George Washington Flowers Memorial Collection DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ESTABLISHED BV THE FAMILY OF COLONF.f- FLOWERS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/grandissimesOOcabl rpHIS Edition, consisting of Two Hundred and Four Copies on Japan Paper, was printed in the month of October, 1899. This copy is No s^.vi. THE GRANDISSIMES THE GRANDISSIMES BY GEORGE W. CABLE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALBERT HERTERae«se^^^^ae«se I NEW YORK- CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS • MDCCCXCIX j-&j*j*j*j*j*&j*&j* Copyright, 1SS0, I$QQ 5y Charles Scribner's Sons All rights reserved Jftmncrsiti! ^Jrrss John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Masked Batteries l II. The Fate of the Immigrant I i III. "And who is my Neighbor?" zo IV. Family Trees 23 V. A Maiden who will not Marry .... 34 VI. Lost Opportunities 41 VII. Was it Honore Grandissime ? 46 VIII. Signed — Honore Grandissime 55 IX. Illustrating the Tractive Power of Basil . . 58 X. " Oo dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " .... 6~ XI. Sudden Flashes of Light 72 XII. The Philosophe 76 XIII. A Call from the Rent-Spectre 83 XIV. Before Sunset 94 XV. Rolled in the Dust 104 XVI. Starlight in the rue Chartres 123 XVII. That Night 128 XVIII. New Light upon Dark Places 143 XIX. Art and Commerce 156 XX. A very Natural Mistake 166 XXI. Doctor Keene Recovers his Bullet .... 177 XXII. Wars within the Breast 181 XXIII. Frowenfeld Keeps his Appointment . . . . 187 CI!- vi Contents. Chapter Page XXIV. Frowenfeld Makes an Argument . . . 192 XXV. Aurora as a Historian 204 XXVI. A Ride and a Rescue 208 XXVII. The Fete de Grandpere 221 XXVIII. The Story of Bras-Coupe 240 XXIX. The Story of Bras-Coupe, Continued . . 262 XXX. Paralysis 281 XXXI. Another Wound in a New Place . . . 288 XXXII. Interrupted Preliminaries 293 XXXIII. Unkindest Cut of All 296 XXXIV. Clotilde as a Surgeon 299 XXXV. " Fo' wad you Cryne ? " 305 XXXVI. Aurora's Last Picayune 310 XXXVII. Honore Makes some Confessions . . . . 316 XXXVIII. Tests of Friendship 325 XXXIX. Louisiana States her Wants 337 XL. Frowenfeld Finds Sylvestre 343 XLI. To Come to the Point 352 XLII. An Inheritance of Wrong 361 XLIII. The Eagle Visits the Doves in their Nest . 369 XLIV. Bad for Charlie Keene 384 XLV. More Reparation 386 XLVI. The Pique-en-terre Loses One of her Crew 390 XLVII. The News 401 XLVIII. An Indignant Family and a Smashed Shop 403 XLIX. Over the New Store 414 L. A Proposal of Marriage 419 LI. Business Changes 426 LII. Love Lies-a-Bleeding 431 LIII. Frowenfeld at the Grandissime Mansion . 438 Contents vii Chapter Pagb LIV. "Cauldron Bubble" 446 LV. Caught 449 LVI. Blood for a Blow 457 LVII. Voudou Cured 464 LVIII. Dying Words 470 LIX. Where some Creole Money Goes . . . . 477 LX. "All Right" 481 LXI. "No!" 486 PHOTOGRAVURES " They paused a little within the obscurity of the corridor, and just to reassure themselves that everything was ' all right ' " .... Frontispiece " She looked upon an unmasked, noble countenance, lifted her own mask a little, and then a little more; and then shut it quickly" . Facing page 10 " The daughter of the Natchez sitting in majesty, clothed in many-colored robes of shining feath- ers crossed and recrossed with girdles of serpent- skins and of wampum" 26 " Aurora, — alas ! alas ! — went down upon her knees with her gaze fixed upon the candle's flame" . 102 " The young man with auburn curls rested the edge of his burden upon the counter, tore away its wrappings and disclosed a painting" . . . 162 x Photogravures " Silently regarding the intruder with a pair of eyes that sent an icy chill through him and fastened him where he stood, lay Palmyre Philosophe" Facing page 1 88 " On their part, they would sit in deep attention, shielding their faces from the fire, and respond- ing to enunciations directly contrary to their convictions with an occasional ' yes-seh,' or 'ceddenly,' or ' of coze,' or, — prettier affirma- tion still, — a solemn drooping of the eyelids " . 198 " Bras-Coupe was practically declaring his independ- ence on a slight rise of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarce above the water in the inmost depths of the swamp " . 260 " ' Ma 1111 dotter, wad dad meggin you cry ? Iv you will tell me wad dad mague you cry, I will tell you — on ma second word of honor' — she rolled up her fist — 'juz wad I thing about dad 'Sieur Frowenfel!'" 308 " His head was bowed, a heavy grizzled lock fell down upon his dark, frowning brow, one hand clenched the top of his staff, the other his knee, and both trembled violently " 334 " The tall figure of Palmyre rose slowly and silently from her chair, her eyes lifted up and her lips moving noiselessly. She seemed to have lost all knowledge of place or of human presence " . . 424 Photogravures xi They turned in a direction opposite to the en- trance and took chairs in a cool nook of the paved court, at a small table where the hospitality of Clemence had placed glasses of lemonade " Facing page 436 * + * In addition to the foregoing, the stories are illustrated with eight smaller photogravures from drawings by Mr. Herter. CHAPTER I MASKED BATTERIES T was in the Theatre St. Philippe (they had laid a temporary floor over the parquette seats) in the city we now call New Orleans, in the month of Septem- ber, and in the year 1803. Under the twinkle of numberless candles, and in a perfumed air thrilled with the wailing ecstasy of violins, the little Creole capital's proudest and best were offering up the first cool night of the languidly departing summer to the divine Terpsichore. For summer there, bear in mind, is a loitering gossip, that only begins to talk of leaving when September rises to go. It was like hustling her out, it is true, to give a select bal masque at such a very early — such an amusingly 2 The Grandissimes early date ; but it was fitting that something should be, done for the sick and the destitute ; and why not this ? Everybody knows the Lord -loveth a cheerful giver. And so, to repeat, it was in the Theatre St. Philippe (the oldest, the first one), and, as may have been noticed, in the year in which the First Consul of France gave away Louisiana. Some might call it " sold." Old Agricola Fusilier in the rumbling pomp of his natural voice — for he had an hour ago forgotten that he was in mask and domino — called it " gave away." Not that he believed it had been done ; for, lbok you, how could it be ? The pretended treaty contained, for instance, no provision relative to the great family of Brahmin Mandarin Fusilier de Grandissime. It was evidently spurious. Being bumped against, he moved a step or two aside, and was going on to denounce further the detestable rumor, when a masker — one of four who had just finished the contra-dahce and were moving away in the column of promenaders — brought him smartly around with the salutation : " Comment to ye, Citoyen Agricola ! " " H-you young kitten ! " said the old man in a growling voice, and with the teased, half laugh of aged vanity as he bent a baffled scrutiny at the back-turned face of an ideal Indian Queen. It was not merely the tutoiement that struck him as saucy, but the further familiarity of using the slave dialect. His French was unprovincial. Masked Batteries 3 " H-the cool rascal ! " he added laughingly, and, only half to himself; " get into the garb of your true sex, sir, h-and I will guess who you are ! " But the Oueen, in the same feigned voice as before, retorted : "Ah! mo piti Jils, to pas connais to zancestres? Don't you know your ancestors, my little son ! " " H-the g-hods preserve us ! " said Agricola, with a pompous laugh muffled under his mask, " the queen of the Tchoupitoulas I proudly acknowledge, and my great-grandfather, Epami- nondas Fusilier, lieutenant of dragoons under Bien- ville ; but," — he laid his hand upon his heart, and bowed to the other two figures, whose smaller stature betrayed the gentler sex — " pardon me, ladies, neither Monks nor Filles a la Cassette grow on our family tree." The four maskers at once turned their glance upon the old man in the domino ; but if any retort was intended it gave way as the violins burst into an agony of laughter. The floor was immediately filled with waltzers and the four figures disappeared. " I wonder," murmured Agricola to himself, " if that Dragoon can possibly be Honore Grandis- sime." Wherever those four maskers went there were cries of delight: "Ho, ho, ho! see there! here! there! a group of first colonists! One of Iber- ville's Dragoons ! don't you remember great-great grandfather Fusilier's portrait — the gilded casque and heron plumes ? And that one behind in the 4 The Grandissimes fawn-skin leggings and shirt of birds' skins is an Indian Queen. As sure as sure can be, they are intended for Epaminondas and his wife, Lufki- Humma ! " All, of course, in Louisiana French. " But why, then, does he not walk with her? " "Why, because, Simplicity, both of them are men, while the little Monk on his arm is a lady, as you can see, and so is the masque that has the arm of the Indian Queen ; look at their little hands." In another part of the room the four were greeted with, " Ha, ha, ha ! well, that is magnificent ! But see that Huguenotte Girl on the Indian Queen's arm ! Is n't that fine ! Ha, ha ! she carries a little trunk. She is a Fille a la Cassette ! " Two partners in a cotillion were speaking in an undertone, behind a fan. "And you think you know who it is?" asked one. " Know ? " replied the other. " Do I know I have a head on my shoulders ? If that Dragoon is not our cousin Honore Grandissime — well " " Honore in mask ? he is too sober-sided to do such a thing." " I tell you it is he ! Listen. Yesterday I heard Doctor Charlie Keene begging him to go, and telling him there were two ladies, strangers, newly arrived in the city, who would be there, and whom he wished him to meet. Depend upon it the Dragoon is Honore, Lufki-Humma is Charlie Keene, and the Monk and the Huguenotte are those two ladies." Masked Batteries 5 But all this is an outside view; let us draw nearer and see what chance may discover to us behind those four masks. An hour has passed by- The dance goes on ; hearts are beating, wit is flashing, eyes encounter eyes with the leveled lances of their beams, merri- ment and joy and sudden bright surprises thrill the breast, voices are throwing off disguise, and beauty's coy ear is bending with a venturesome docility ; here love is baffled, there deceived, yonder takes prisoners and here surrenders. The very air seems to breathe, to sigh, to laugh, while the musicians, with disheveled locks, streaming brows and furious bows, strike, draw, drive, scatter from the anguished violins a never-ending rout of screaming harmonies. But the Monk and the Huguenotte are not on the floor. They are sitting where they have been left by their two companions, in one of the boxes of the theater, looking out upon the unwearied whirl and flash of gauze and light and color. " Oh, cherie, cherie ! " murmured the little lady in the Monk's disguise to her quieter companion, and speaking in the soft dialect of old Louisiana, " now you get a good idea of heaven ! " The Fille a la Cassette replied with a sudden turn of her masked face and a murmur of surprise and protest against this impiety. A low, merry laugh came out of the Monk's cowl, and the Huguenotte let her form sink a little in her chair with a gentle sigh. " Ah, for shame, tired ! " softlv laughed the other ; 6 The Grandissimes then suddenly, with her eyes fixed across the room, she seized her companion's hand and pressed it tightly. " Do you not see it ? " she whispered eagerly, "just by the door — the casque with the heron feathers. Ah, Clotilde, I cannot believe he is one of those Grandissimes ! " " Well," replied the Huguenotte, " Doctor Keene says he is not." Doctor Charlie Keene, speaking from under the disguise of the Indian Queen, had indeed so said; but the Recording Angel, whom we understand to be particular about those things, had immediately made a memorandum of it to the debit of Doctor Keene's account. " If I had believed that it was he," continued the whisperer, " I would have turned about and left him in the midst of the