But she left him in painful confusion. He was injured and awkward in her presence and despised her for it from then on. She seemed forever in the background when he greeted family and friends, measuring him in her silence so that she became cruel in his mind, a vindictive and ungrateful girl. Had he not taken on this monstrous feudal paradise for her sake, and now he lived in dread that she should catch him in some small humiliation or find some evidence of his untutored judgment to throw in his face.

Dinners were agony for him, her sisters buzzing softly of unimportant things, he loathed the sound of her spoon hitting the dish. And he drank late until the recurrent need, flamed in these long hours, to subdue her would lead him time and again to the bedroom door. There was no warmth between the sheets.

As the year pa.s.sed it grew plain that she did not respect him. Those little witticisms of his, which had so warmed others, sounded ridiculous when uttered in her presence. His charm seemed to wither, and even at Christmas, with the house crowded, he could not escape some stumbling, inept vision of himself reflected in her hard eye. While she all the time grew in power, devoted mother to little Vincent and then after uncomplaining labor exemplary with her own child. People admired her at all turns for her poise and domestic capabilities, the slaves adored her, and she became the darling even of Philippe's mother and his aunts. And all the while he kept this secret to himself that she was mean and even vicious to him, trying from time to time to find some way to correct her in the presence of the others, only to bungle this so that apologies were required as he felt the censure of silence all around. If only they knew! A wife should bolster her husband, wipe his brow. She, on the other hand, showed him eternally a deceitful outward respect. And once, alone in his study, he put his fist right through the plaster wall.

Oh, the loneliness of it.

But in his heart of hearts he feared sometimes he knew why her contempt for him had bitten so deep. There was something in himself that he accepted readily enough but did not admire. He didn't really want want to run to run Bontemps Bontemps. He had no pa.s.sion to emulate the dead Magloire, or his own brothers. And ashamed, he also wondered why he had let himself give up that life which had been so dear. He lived in fear of others perceiving this lack of ambition, or of making mistakes through carelessness that he might not be able to correct. And little Vincent, it would be years before he could lend a hand.

But by the end of summer, he was in a state of perpetual fury toward his wife, and wondered at the extraordinary independence with which she could go on from day to day pretending he was not even there. He was sorry for himself and wanted to spite her. And the limp pa.s.sivity that was offered him at night, that which had so appealed to him in the beginning, seemed now a worse insult than all else he had had to bear. Well, she would give him children, a son already, and another on the way. But this merely added to her glory. He took to sleeping on the study couch.

But when his mother died, he sent at once for a young black maid who had been his favorite at home, and by whom some years before he had fathered a child. Of course he would not soil himself with such sordidness in the future, who would think of it, he'd been a boy (and terrified, his brothers having threatened to send him away to school), but he needed some touch of warmth beneath his roof, and that dear sweet black girl had cried when he left. No one need know more about it, he wanted her there to arrange his clothes as she had done in years past.

However, Aglae upon seeing the woman's copper-skinned little girl had given him such a withering smile that he convinced himself she was of low mind. He would not dream of humiliating himself with some household maid, but he did not shrink from giving everyone the impression through special favors to this woman that he had.

It was near winter again before he went to New Orleans, the second harvest over, the money in the bank. Two of the girls were married off, he was sick of the country. And riding through the narrow muddy streets of the "old city," found himself at the gate of Magloire's little mistress, that sweet Cecile who had lost both her protector and her expected child.

It had been too long since he had looked in on her, he told himself, this was a matter of concern. After all Magloire had been devoted to her, lawyers could not always be trusted to follow through in such matters. But he forgot all this when she opened the door.

"Michie Philippe!" she had cried out, and catching herself in the act of rus.h.i.+ng toward him, stopped, her face in her hands.

"Now, now, ma chere," ma chere," he pressed her small head to his cashmere vest. Old Magloire could turn in his grave. he pressed her small head to his cashmere vest. Old Magloire could turn in his grave.

It did not always please him to think of the old man afterwards. There had been a bond between them, a trust. Aglae was his favorite daughter though little Vincent of course was the favorite child.

But Philippe had come to live for these days in New Orleans when entering that small cottage he felt himself grow so that reaching out, it seemed, he might touch the four walls. There were his slippers, his tobacco, the few liqueurs he preferred to brandy; and this soft scented woman who hung on his every word. He thought sometimes he had fallen in love with her eyes. So wide and mournful they seemed to him, never leaving him for an instant, and firing so magnificently when she smiled.

Even the birth of Marcel with all its inconveniences gave him some pleasure. Because he so loved the sight of the pet.i.te mother, and enjoyed the sound of the singing as he lay patiently across the bed.

And he was not out of sorts either when those shrewd aunts, Louisa and Colette, cornered him, making him promise to provide a European education for the boy. They were practical women, they had not been consulted in this little arrangement, but indeed they had had many a conversation with Monsieur Magloire, such a fine old gentleman, didn't he agree? "You know, Monsieur, what can the boy do here in Louisiana?" said that clever Colette, c.o.c.king her head to one side. "For a girl it's different. But for the boy? An education in Paris, Monsieur, a few years abroad, four I should think, and perhaps the boy might be settled there someday, who knows?"

All right, all right, he would deposit money in the bank for him, he shrugged, opening his coat with both hands. Did they wish to take it out of his pockets? Must he pledge his faith in blood? "Stop it, stop it," whispered his pretty little ladylove Cecile. She came to his rescue, and warmly he beamed down at her from his lofty height. "Forgive them, Monsieur," she said.

"You will provide for the boy, Monsieur, four years in Paris when he is eighteen?"

"Mais oui, but of course!"

II.