contra-dance ! " Behind them sat unmasked a well-aged pair, " bredouill'e" as they used to say of the wall-flowers, with that look of blissful repose which marks the married and established Creole. The lady in monk's attire turned about in her chair and leaned back to laugh with these. The passing maskers looked that way, with a certain instinct that there was beauty under those two costumes. As they did so, they saw the Ftlle a la Cassette join in this over-shoulder conversation. A moment later, they saw the old gentleman protector and the Fille a la Cassette rising to the dance. And when presently the distant passers took a final backward glance, that same Lieutenant of Dragoons had returned and Masked Batteries 7 he and the little Monk, were once more upon the floor, waiting tor the music. " But your late companion ? " said the voice in the cowl. " Mv Indian Oueen ? " asked the Creole Epami- nondas. " Say, rather, your Medicine-Man," archly replied the Monk. " In these times," responded the Cavalier, " a medicine-man cannot dance long without profes- sional interruption, even when he dances for a char- itable object. He has been called to two relapsed patients." The music struck up ; the speaker ad- dressed himself to the dance; but the lady did not respond. " Do dragoons ever moralize ? " she asked. " They do more," replied her partner ; " some- times, when beauty's enjoyment of the ball is drawing toward its twilight, they catch its pleasant melancholy, and confess ; will the good father sit in the confessional ? " The pair turned slowly about and moved toward the box from which they had come, the lady remain- ing silent ; but just as they were entering she half withdrew her arm from his, and, confronting him with a rich sparkle of the eyes within the immobile mask of the monk, said : " Why should the conscience of one poor little monk carry all the frivolity of this ball ? I have a right to dance, if I wish. I give you my word, Monsieur Dragoon, I dance only for the benefit of 8 The Grandissimes the sick and the destitute. It is you men — you dragoons and others — who will not help them with- out a compensation in this sort of nonsense. Why should we shrive you when you ought to burn ? " " Then lead us to the altar," said the Dragoon. " Pardon, sir," she retorted, her words entangled with a musical, open-hearted laugh, " I am not go- ing in that direction." She cast her glance around the ball-room. " As you say, it is the twilight of the ball ; I am looking for the evening star, — that is, my little Huguenotte." " Then you are well mated." "How?" " For you are Aurora." The lady gave a displeased start. "Sir!" " Pardon," said the Cavalier, " if by accident I have hit upon your real name " She laughed again — a laugh which was as exult- antly joyous as it was high-bred. " Ah, my name ? Oh no, indeed ! " (More work for the Recording Angel.) She turned to her protectress. " Madame, I know you think we should be going home." The senior lady replied in amiable speech, but with sleepy eyes, and the Monk began to lift and unfold a wrapping. As the Cavalier drew it into his own possession, and, agreeably to his gesture, the Monk and he sat down side by side, he said, in a low tone : " One more laugh before we part." Masked Batteries 9 " A monk cannot laugh for nothing." " I will pay for it." " But with nothing to laugh at ? " The thought of laughing at nothing made her laugh a little on the spot. " We will make something to laugh at," said the Cavalier ; " we will unmask to each other, and when we find each other first cousins, the laugh will come of itself." " Ah ! we will unmask ? — no ! I have no cous- ins. I am certain we are strangers." " Then we will laugh to think that I paid for the disappointment." Much more of this childlike badinage followed, and by and by they came around again to the same last statement. Another little laugh escaped from the cowl. " You will pay ? Let us see ; how much will you give to the sick and destitute ? " " To see who it is I am laughing with, I will give whatever you ask." "Two hundred and fifty dollars, cash, into the hands of the managers ! " " A bargain ! " The Monk laughed, and her chaperon opened her eyes and smiled apologetically. The Cavalier laughed, too, and said : " Good ! That was the laugh ; now the unmask- ing." " And you positively will give the money to the managers not later than to-morrow evening ? " io The Grandissimes " Not later. It shall be done without fail." "Well, wait till I put on my wrappings; I must be ready to run." This delightful nonsense was interrupted by the return of the Fille a la Cassette and her aged, but sprightly, escort, from a circuit of the floor. Ma- dame again opened her eyes, and the four prepared to depart. The Dragoon helped the Monk to for- tify herself against the outer air. She was ready before the others. There was a pause, a low laugh, a whispered " Now ! " She looked upon an unmasked, noble countenance, lifted her own mask a little, and then a little more ; and then shut it quickly down again upon a face whose beauty was more than even those fascinating graces had prom- ised which Honore Grandissime had fitly named the Morning ; but it was a face he had never seen before. " Hush ! " she said, " the enemies of religion are watching us ; the Huguenotte saw me. Adieu " — and they were gone. M. Honore Grandissime turned on his heel and very soon left the ball. " Now, sir," thought he to himself, "we '11 return to our senses." " Now I '11 put my feathers on again," says the plucked bird. The Fate of the Immigrant I i CHAPTER II THE FATE OF THE IMMIGRANT It was just a fortnight after the ball, that one Joseph Frowenfeld opened his eyes upon Louisiana. He was an American by birth, rearing and senti- ment, yet German enough through his parents, and the only son in a family consisting ot father, mother, self, and two sisters, new-blown flowers of woman- hood. It was an October dawn, when, long wearied of the ocean, and with bright anticipations of ver- dure, and fragrance, and tropical gorgeousness, this simple-hearted family awoke to find the bark that had borne them from their far northern home already entering upon the ascent of the Mississippi. We may easily imagine the grave group, as they came up one bv one from below, that morning of first disappointment, and stood (with a whirligig of jubilant mosquitoes spinning about each head) iooking out across the waste, seeing the sky and the marsh meet in the east, the north, and the west, and receiving with patient silence the father's sug- gestion that the hills would, no doubt, rise into view after a while. " My children, we may turn this disappointment into a lesson ; if the good people of this countrv could speak to us now, they might well ask us not to judge them or their land upon one or two hastv glances, or bv the experiences of a few short days or weeks." 1 2 The Grandissimes But no hills rose. However, by and by they found solace in the appearance of distant forest, and in the afternoon they entered a land — but such a land ! A land hung in mourning, darkened by gigantic cypresses, submerged ; a land of reptiles, silence, shadow, decay. " The captain told father, when we went to engage passage, that New Orleans was on high land," said the younger daughter, with a tremor in the voice, and ignoring the remonstrative touch of her sister. " On high land ? " said the captain, turning from the pilot; "well, so it is — higher than the swamp, but not higher than the river," and he checked a broadening smile. But the Frowenfelds were not a family to com- plain. It was characteristic of them to recognize the bright as well as the solemn virtues, and to keep each other reminded of the duty of cheerful- ness. A smile, starting from the quiet elder sister, went around the group, directed against the ab- stracted and somewhat rueful countenance of Joseph, whereat he turned with a better face and said that what the Creator had pronounced very good they could hardly feel free to condemn. The old father was still more stout of heart. " These mosquitoes, children, are thought by some to keep the air pure," he said. " Better keep out of it after sunset," put in the captain. After that day and night, the prospect grew less The Fate of the Immigrant i 3 repellent. A gradually matured conviction that New Orleans would not be found standing on stilts in the quagmire enabled the eye to become educated to a better appreciation of the solemn landscape. Nor was the landscape always solemn. There were long openings, now and then, to right and left, of emerald-green savannah, with the daz- zling blue of the Gulf far beyond, waving a thousand white-handed good-byes as the funereal swamps slowly shut out again the horizon. How sweet the soft breezes off the moist prairies ! How weird, how verv near, the crimson and green and black and yellow sunsets ! How dream-like the land and the great, whispering river ! The profound stillness and breath reminded the old German, so he said, of that early time when the evenings and mornings were the first days of the half-built world. The barking of a dog in Fort Plaquemines seemed to come before its turn in the panorama of crea- tion — before the earth was ready for the dog's master. But he was assured that to live in those swamps was not entirely impossible to man — "if one may call a negro a man." Runaway slaves were not so rare in them as one — a lost hunter, for example — might wish. His informant was a new passenger, taken aboard at the fort. He spoke English. " Yes, sir ! Did n' I had to run from Bras- Coupe in de haidge of de swamp be'ine de 'abita- tion of my cousin Honore, one time? You can hask '00 you like ! " (A Creole always provides 14 The Grandissimes against incredulity.) At this point he digressed a moment: "You know my cousin, Honore Gran- dissime, w'at give two hund' fifty dolla' to de 'ospill laz mont' ? An' juz because my cousin Honore give it, somebody helse give de semm. Fo' w'y don't he give his nemm ? " The reason (which this person did not know) was that the second donor was the first one over again, resolved that the little unknown Monk should not know whom she had baffied. " Who was Bras-Coupe ? " the good German asked in French. The stranger sat upon the capstan, and, in the shadow of the cypress forest, where the vessel lay moored for a change of wind, told in a. patois diffi- cult, but not impossible, to understand, the story of a man who chose rather to be hunted like a wild beast among those awful labyrinths, than to be yoked and beaten like a tame one. Joseph, draw- ing near as the story was coming to a close, over- heard the following English : " Friend, if you dislike heated discussion, do not tell that to my son." The nights were strangely beautiful. The immi- grants almost consumed them on deck, the mother and daughters attending in silent delight while the father and son, facing south, rejoiced in learned recognition of stars and constellations hitherto known to them onlv on globes and charts. " Yes, my dear son," said the father, in a moment of ecstatic admiration, "wherever man may go, The Fate of the Immigrant 15 around this globe — however uninviting his lateral surroundings may be, the heavens are ever over his head, and I am glad to find the stars your favorite objects of study." So passed the time as the vessel, hour by hour, now slowly pushed by the wind against the turbid current, now warping along the fragrant precincts of orange or magnolia groves or fields of sugar- cane, or moored by night in the deep shade of mightv willow-jungles, patiently crept toward the end of their pilgrimage; and in the length of time which would at present be consumed in making the whole journey from their Northern home to their Southern goal, accomplished the distance of ninety- eight miles, and round themselves before the little, hybrid city of " Nouvelle Orleans." There was the cathedral, and standing beside it, like Sancho beside Don Quixote, the squat hall of the Cabildo with the calabozo in the rear. There were the forts, the military bakery, the hospitals, the plaza, the Almonaster stores, and the busy rue Toulouse ; and, for the rest of the town, a pleasant confusion of green tree-tops, red and gray roofs, and glimpses of white or yellow wall, spreading back a few hun- dred yards behind the cathedral, and tapering into a single rank of gardened and belvedered villas, that studded either horn of the river's crescent with a style of home than which there is probably nothing in the world more maternally homelike. "And now," said the "captain," bidding the immigrants good-by, " keep out of the sun and 1 6 The Grandissimes stay in after dark ; you 're not ' acclimated,' as they call it, you know, and the city is full of the fever." Such were the Frowenfelds. Out of such a mold and into such a place came the young Americain, whom even Agricola Fusilier, as we shall see, by and by thought worthy to be made an exception of, and honored with his recognition. The family rented a two-story brick house in the rue Bienville, No. 17, it seems. The third day after, at daybreak, Joseph called his father to his bedside to say that he had had a chill, and was suffering such pains in his head and back that he would like to lie quiet until they passed off. The gentle father replied that it was undoubtedly best to do so, and preserved an outward calm. He looked at his son's eyes ; their pupils were con- tracted to tiny beads. He felt his pulse and his brow ; there was no room for doubt ; it was the dreaded scourge — the fever. We say, sometimes, of hearts that they sink like lead; it does not express the agony. On the second day, while the unsated fever was running through every vein and artery, like soldiery through the streets of a burning city, and far down in the caverns of the body the poison was ransack- ing every palpitating corner, the poor immigrant fell into a moment's sleep. But what of that? The enemy that moment had mounted to the brain. And then there happened to Joseph an experience rare to the sufferer by this disease, but not entirely unknown, — a delirium of mingled The Fate of the Immigrant 17 pleasures and distresses. He seemed to awake somewhere between heaven and earth, reclining in a gorgeous barge, which was draped in curtains of interwoven silver and silk, cushioned with rich stuffs of every beautiful dye, and perfumed ad nauseam with orange-leaf tea. The crew was a single old negress, whose head was wound about with a blue Madras handkerchief, and who stood at the prow, and by a singular rotary motion, rowed the barge with a teaspoon. He could not get his head out of the hot sun ; and the barge went con- tinually round and round with a heavy, throbbing motion, in the regular beat of which certain spirits of the air — one of whom appeared to be a beauti- ful girl and another a small, red-haired man, — confronted each other with the continual call and response : " Keep the bedclothes on him and the room shut tight, keep the bedclothes on him and the room shut tight," — "An' don' give 'im some watta, an' don' give 'im some watta." During what lapse of time — whether moments or days — this lasted, Joseph could not then know; but at last these things faded away, and there came to him a positive knowledge that he was on a sick- bed, where unless something could be done for him he should be dead in an hour. Then a spoon touched his lips, and a taste of brandy and water went all through him ; and when he fell into sweet slumber and awoke, and found the teaspoon ready at his lips again, he had to lift a little the two hands I 8 The Grandissimes lying before him on the coverlet to know that they were his — they were so wasted and yellow. He turned his eyes, and through the white gauze of the mosquito-bar saw, for an instant, a strange and beau- tiful young face ; but the lids fell over his eyes, and when he raised them again the blue-turbaned black nurse was tucking the covering about his feet. " Sister ! " No answer. " Where is my mother ? " The negress shook her head. He was too weak to speak again, but asked with his eyes so persistently, and so pleadingly, that by and by she gave him an audible answer. He tried hard to understand it, but could not, it being in these words : "Li pa oul'e vim 'ci — li pas capabe." Thrice a day, for three days more, came a little man with a large head surrounded by short, red curls and with small freckles in a fine skin, and sat down by the bed with a word of good cheer and the air of a commander. At length they had some- thing like an extended conversation. " So you concluded not to die, eh ? Yes, I 'm the doctor — Doctor Keene. A young lady? What young lady ? No, sir, there has been no young lady here. You 're mistaken. Vagary of your fever. There has been no one here but this black girl and me. No, my dear fellow, your father and mother can't see you yet ; you don't want them to catch the fever, do you ? Good-bye. Do as your The Fate of the Immigrant 19 nurse tells you, and next week you may raise your head and shoulders a little ; but if you don't mind her you '11 have a backset, and the devil himself would n't engage to cure you." The patient had been sitting up a little at a time for several days, when at length the doctor came to pay a final call, " as a matter of form ; " but, after a few pleasantries, he drew his chair up gravely, and, in a tender tone need we say it ? He had come to tell Joseph that his father, mother, sisters, all, were gone on a second — a longer — voyage, to shores where there could be no disappointments and no fevers, forever. "And, Frowenfeld," he said, at the end of their long and painful talk, " if there is any blame attached to not letting you go with them, I think I can take part of it; but if you ever want a friend, — one who is courteous to strangers and ill-mannered only to those he likes, — you can call for Charlie Keene. I '11 drop in to see you, anyhow, from time to time, till you get stronger. I have taken a heap of trouble to keep you alive, and if you should relapse now and give us the slip, it would be a deal of good physic wasted ; so keep in the house." The polite neighbors who lifted their cocked hats to Joseph, as he spent a slow convalescence just within his open door, were not bound to know how or when he might have suffered. There were no " Howards " or " Y. M. C. A.'s " in those days ; no " Peabody Reliefs." Even had the neighbors chosen to take cognizance of those bereavements, 20 The Grandissimes they were not so unusual as to fix upon him any- extraordinary interest as an object of sight ; and he was beginning most distressfully to realize that "great solitude" which the philosopher attributes to towns, when matters took a decided turn. CHAPTER III "and who is my neighbor?" We say matters took a turn; or, better, that Frowenfeld's interest in affairs received a new life. This had its beginning in Doctor Keene's making himself specially entertaining in an old-family-history way, with a view to keeping his patient within doors for a safe period. He had conceived a great liking for Frowenfeld, and often, of an afternoon, would drift in to challenge him to a game of chess — a game, by the way, for which neither of them cared a far- thing. The immigrant had learned its moves to gratify his father, and the doctor — the truth is, the doctor had never quite learned them ; but he was one of those men who cannot easily consent to acknowl- edge a mere affection for one, least of all one of their own sex. It may safely be supposed, then, that the board often displayed an arrangement of pieces that would have bewildered Morphy him- self. " By the by, Frowenfeld," he said one evening, after the one preliminary move with which he in- "And who is my Neighbor?" 21 variably opened his game, " you have n't made the acquaintance of your pretty neighbors next door." Frowenfeld knew of no specially pretty neigh- bors next door on either side — had noticed no ladies. " Well, I will take you in to see them some time." The doctor laughed a little, rubbing his face and his thin, red curls with one hand, as he laughed. The convalescent wondered what there could be to laugh at. " Who are they? " he inquired. "Their name is De Grapion — oh, De Grapion, says I ! their name is Nancanou. They are, without exception, the finest women — the brightest, the best, and the bravest — that I know in New Or- leans." The doctor resumed a cigar which lay against the edge of the chess-board, found it extin- guished, and proceeded to relight it. " Best blood of the province ; good as the Grandissimes. Blood is a great thing here, in certain odd ways," he went on. "Very curious sometimes." He stooped to the floor where his coat had fallen, and took his handkerchief from a breast-pocket. " At a grand mask ball about two months ago, where I had a bewilderingly fine time with those ladies, the proud- est old turkey in the theater was an old fellow whose Indian blood shows in his very behavior, and yet — ha, ha ! I saw that same old man, at a quadroon ball a few years ago, walk up to the handsomest, best 22 The Grandissimes dressed man in the house, a man with a skin whiter than his own, — a perfect gentleman as to looks and manners, — and without a word slap him in the face." " You laugh ? " asked Frowenfeld. " Laugh ? Why shouldn't I ? The fellow had no business there. Those balls are not given to quadroon males, my friend. He was lucky to get out alive, and that was about all he did. u They are right ! " the doctor persisted, in re- sponse to Frowenfeld's puzzled look. " The peo- ple here have got to be particular. However, that is not what we were talking about. Quadroon balls are not to be mentioned in connection. Those ladies " He addressed himself to the resusci- tation of his cigar. " Singular people in this coun- try," he resumed ; but his cigar would not revive. He was a poor story-teller. To Frowenfeld — as it would have been to any one, except a Creole or the most thoroughly Creoleized Americain — his narrative, when it was done, was little more than a thick mist of strange names, places and events ; yet there shone a light of romance upon it that filled it with color and populated it with phantoms. Frowen- feld's interest rose — was allured into this mist — and there was left befogged. Asa physician, Doctor Keene thus accomplished his end, — the mental diversion of his late patient, — for in the midst of the mist Frowenfeld encountered and grappled a problem of human life in Creole type, the possible correlations of whose quantities we shall presently Family Trees 23 find him revolving in a studious and sympathetic mind, as the poet of to-day ponders the " Flower in the crannied wall." The quantities in that problem were the ancestral — ■ the maternal — roots of those two rival and hostile families whose descendants — some brave, others fair — we find unwittingly thrown together at the ball, and with whom we are shortly to have the honor of an unmasked acquaintance. CHAPTER IV FAMILY TREES In the year 1673, and in the royal hovel of a Tchoupitoulas village not far removed from that " Buffalo's Grazing-ground," now better known as New Orleans, was born Lufki-Humma, otherwise Red Clay. The mother of Red Clay was a princess bv birth as well as by marriage. For the father, with that devotion to his people's interests presum- ably common to rulers, had ten moons before ven- tured northward into the territory of the proud and exclusive Natchez nation, and had so prevailed with — so outsmoked — their "Great Sun," as to find himself, as he finally knocked the ashes from his successful calumet, possessor of a wife whose pedi- gree included a long line of royal mothers — fathers being of little account in Natchez heraldry — ex- 24 The Grandissimes tending back beyond the Mexican origin of her nation, and disappearing only in the effulgence of her great original, the orb of day himself. As to Red Clay's paternal ancestry, we must content our- selves with the fact that the father was not only the diplomate we have already found him, but a chief of considerable eminence ; that is to say, of seven feet stature. It scarce need be said that when Lufki-Humma was born, the mother arose at once from her couch of skins, herself bore the infant to the neighboring bayou and bathed it — not for singularity, nor for independence, nor for vainglory, but only as one of the heart-curdling conventionalities which made up the experience of that most pitiful of holy things, an Indian mother. Outside the lodge door sat and continued to sit, as she passed out, her master or husband. His interest in the trivialities of the moment may be summed up in this, that he was as fully prepared as some men are in more civilized times and places to hold his queen to strict account for the sex of her offspring. Girls for the Natchez, if they preferred them, but the chief of the Tchoupitoulas wanted a son. She returned from the water, came near, sank upon her knees, laid the infant at his feet, and lo! a daughter. Then she fell forward heavily upon her face. It may have been muscular exhaustion, it may have been the mere wind of her hasty-tempered matri- monial master's stone hatchet as it whiffed by her Family Trees 25 skull ; an inquest now would be too great an irony ; but something blew out her " vile candle." Among the squaws who came to offer the accus- tomed funeral howlings, and seize mementoes from the deceased lady's scant leavings, was one who had in her own palmetto hut an empty cradle scarcely cold, and therefore a necessity at her breast, if not a place in her heart, for the unfortunate Lufki- Humma; and thus it was that this little waif came to be tossed, a droll hypothesis of flesh, blood, nerve and brain, into the hands of wild nature with carte blanche as to the disposal of it. And now, since this was Agricola's most boasted ancestor — since it appears the darkness of her cheek had no effect to make him less white, or qualify his right to smite the fairest and most distant descendant of an African on the face, and since this proud station and right could not have sprung from the squalid sur- roundings of her birth, let us for a moment contem- plate these crude materials. As for the flesh, it was indeed only some of that "one flesh" of which we all are made; but the blood — to go into finer distinctions — the blood, as distinguished from the milk of her Alibamon foster-mother, was the blood of the royal caste of the great Toltec mother-race, which, before it yielded its Mexican splendors to the conquering Aztec, throned the jeweled and gold-laden Inca in the South, and sent the sacred fire of its temples into the North by the hand of the Natchez. For it is a short way of expressing the truth concerning Red 26 The Grandissimes Clay's tissues to say she had the blood of her mother and the nerve of her father, the nerve of the true North American Indian, and had it in its finest strength. As to her infantine bones, they were such as needed not to fail of straightness in the limbs, com- pactness in the body, smallness in hands and feet, and exceeding symmetry and comeliness through- out. Possibly between the two sides of the occipital profile there may have been an Incasan tendency to inequality ; but if by any good fortune her impres- sible little cranium should escape the cradle-straps, the shapeliness that nature loves would soon appear. And this very fortune befell her. Her father's de- testation of an infant that had not consulted his wishes as to sex prompted a verbal decree which, among other prohibitions, forbade her skull the distortions that ambitious and fashionable Indian mothers delighted to produce upon their offspring. And as to her brain : what can we say ? The casket in which Nature sealed that brain, and in which Nature's great step-sister, Death, finally laid it away, has never fallen into the delighted fingers — and the remarkable fineness of its texture will never kindle admiration in the triumphant eyes — of those whose scientific hunger drives them to dig for crania Americana; nor yet will all their learned excavatings ever draw forth one of those pale souvenirs of mor- tality with walls of shapelier contour or more delicate fineness, or an interior of more admirable spacious- ness, than the fair council-chamber under whose Family Trees 27 dome the mind of Lutki-Humma used, about two centuries ago, to sit in frequent conclave with high thoughts. " I have these facts," it was Agricola Fusilier's habit to say, " by family tradition ; but you know, sir, h-tradition is much more authentic than history ! " Listening Crane, the tribal medicine-man, one day stepped softly into the lodge of the giant chief, sat down opposite him on a mat of plaited rushes, accepted a lighted calumet, and, after the silence of a decent hour, broken at length by the warrior's intimation that " the ear of Raging Buffalo listened for the voice of his brother," said, in effect, that if that ear would turn toward the village play-ground, it would catch a murmur like the pleasing sound of bees among the blossoms of the catalpa, albeit the catalpa was now dropping her leaves, for it was the moon of turkeys. No, it was the repressed laughter of squaws, wallowing with their young ones about the village pole, wondering at the Natchez-Tchoupi- toulas child, whose eye was the eye of the panther, and whose words were the words of an aged chief in council. There was more added ; we record only enough to indicate the direction of Listening Crane's aim. The eye of Raging Buffalo was opened to see a vision : the daughter ot the Natchez sitting in majestv, clothed in many-colored robes of shining feathers crossed and recrossed with girdles of serpent- skins and of wampum, her feet in quilled and painted 28 The Grandissimes moccasins, her head under a glory of plumes, the carpet of buffalo-robes about her throne covered with the trophies of conquest, and the atmosphere of her lodge blue with the smoke of embassadors' calumets ; and this extravagant dream the capricious chief at once resolved should eventually become reality. " Let her be taken to the village temple," he said to his prime-minister, "and be fed by warriors on the flesh of wolves." The Listening Crane was a patient man ; he was the "man that waits" of the old French proverb; all things came to him. He had waited for an opportunity to change his brother's mind, and it had come. Again, he waited for him to die ; and, like Methuselah and others, he died. He had heard of a race more powerful than the Natchez — a white race ; he waited for them ; and when the year 1682 saw a humble "black gown" dragging and splashing his way, with La Salle and Tonti, through the swamps of Louisiana, holding forth the crucifix and backed by French carbines and Mohican tomahawks, among the marvels of that wilderness was found this : a child of nine sitting, and — with some unostentatious aid from her med- icine-man — ruling ; queen of her tribe and high- priestess of their temple. Fortified by the acumen and self-collected ambition of Listening Crane, con- firmed in her regal title by the white man's Manitou through the medium of the " black gown," and in- heriting her father's fear-compelling frown, she ruled with majesty and wisdom, sometimes a decreer of Family Trees 29 bloody justice, sometimes an Amazonian counselor of warriors, and at all times — year after year, until she had reached the perfect womanhood of twenty- six — a virgin queen. On the nth of March, 1699, two overbold young Frenchmen of M. D'Iberville's little explor- ing party tossed guns on shoulder, and ventured away from their canoes on the bank of the Missis- sippi into the wilderness. Two men they were whom an explorer would have been justified in hoarding up, rather than in letting out at such risks ; a pair to lean on, noble and strong. They hunted, killed nothing, were overtaken by rain, then by night, hunger, alarm, despair. And when they had lain down to die, and had only succeeded in falling asleep, the' Diana of the Tchoupitoulas, ranging the magnolia groves with bow and quiver, came upon them in all the poetry of their hope-forsaken strength and beauty, and fell sick of love. We say not whether with Zephyr Grandissime or Epaminondas Fusilier; that, for the time being, was her secret. The two captives were made guests. Listening Crane rejoiced in them as representatives of the great gift-making race, and indulged himself in a dream of pipe-smoking, orations, treaties, presents and alliances, finding its climax in the marriage of his virgin queen to the king of France, and unvary- ingly tending to the swiftly increasing aggrandize- ment of Listening Crane. They sat down to bear's meat, sagamite and beans. The queen sat down 3° The Grandissimes with them, clothed in her entire wardrobe : vest of swan's skin, with facings of purple and green from the neck of the mallard ; petticoat of plaited hair, with embroideries of quills ; leggings of fawn-skin ; garters of wampum ; black and green serpent-skin moccasins, that rested on pelts of tiger-cat and buf- falo ; armlets of gars' scales, necklaces of bears' claws and alligators' teeth, plaited tresses, plumes of raven and flamingo, wing of the pink curlew, and odors of bay and sassafras. Young men danced be- fore them, blowing upon reeds, hooting, yelling, rattling beans in gourds and touching hands and feet. One day was like another, and the nights were made brilliant with flambeau dances and processions. Some days later M. D'Iberville's canoe fleet, re- turning down the river, found and took from the shore the two men, whom they had given up for dead, and with them, by her own request, the abdi- cating queen, who left behind her a crowd of weep- ing and howling squaws and warriors. Three canoes that put off in their wake, at a word from her, turned back ; but one old man leaped into the water, swam after them a little way, and then unex- pectedly sank. It was that cautious wader but in- experienced swimmer, the Listening Crane. When the expedition reached Biloxi, there were two suitors for the hand of Agricola's great ances- tress. Neither of them was Zephyr Grandissime. (Ah ! the strong heads of those Grandissimes.) They threw dice for her. Demosthenes De Family Trees 3 1 Grapion — he who, tradition says, first hoisted the flag of France over the little fort — seemed to think he ought to have a chance, and being accorded it, cast an astonishingly high number ; but Epaminon- das cast a number higher by one (which Demos- thenes never could quite understand), and got a wife who had loved him from first sight. Thus, while the pilgrim fathers of the Mississippi Delta with Gallic recklessness were taking wives and moot-wives from the ill specimens of three races, arose, with the church's benediction, the royal house of the Fusiliers in Louisiana. But the true, main Grandissime stock, on which the Fusiliers did early, ever, and yet do, love to marry, has kept itself lily- white ever since France has loved lilies — as to marriage, that is ; as to less responsible entangle- ments, why, of course After a little, the disappointed Demosthenes, with due ecclesiastical sanction, also took a most excellent wife, from the first cargo of House of Correction girls. Her biography, too, is as short as Methuse- lah's, or shorter ; she died. Zephyr Grandissime married, still later, a lady of rank, a widow without children, sent from France to Biloxi under a lettre de cachet. Demosthenes De Grapion, himself an only son, left but one son, who also left but one. Yet they were prone to early marriages. So also were the Grandissimes, or, as the name is signed in all the old notarial papers, the Brahmin Mandarin de Grandissimes. That was one thing that kept their many-stranded family line so free 3 2 The Grandissimes from knots and kinks. Once the leisurely Zephyr gave them a start, generation followed generation with a rapidity that kept the competing De Grapions incessantly exasperated, and new-made Grandissime fathers continually throwing themselves into the fond arms and upon the proud necks of congratula- tory grandsires. Verily it seemed as though their family tree was a fig-tree ; you could not look for blossoms on it, but there, instead, was the fruit full of seed. And with all their speed they were for the most part fine of stature, strong of limb and fair of face. The old nobility of their stock, including particularly the unnamed blood of her of the lettre de cachet, showed forth in a gracefulness of carriage, that almost identified a De Grandissime wherever you saw him, and in a transparency of flesh and classic beauty of feature, that made their daughters extra-marriageable in a land and day which was bearing a wide reproach for a male celibacy not of the pious sort. In a flock of Grandissimes might always be seen a Fusilier or two ; fierce-eyed, strong-beaked, dark, heavy-taloned birds, who, if they could not sing, were of rich plumage, and could talk, and bite, and strike, and keep up a ruffled crest and a self-exalt- ing bad humor. They early learned one favorite cry, with which they greeted all strangers, crying the louder the more the endeavor was made to appease them : " Invaders ! Invaders ! " There was a real pathos in the contrast offered to this family line by that other which sprang up, as Family Trees 33 slenderly as a stalk of wild oats, from the loins of Demosthenes De Grapion. A lone son following a lone son, and he another — it was sad to contem- plate, in that colonial beginning of days, three gen- erations of good, Gallic blood tripping jocundly along in attenuated Indian file. It made it no less pathetic to see that they were brilliant, gallant, much-loved, early epauletted fellows, who did not let twenty-one catch them without wives sealed with the authentic wedding kiss, nor allow twenty-two to find them without an heir. But they had a sad apt- ness for dying young. It was altogether supposable that they would have spread out broadly in the land; but they were such inveterate duelists, such brave Indian-fighters, such adventurous swamp-rangers, and such lively free-livers, that, however numer- ously their half-kin may have been scattered about in an unacknowledged way, the avowed name of De Grapion had become less and less frequent in lists where leading citizens subscribed their signa- tures, and was not to be seen in the list of managers of the late ball. It is not at all certain that so hot a blood would not have boiled away entirely before the night of the bal masque, but for an event which led to the union of that blood with a stream equally clear and ruddy, but of a milder vintage. This event fell out some fifty-two years after that cast of the dice which made the princess Lufki-Humma the mother of all the Fusiliers and of none of the De Grapions. Clotilde, the Casket-Girl, the little maid who would 3 34 The Grandissimes not marry, was one of an heroic sort, worth — the De Grapions maintained — whole swampfuls of Indian queens. And yet the portrait of this great ancestress, which served as a pattern to one who, at the ball, personated the long-deceased heroine en masque, is hopelessly lost in some garret. Those Creoles have such a shocking way of filing their family relics and records in rat-holes. One fact alone remains to be stated : that the De Grapions, try to spurn it as they would, never could quite suppress a hard feeling in the face of the record, that from the two young men, who, when lost in the horrors of Louisiana's swamps, had been esteemed as good as dead, and particularly from him who married at his leisure, — from Zephyr de Grandissime, — sprang there so many as the sands of the Mississippi innumerable. CHAPTER V A MAIDEN WHO WILL NOT MARRY Midway between the times of Lufki-Humma and those of her proud descendant, Agricola Fusilier, fifty-two years lying on either side, were the days of Pierre Rigaut, the magnificent, the " Grand Mar- quis," the Governor, De Vaudreuil. He was the Solomon of Louisiana. For splendor, however, not for wisdom. Those were the gala days of license, extravagance and pomp. He made paper A Maiden who will not Marry 35 monev to be as the leaves of the forest for multi- tude ; it was nothing accounted of in the days of the Grand Marquis. For Louis Quinze was king. Clotilde, orphan of a murdered Huguenot, was one of sixty, the last royal allotment to Louisiana, of imported wives. The king's agents had inveigled her away from France with fair stories : " They will give you a quiet home with some lady of the colony. Have to marry? — not unless it pleases you. The king himself pays your passage and gives you a casket of clothes. Think of that these times, fillette ; and passage free, withal, to — the garden of Eden, as you may call it — what more, say you, can a poor girl want ? Without doubt, too, like a model colonist, you will accept a good husband and have a great many beautiful children, who will say with pride, 'Me, I am no House-of-Correction-girl stock; my mother' — or 'grandmother,' as the case may be — ' was 2.fille a la cassette ! ' " The sixty were landed in New Orleans and given into the care of the Ursuline nuns ; and, before many days had elapsed, fifty-nine soldiers of the king were well wived and ready to settle upon their riparian land-grants. The residuum in the nuns' hands was one stiff-necked little heretic, named, in part, Clotilde. Thev bore with her for sixty days, and then complained to the Grand Marquis. But the Grand Marquis, with all his pomp, was gracious and kind-hearted, and loved his ease almost as much as his marchioness loved money. He bade them try her another month. Thev did so, and 36 The Grandissimes then returned with her ; she would neither marry nor pray to Mary. Here is the way they talked in New Orleans in those days. If you care to understand why Louis- iana has grown up so out of joint, note the tone of those who governed her in the middle of the last century : " What, my child," the Grand Marquis said, " you a fille a la cassette ? France, for shame ! Come here by my side. Will you take a little advice from an old soldier? It is in one word — submit. Whatever is inevitable, submit to it. If you want to live easy and sleep easy, do as other people do — submit. Consider submission in the present case ; how easy, how comfortable, and how little it amounts to ! A little hearing of mass, a little telling of beads, a little crossing of one's self — what is that? One need not believe in them. Don't shake your head. Take my example ; look at me ; all these things go in at this ear and out at this. Do king or clergy trouble me ? Not at all. For how does the king in these matters of religion ? I shall not even tell you, he is such a bad boy. Do you not know that all the noblesse, and all the savants, and especially all the archbishops and cardinals, — all, in a word, but such silly little chicks as yourself, — have found out that this religious business is a joke ? Actually a joke, every whit ; except, to be sure, this heresy phase ; that is a joke they cannot take. Now, I wish you well, pretty child ; so if you — eh ? — truly, my pet, I fear we shall have to A Maiden who will not Marry 37 call you unreasonable. Stop ; they can spare me here a moment; I will take you to the Marquise: she is in the next room. * * * Behold," said he, as he entered the presence of his marchioness, " the little maid who will not marry ! " The Marquise was as cold and hard-hearted as the Marquis was loose and kind ; but we need not recount the slow tortures of the fille a la cassette s second verbal temptation. The colony had to have soldiers, she was given to understand, and the soldiers must have wives. " Why, I am a soldier's wife, myself!" said the gorgeously attired lady, laying her hand upon the governor-general's epau- let. She explained, further, that he was rather soft- hearted, while she was a business woman ; also that the royal commissary's rolls did not comprehend such a thing as a spinster, and — incidentally — that living by principle was rather out of fashion in the province just then. After she had offered much torment of this sort, a definite notion seemed to take her ; she turned her lord by a touch of the elbow, and exchanged two or three business-like whispers with him at a window overlooking the Levee. " Fillette," she said, returning, "you are going to live on the sea-coast. I am sending an aged lady there to gather the wax of the wild myrtle. This good soldier of mine buys it for our king at twelve livres the pound. Do you not know that women can make money ? The place is not safe ; but there are no safe places in Louisiana. There are 2 8 The Grandissimes no nuns to trouble you there; only a few Indians and soldiers. You and Madame will live together, quite to yourselves, and can pray as you like." "And not marry a soldier," said the Grand Marquis. " No," said the lady, " not if you can gather enough myrtle-berries to afford me a profit and you a living." It was some thirty leagues or more eastward to the country of the Biloxis, a beautiful land of low, evergreen hills looking out across the pine-covered sand-keys of Mississippi Sound to the Gulf of Mexico. The northern shore of Biloxi Bay was rich in candleberry-myrtle. In Clotilde's day, though Biloxi was no longer the capital of the Mississippi Valley, the fort which D'Iberville had built in 1699, and the first timber of which is said to have been lifted by Zephyr Grandissime at one end and Epaminondas Fusilier at the other, was still there, making brave against the possible advent of corsairs, with a few old culverines and one wooden mortar. And did the orphan, in despite of Indians and soldiers and wilderness, settle down here and make a moderate fortune ? Alas, she never gathered a berry! When she — with the aged lady, her ap- pointed companion in exile, the young commandant of the fort, in whose pinnace they had come, and two or three French sailors and Canadians — stepped out upon the white sand of Biloxi beach, she was bound with invisible fetters hand and foot, A Maiden who will not Marry 39 by that Olympian rogue of a boy, who likes no better prey than a little maiden who thinks she will never marry. The officer's name was De Grapion — Georges De Grapion. The Marquis gave him a choice grant of land on that part of the Mississippi river " coast " known as the Cannes Brulees. " Of course you know where Cannes Brulees is, don't you ? " asked Doctor Keene of Joseph Frowenfeld. " Yes," said Joseph, with a twinge of reminis- cence that recalled the study of Louisiana on paper with his father and sisters. There Georges De Grapion settled, with the laudable determination to make a fresh start against the mortifyingly numerous Grandissimes. "My father's policy was every way bad," he said to his spouse ; " it is useless, and probably wrong, this trying to thin them out by duels ; we will try another plan. Thank you," he added, as she handed his coat back to him, with the shoulder- straps cut off. In pursuance of the new plan, Madame De Grapion, — the precious little heroine! — before the myrtles offered another crop of ber- ries, bore him a boy not much smaller (saith tradi- tion) than herself. Only one thing qualified the father's elation. On that very day Numa Grandissime (Brahmin- Mandarin de Grandissime), a mere child, received from Governor de Vaudreuil a cadetship. 4o The Grandissimes " Never mind, Messieurs Grandissime, go on with your tricks ; we shall see ! Ha ! we shall see ! " " We shall see what ? " asked a remote relative of that family. " Will Monsieur be so good as to explain himself? " Bang ! bang ! Alas, Madame De Grapion ! It may be recorded that no affair of honor in Louisiana ever left a braver little widow. When Joseph and his doctor pretended to play chess together, but little more than a half-century had elapsed since the fille a la cassette stood before the Grand Marquis and refused to wed. Yet she had been long gone into the skies, leaving a worthy example behind her in twenty years of beautiful widowhood. Her son, the heir and resident of the plantation at Cannes Brulees, at the age of — they do say — eighteen, had married a blithe and pretty lady of Franco-Spanish extraction, and, after a fair length of life divided between campaigning under the brilliant young Galvez and raising unremunera- tive indigo crops, had lately lain down to sleep, leaving only two descendants — females — how shall we describe them ? — a Monk and a Fille a la Cassette. It was very hard to have to go leaving his family name snuffed out and certain Grandis- sime-ward grievances burning. " There are so many Grandissimes," said the weary-eyed Frowenfeld, " I cannot distinguish be- tween — I can scarcely count them." Lost Opportunities 4 1 "Well, now," said the doctor, "let me tell you, don't try. Thev can't do it themselves. Take them in the mass — as you would shrimps." CHAPTER VI LOST OPPORTUNITIES The little doctor tipped his chair back against the wall, drew up his knees, and laughed whimper- ingly in his freckled hands. " I had to do some prodigious lying at that ball. I did n't dare let the De Grapion ladies know they were in company with a Grandissime." " I thought you said their name was Nancanou." " Well, certainly — De Grapion-Nancanou. You see, that is one of their charms : one is a widow, the other is her daughter, and both as young and beautiful as Hebe. Ask Honore Grandissime ; he has seen the little widow ; but then he don't know who she is. He will not ask me, and I will not tell him. Oh, yes ; it is about eighteen years now since old De Grapion — elegant, high-stepping old fellow — married her, then only sixteen years of age, to young Nancanou, an indigo-planter on the Fausse Riviere — the old bend, you know, behind Pointe Coupee. The young couple went there to live. I have been told they had one of the prettiest places in Louisiana. He was a man of cultivated tastes, educated in Paris, spoke English, 42 The Grandissimes was handsome (convivial, of course), and of per- fectly pure blood. But there was one thing old De Grapion overlooked : he and his son-in-law were the last of their names. In Louisiana a man needs kinsfolk. He ought to have married his daughter into a strong house. They say that Numa Grandissime (Honore's father) and he had patched up a peace between the two families that included even old Agricola, and that he could have married her to a Grandissime. However, he is supposed to have known what he was about. " A matter of business called young Nancanou to New Orleans. He had no friends here ; he was a Creole, but what part of his life had not been spent on his plantation he had passed in Europe. He could not leave his young girl of a wife alone in that exiled sort of plantation life, so he brought her and the child (a girl) down with him as far as to her father's place, left them there, and came on to the city alone. " Now, what does the old man do but give him a letter of introduction to old Agricole Fusilier ! (His name is Agricola, but we shorten it to Agri- cole.) It seems that old De Grapion and Agricole had had the indiscretion to scrape up a mutually complimentary correspondence. And to Agricole the young man went. " They became intimate at once, drank together, danced with the quadroons together, and got into as much mischief in three days as I ever did in a fortnight. So affairs went on until by and by they Lost Opportunities 43 were gambling together. One night they were at the Piety Club, playing hard, and the planter lost his last quarti. He became desperate, and did a thing I have known more than one planter to do : wrote his pledge for every arpent of his land and every slave on it, and staked that. Agricole re- fused to play. ' You shall play,' said Nancanou, and when the game was ended he said : ' Monsieur Agricola Fusilier, you cheated.' You see ? Just as I have frequently been tempted to remark to my friend, Mr. Frowenfeld. " But, Frowenfeld, you must know, withal the Creoles are such gamblers, they never cheat ; they play absolutely fair. So Agricole had to challenge the planter. He could not be blamed for that ; there was no choice — oh, now, Frowenfeld, keep quiet ! I tell you there was no choice. And the fellow was no coward. He sent Agricole a clear title to the real estate and slaves, — lacking only the wife's signature, — accepted the challenge and fell dead at the first fire. " Stop, now, and let me finish. Agricole sat down and wrote to the widow that he did not wish to deprive her of her home, and that if she would state in writing her belief that the stakes had been won fairly, he would give back the whole estate, slaves and all ; but that if she would not, he should feel compelled to retain it in vindication of his honor. Now was n't that drawing a fine point ? " The doctor laughed according to his habit, with his face down in his hands. " You see, he wanted to 44 The Grandissimes stand before all creation — the Creator did not make so much difference — in the most exquisitely proper light; so he puts the laws of humanity under his feet, and anoints himself from head to foot with Creole punctilio." " Did she sign the paper ? " asked Joseph. " She ? Wait till you know her ! No, indeed ; she had the true scorn. She and her father sent down another and a better title. Creole-like, they managed to bestir themselves to that extent and there they stopped. " And the airs with which they did it ! They kept all their rage to themselves, and sent the polite word, that they were not acquainted with the merits of the case, that they were not disposed to make the long and arduous trip to the city and back, and that if M. Fusilier de Grandissime thought he could find any pleasure or profit in owning the place, he was welcome ; that the widow of his late friend was not disposed to live on it, but would remain with her father at the paternal home at Cannes Brulees. " Did you ever hear of a more perfect specimen of Creole pride? That is the way with all of them. Show me any Creole, or any number of Creoles, in any sort of contest, and right down at the foun- dation of it all, I will find you this same prepos- terous, apathetic, fantastic, suicidal pride. It is as lethargic and ferocious as an alligator. That is why the Creole almost always is (or thinks he is) on the defensive. See these De Grapions* haughty Lost Opportunities 45 good manners to old Agricole ; yet there was n't a Grandissime in Louisiana who could have set foot on the De Grapion lands but at the risk of his life. " But I will finish the story : and here is the really sad part. Not many months ago old De Grapion — ' old,' said I ; they don't grow old ; I call him old — a few months ago he died. He must have left everything smothered in debt; for, like his race, he had stuck to indigo because his father planted it, and it is a crop that has lost money steadily for years and years. His daughter and granddaughter were left like babes in the wood ; and, to crown their disasters, have now made the grave mistake of coming to the city, where they find they have n't a friend — not one, sir ! They called me in to prescribe for a trivial indisposition, shortly after their arrival ; and I tell you, Frowen- feld, it made me shiver to see two such beautiful women in such a town as this without a male pro- tector, and even" — the doctor lowered his voice — " without adequate support. The mother says they are perfectly comfortable ; tells the old couple so who took them to the ball, and whose little girl is their embroidery scholar ; but you cannot believe a Creole on that subject, and I don't believe her. Would you like to make their acquaintance ? " Frowenfeld hesitated, disliking to say no to his friend, and then shook his head. " After a while — at least not now, sir, if you please." 46 The Grandissimes The doctor made a gesture of disappointment. " Um-hura," he said grumly — "the only man in New Orleans I would honor with an invitation ! — but all right ; I '11 go alone." He laughed a little at himself, and left Frowen- feld, if ever he should desire it, to make the acquaint- ance of his pretty neighbors as best he could. CHAPTER VII WAS IT HONORE GRANDISSIME? A Creole gentleman, on horseback one morning with some practical object in view, — drainage, pos- sibly, — had got what he sought, — the evidence of his own eyes on certain points, — and now moved quietly across some old fields toward the town, where more absorbing interests awaited him in the Rue Toulouse ; for this Creole gentleman was a merchant, and because he would presently find him- self among the appointments and restraints of the counting-room, he heartily gave himself up, for the moment, to the surrounding influences of nature. It was late in November; but the air was mild and the grass and foliage green and dewy. Wild flowers bloomed plentifully and in all directions ; the bushes were hung, and often covered, with vines of sprightly green, sprinkled thickly with smart- looking little worthless berries, whose sparkling complacency the combined contempt of man, beast Was it Honore Grandissime ? 47 and bird could not dim. The call of the field-lark came continually out of the grass, where now and then could be seen his yellow breast ; the orchard oriole was executing his fantasias in every tree ; a covey of partridges ran across the path close under the horse's feet, and stopped to look back almost within reach of the riding-whip ; clouds of starlings, in their odd, irresolute way, rose from the high bul- rushes and settled again, without discernible cause ; little wandering companies of sparrows undulated from hedge to hedge ; a great rabbit-hawk sat alone in the top of a lofty pecan-tree ; that petted rowdy, the mocking-bird, dropped down into the path to offer fight to the horse, and, failing in that, flew up again and drove a crow into ignominious retirement beyond the plain ; from a place of flags and reeds a white crane shot upward, turned, and then, with the slow and stately beat peculiar to her wing, sped away until, against the tallest cypress of the distant forest, she became a tiny white speck on its black, and suddenly disappeared, like one flake of snow. The scene was altogether such as to fill any hearty soul with impulses of genial friendliness and gentle candor; such a scene as will sometimes prepare a man of the world, upon the least direct incentive, to throw open the windows of his private thought with a freedom which the atmosphere of no counting- room or drawing-room tends to induce. The young merchant — he was young — felt this. Moreover, the matter of business which had brought him out had responded to his inquiring eye with a 4-8 The Grandissimes somewhat golden radiance ; and your true man of business — he who has reached that elevated pitch of serene, good-natured reserve which is of the high art of his calling — is never so generous with his pennyworths of thought as when newly in posses- sion of some little secret worth many pounds. By and by the behavior of the horse indicated the near presence of a stranger; and the next moment the rider drew rein under an immense live- oak where there was a bit of paling about some graves, and raised his hat. " Good-morning, sir." But for the silent r's, his pronunciation was exact, yet evidently an acquired one. While he spoke his salutation in English, he was thinking in French : " Without doubt, this rather oversized, bareheaded, interrupted-looking convalescent who stands before me, wondering how I should know in what language to address him, is Joseph Frowenfeld, of whom Doctor Keene has had so much to say to me. A good face — unsophisti- cated, but intelligent, mettlesome and honest. He will make his mark ; it will probably be a white one ; I will subscribe to the adventure. " You will excuse me, sir ? " he asked after a pause, dismounting, and noticing, as he did so, that Frow- enfeld's knees showed recent contact with the turf; " I have, myself, some interest in two of these graves, sir, as I suppose — you will pardon my freedom — you have in the other four." He approached the old but newly whitened paling, which encircled the tree's trunk as well as Was it Honore Grandissime ? 49 the six graves about it. There was in his face and manner a sort of impersonal human kindness, well calculated to engage a diffident and sensitive stranger, standing in dread of gratuitous benevolence or pity. " Yes, sir," said the convalescent, and ceased ; but the other leaned against the palings in an atti- tude of attention, and he felt induced to add : " I have buried here my father, mother, and two sisters," — he had expected to continue in an unemotional tone ; but a deep respiration usurped the place of speech. He stooped quickly to pick up his hat, and, as he rose again and looked into his listener's face, the respectful, unobtrusive sympathy there expressed went directly to his heart. " Victims of the fever," said the Creole with great gravity. " How did that happen ? " As Frowenfeld, after a moment's hesitation, began to speak, the stranger let go the bridle of his horse and sat down upon the turf. Joseph appre- ciated the courtesy and sat down, too ; and thus the ice was broken. The immigrant told his story ; he was young — often younger than his years — and his listener several years his senior ; but the Creole, true to his blood, was able at any time to make himself as young as need be, and possessed the rare magic of drawing one's confidence without seeming to do more than merely pay attention. It followed that the story was told in full detail, including grateful acknowledgment of the goodness of an unknown friend, who had granted this burial-place on condi- 4 50 The Grandissimes tion that he should not be sought out for the pur- pose of thanking him. So a considerable time passed by, in which acquaintance grew with delightful rapidity. " What will you do now ? " asked the stranger, when a short silence had followed the conclusion of the story. " I hardly know. I am taken somewhat by sur- prise. I have not chosen a definite course in life — as yet. I have been a general student, but have not prepared myself for any profession ; I am not sure what I shall be." A certain energy in the immigrant's face half redeemed this childlike speech. Yet the Creole's lips, as he opened them to reply, betrayed amuse- ment ; so he hastened to say : " I appreciate your position, Mr. Frowenfeld, — excuse me, I believe you said that was your father's name. And yet," — the shadow of an amused smile lurked another instant about a corner of his mouth, — " if you would understand me kindly I would say, take care " What little blood the convalescent had rushed violently to his face, and the Creole added : " I do not insinuate you would willingly be idle. I think I know what you want. You want to make up your mind now what you will do, and at your leisure what you will be ; eh ? To be, it seems to me," he said in summing up, — "that to be is not so necessary as to do, eh ? or am I wrong ? " " No, sir," replied Joseph, still red, " I was feel- Was it Honore Grandissime ? 5 1 ing that just now. I will do the first thing that offers ; I can dig." The Creole shrugged and pouted. "And be called a dos brile — a ' burnt-back.' " " But " began the immigrant, with over- much warmth. The other interrupted him, shaking his head slowly and smiling as he spoke. " Mr. Frowenfeld, it is of no use to talk ; you may hold in contempt the Creole scorn of toil — just as I do, myself, but in theory, my-de'-seh, not too much in practice. You cannot afford to be entirely different from the community in which you live ; is that not so ? " " A friend of mine," said Frowenfeld, " has told me I must 'compromise.' " " You must get acclimated," responded the Creole ; " not in body only, that you have done ; but in mind — in taste — in conversation — and in convictions too, yes, ha, ha ! They all do it — all who come. They hold out a little while — a very little ; then they open their stores on Sunday, they import cargoes of Africans, they bribe the officials, they smuggle goods, they have colored house- keepers. My-de'-seh, the water must expect to take the shape of the bucket; eh?" " One need not be water ! " said the immigrant. "Ah!" said the Creole, with another amiable shrug, and a wave of his hand ; " certainly you do not suppose that is my advice — that those things have my approval." 5 2 The Grandissimes Must we repeat already that Frowenfeld was abnormally young ? " Why have they not your condemnation ? " cried he with an earnestness that made the Creole's horse drop the grass from his teeth and wheel half around. The answer came slowly and gently. " Mr. Frowenfeld, my habit is to buy cheap and sell at a profit. My condemnation ? My-de'-seh, there is no sa-a-ale for it ! it spoils the sale of other goods, my-de'-seh. It is not to condemn that you want; you want to suc-ceed. Ha, ha, ha! you see I am a merchant, eh ? My-de'-seh, can you afford not to succeed ? " The speaker had grown very much in earnest in the course of these few words, and as he asked the closing question, arose, arranged his horse's bridle and, with his elbow in the saddle, leaned his hand- some head on his equally beautiful hand. His whole appearance was a dazzling contradiction of the notion that a Creole is a person of mixed blood. " I think I can ! " replied the convalescent, with much spirit, rising with more haste than was good, and staggering a moment. The horseman laughed outright. " Your principle is the best, I cannot dispute that ; but whether you can act it out — reformers do not make money, you know." He examined his saddle-girth and began to tighten it. " One can condemn — too cautiously — by a kind of — elevated cowardice (I have that fault) ; but one can also condemn too rashly ; I remember when I did Was it Honore Grandissime ? 53 so. One of the occupants of those two graves you see yonder side by side — I think might have lived longer if I had not spoken so rashly for his rights. Did you ever hear of Bras-Coupe, Mr. Frowenfeld ? " " I have heard only the name." " Ah ! Mr. Frowenfeld, there was a bold man's chance to denounce wrong and oppression ! Why, that negro's death changed the whole channel of my convictions." The speaker had turned and thrown up his arm with frowning earnestness ; he dropped it and smiled at himself. " Do not mistake me for one of your new- fashioned Philadelphia ' negrophiles' ; I am a mer- chant, my-de'-seh, a good subject of His Catholic Majesty, a Creole of the Creoles, and so forth, and so forth. Come ! " He slapped the saddle. To have seen and heard them a little later as they moved toward the city, the Creole walking before the horse, and Frowenfeld sitting in the saddle, you might have supposed them old acquaintances. Yet the immigrant was wondering who his com- panion might be. He had not introduced himself — seemed to think that even an immigrant might know his name without asking. Was it Honore Grandissime? Joseph was tempted to guess so; but the initials inscribed on the silver-mounted pommel of the fine old Spanish saddle did not bear out that conjecture. 54 The Grandissimes The stranger talked freely. The sun's rays seemed to set all the sweetness in him a-working, and his pleasant worldly wisdom foamed up and out like fermenting honey. By and by the way led through a broad, grassy lane where the path turned alternately to right and left among some wild acacias. The Creole waved his hand toward one of them and said : " Now, Mr. Frowenfeld, you see ? one man walks where he sees another's track ; that is what makes a path ; but you want a man, instead of passing around this prickly bush, to lay hold of it with his naked hands and pull it up by the roots." " But a man armed with the truth is far from being barehanded," replied the convalescent, and they went on, more and more interested at every step, — one in this very raw imported material for an excellent man, the other in so striking an expo- nent of a unique land and people. They came at length to the crossing of two streets, and the Creole, pausing in his speech, laid his hand upon the bridle. Frowenfeld dismounted. " Do we part here? " asked the Creole. " Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I hope to meet you soon again." " Indeed, I thank you, sir," said Joseph, " and I hope we shall, although — " The Creole paused with a foot in the stirrup and interrupted him with a playful gesture ; then as the horse stirred, he mounted and drew in the rein. " I know ; you want to say you cannot accept my Signed — Honore Grandissime 55 philosophy and I cannot appreciate yours ; but I appreciate it more than you think, my-de'-seh." The convalescent's smile showed much fatigue. The Creole extended his hand ; the immigrant seized it, wished to ask his name, but did not ; and the next moment he was gone. The convalescent walked meditatively toward his quarters, with a faint feeling of having been found asleep on duty and awakened by a passing stranger. It was an unpleasant feeling, and he caught himself more than once shaking his head. He stopped, at length, and looked back ; but the Creole was long since out of sight. The mortified self-accuser little knew how very similar a feeling that vanished person was carrying away with him. He turned and re- sumed his walk, wondering who Monsieur might be, and a little impatient with himself that he had not asked. " It is Honore Grandissime ; it must be he ! " he said. Yet see how soon he felt obliged to change his mind. CHAPTER VIII SIGNED HONORE GRANDISSIME On the afternoon of the same day, having decided what he would " do," he started out in search of new quarters. He found nothing then, but next morning came upon a small, single-story building 56 The Grandissimes in the rue Royale, — corner of Conti, — which he thought would suit his plans. There were a door and show-window in the rue Royale, two doors in the intersecting street, and a small apartment in the rear which would answer for sleeping, eating, and studying purposes, and which connected with the front apartment by a door in the left-hand corner. This connection he would partially con- ceal by a prescription-desk. A counter would run lengthwise toward the rue Royale, along the wall opposite the side-doors. Such was the spot that soon became known as " Frowenfeld's Corner." The notice " A Louer " directed him to inquire at numero — rue Conde. Here he was ushered through the wicket of a forte cochere into a broad, paved corridor, and up a stair into a large, cool room, and into the presence of a man who seemed, in some respects, the most remarkable figure he had yet seen in this little city of strange people. A strong, clear, olive complexion ; features that were faultless (unless a woman-like delicacy, that was yet not effeminate, was a fault) ; hair en queue, the handsomer for its premature streakings of gray ; a tall, well knit form, attired in cloth, linen and leather of the utmost fineness ; manners Castilian, with a gravity almost oriental, — made him one of those rare masculine figures which, on the public prome- nade, men look back at and ladies inquire about. Now, who might this be ? The rent poster had given no name. Even the incurious Frowenfeld would fain guess a little. For a man to be just of Signed — Honore Grandissime 57 this sort, it seemed plain that he must live in an isolated ease upon the unceasing droppings of cou- pons, rents, and like receivables. Such was the immigrant's first conjecture ; and, as with slow, scant questions and answers they made their bargain, every new glance strengthened it ; he was evidently a rentier. What, then, was his astonishment when Monsieur bent down and made himself Frowenfeld's landlord, by writing what the universal mind es- teemed the synonym of enterprise and activity — the name of Honore Grandissime. The landlord did not see, or ignored, his tenant's glance of sur- prise, and the tenant asked no questions. We may add here an incident which seemed, when it took place, as unimportant as a single fact well could be. The little sum that Frowenfeld had inherited from his father had been sadly depleted by the expenses of four funerals ; yet he was still able to pay a month's rent in advance, to supply his shop with a scant stock of drugs, to purchase a celestial globe and some scientific apparatus, and to buy a dinner or two of sausages and crackers; but after this there was no necessity of hiding his purse. His landlord early contracted a fondness for drop- ping in upon him, and conversing with him, as best the few and labored English phrases at his command would allow. Frowenfeld soon noticed that he never entered the shop unless its proprietor was alone, never sat down, and always, with the same 58 The Grandissimes perfection of dignity that characterized ail his move- ments, departed immediately upon the arrival of any third person. One day, when the landlord was making one of these standing calls, — he always stood beside a high glass case, on the side of the shop opposite the counter, — he noticed in Joseph's hand a sprig of basil, and spoke of it. " You ligue ? " The tenant did not understand. "You — find — dad — nize ? " Frowenfeld replied that it had been left by the oversight of a customer, and expressed a liking for its odor. "I sand you," said the landlord, — a speech whose meaning Frowenfeld was not sure of until the next morning, when a small, nearly naked black boy, who could not speak a word of English, brought to the apothecary a luxuriant bunch of this basil, growing in a rough box. CHAPTER IX ILLUSTRATING THE TRACTIVE POWER OF BASIL On the twenty-fourth day of December, 1803, at two o'clock, p. m., the thermometer standing at 79, hygrometer 17, barometer 29.880, sky partly clouded, wind west, light, the apothecary of the rue Royale, now something more than a month estab- lished in his calling, might have been seen standing Illustrating the Tractive Power of Basil 59 behind his counter and beginning to show embarrass- ment in the presence of a lady, who, since she had got her prescription filled and had paid for it, ought in the conventional course of things to have hurried out, followed by the pathetically ugly black woman who tarried at the door as her attendant ; for to be in an apothecary's shop at all was unconventional. She was heavily veiled; but the sparkle of her eyes, which no multiplication of veils could quite extin- guish, her symmetrical and well-fitted figure, just escaping smallness, her grace of movement, and a soft, joyous voice, had several days before led Frowenfeld to the confident conclusion that she was young and beautiful. For this was now the third time she had come to buy ; and, though the purchases were unaccount- ably trivial, the purchaser seemed not so. On the two previous occasions she had been accompanied by a slender girl, somewhat taller than she, veiled also, of graver movement, a bearing that seemed to Joseph almost too regal, and a discernible un- willingness to enter or tarry. There seemed a cer- tain family resemblance between her voice and that of the other, which proclaimed them — he incau- tiously assumed — sisters. This time, as we see, the smaller, and probably elder, came alone. She still held in her hand the small silver which Frowenfeld had given her in change, and sighed after the laugh they had just enjoyed together over a slip in her English. A very grateful sip of sweet the laugh was to the all but friendless apothecary, 60 The Grandissimes and the embarrassment that rushed in after it may have arisen in part from a conscious casting about in his mind for something — anything — that might prolong her stay an instant. He opened his lips to speak ; but she was quicker than he, and said, in a stealthy way that seemed oddly unnecessary : " You 'ave some basilic ? " She accompanied her words with a little peeping movement, directing his attention, through the open door, to his box of basil, on the floor in the rear room. Frowenfeld stepped back to it, cut half the bunch and returned, with the bold intention of making her a present of it ; but as he hastened back to the spot he had left, he was astonished to see the lady disappearing from his farthest front door, followed by her negress. " Did she change her mind, or did she misunder- stand me?" he asked himself; and, in the hope that she might return for the basil, he put it in water in his back room. The day being, as the figures have already shown, an unusually mild one, even for a Louisiana December, and the finger of the clock drawing by and by toward the last hour of sunlight, some half dozen of Frowenfeld's townsmen had gathered, inside and out, some standing, some sitting, about his front door, and all discussing the popular topics of the day. For it might have been anticipated that, in a city where so very little English was spoken and no newspaper published except that Illustrating the Tractive Power of Basil 6 i beneficiary of eighty subscribers, the " Moniteur de la Louisiane," the apothecary's shop in the rue Royale would be the rendezvous for a select com- pany of English-speaking gentlemen, with a smart majority of physicians. The Cession had become an accomplished fact. With due drum-beatings and act-reading, flag-rais- ing, cannonading and galloping of aides-de-camp, Nouvelle Orleans had become New Orleans, and Louisiane was Louisiana. This afternoon, the first week of American jurisdiction was only something over half gone, and the main topic of public debate was still the Cession. Was it genuine ? and, if so, would it stand ? " Mark my words," said one, " the British flag will be floating over this town within ninety days ' " and he went on whittling the back of his chair. From this main question, the conversation branched out to the subject of land titles. Would that great majority of Spanish titles, derived from the concessions of post-commandants and others of minor authority, hold good ? " I suppose you know what thinks about it?" " No." " Well, he has quietly purchased the grant made by Carondelet to the Marquis of , thirty thou- sand acres, and now says the grant is two hundred and thirty thousand. That is one style of men Governor Claiborne is going to have on his hands. The town will presently be as full of them as my 62 The Grandissimes pocket is of tobacco crumbs, — every one of them with a Spanish grant as long as Clark's ropewalk and made up since the rumor of the Cession." " I hear that some of Honore Grandissime's titles are likely to turn out bad, — some of the old Brah- min properties and some of the Mandarin lands." " Fudge ! " said Dr. Keene. There was also the subject of rotation in office. Would this provisional governor-general himself be able to stand fast? Had not a man better tempo- rize a while, and see what Ex-Governor-general Casa Calvo and Trudeau were going to do ? Would not men who sacrificed old prejudices, braved the pop- ular contumely, and came forward and gave in their allegiance to the President's appointee, have to take the chances of losing their official positions at last ? Men like Camille Brahmin, for instance, or Charlie Mandarin : suppose Spain or France should get the province back, then where would they be? " One of the things I pity most in this vain world," drawled Doctor Keene, " is a hive of patriots who don't know where to swarm." The apothecary was drawn into the discussion — at least he thought he was. Inexperience is apt to think that Truth will be knocked down and mur- dered unless she comes to the rescue. Somehow, Frowenfeld's really excellent arguments seemed to give out more heat than light. They were merci- less ; their principles were not only lofty to dizzi- ness, but precipitous, and their heights unoccupied, and — to the common sight — unattainable. In Illustrating the Tractive Power of Basil 63 consequence, they provoked hostility and even resentment. With the kindest, the most honest, and even the most modest, intentions, he found himself — to his bewilderment and surprise — sniffed at by the ungenerous, frowned upon by the impa- tient, and smiled down by the good-natured in a manner that brought sudden blushes of exasperation to his face, and often made him ashamed to find him- self going over these sham battles again in much savageness of spirit, when alone with his books ; or, in moments of weakness, casting about for such un- worthy weapons as irony and satire. In the present debate, he had just provoked a sneer that made his blood leap and his friends laugh, when Doctor Keene, suddenly rising and beckoning across the street, exclaimed : "Oh! Agricole ! Agricole ! venez ici ; we want you." A murmur of vexed protest arose from two or three. " He *s coming," said the whittler, who had also beckoned. " Good evening, Citizen Fusilier," said Doctor Keene. " Citizen Fusilier, allow me to present my friend, Professor Frowenfeld — yes, you are a pro- fessor — yes, you are. He is one of your sort, Citizen Fusilier, a man of thorough scientific edu- cation. I believe on my soul, sir, he knows nearly as much as you do ! " The person who confronted the apothecary was a large, heavily built, but well-molded and vigorous 64 The Grandissimes man, of whom one might say that he was adorned with old age. His brow was dark, and furrowed partly by time and partly by a persistent, ostentatious frown. His eyes were large, black, and bold, and the gray locks above them curled short and harsh like the front of a bull. His nose was fine and strong, and if there was any deficiency in mouth or chin, it was hidden by a beard that swept down over his broad breast like the beard of a prophet. In his dress, which was noticeably soiled, the fash- ions of three decades were hinted at ; he seemed to have donned whatever he thought his friends would most have liked him to leave off. " Professor," said the old man, extending some- thing like the paw of a lion, and giving Frowenfeld plenty of time to become thoroughly awed, "this is a pleasure as magnificent as unexpected ! A scien- tific man? — in Louisiana?" He looked around upon the doctors as upon a graduating class. " Professor, I am rejoiced ! " He paused again, shaking the apothecary's hand with great ceremony. " I do assure you, sir, I dislike to relinquish your grasp. Do me the honor to allow me to become your friend ! I congratulate my down-trodden country on the acquisition of such a citizen ! I hope, sir, — at least I might have hoped, had not Louisiana just passed into the hands of the most clap-trap government in the universe, notwithstand- ing it pretends to be a republic, — I might have hoped that you had come among us to fasten the lie direct upon a late author, who writes of us Illustrating the Tractive Power of Basil 65 that ' the air of this region is deadly to the Muses.' " "He didn't say that?" asked one of the debaters, with pretended indignation. " He did, sir, after eating our bread ! " " And sucking our sugar-cane, too, no doubt ! " said the wag ; but the old man took no notice. Frowenfeld, naturally, was not anxious to reply, and was greatly relieved to be touched on the elbow by a child with a picayune in one hand and a tumbler in the other. He escaped behind the counter and gladly remained there. " Citizen Fusilier," asked one of the gossips, " what has the new government to do with the health of the Muses ? " " It introduces the English tongue," said the old man, scowling. " Oh, well," replied the questioner, " the Creoles will soon learn the language." "English is not a language, sir; it is a jargon! And when this young simpleton, Claiborne, attempts to cram it down the public windpipe in the courts, as I understand he intends, he will fail ! Hah ! sir, I know men in this city who would rather eat a dog than speak English ! / speak it, but I also speak Choctaw." "The new land titles will be in English." " They will spurn his rotten titles. And if he attempts to invalidate their old ones, why, let him do it! Napoleon Buonaparte" (Italian pronounci- ation) " will make good every arpent within the 5 66 The Grandissimes next two years. Think so ? I know it ! How ? H-I perceive it ! H-I hope the yellow fever may spare you to witness it." A sullen grunt from the circle showed the "citi- zen" that he had presumed too much upon the license commonly accorded his advanced age, and by way of a diversion he looked around for Frowenfeld to pour new flatteries upon. But Joseph, behind his counter, unaware of either the offense or the resent- ment, was blushing with pleasure before a visitor who had entered by the side door farthest from the company. " Gentlemen," said Agricola, " h-my dear friends, you must not expect an old Creole to like anything in comparison with la belle langue." " Which language do you call la belle ? " asked Doctor Keene, with pretended simplicity. The old man bent upon him a look of unspeak- able contempt, which nobody noticed. The gossips were one by one stealing a glance toward that which ever was, is and must be an irresistible lodestone to the eyes of all the sons of Adam, to wit, a chaste and graceful complement of — skirts. Then in a lower tone they resumed their desultory conversa- tion. It was the seeker after basil who stood before the counter, holding in her hand, with her purse, the heavy veil whose folds had before concealed her features. " Oo Dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " 67 CHAPTER X " OO DAD IS, 'SIEUR FROWENFEL ' ? " Whether the removal of the veil was because of the milder light of the evening, or the result of ac- cident, or of haste, or both, or whether, by reason of some exciting or absorbing course of thought, the wearer had withdrawn it unconsciously, was a matter that occupied the apothecary as little as did Agricola's continued harangue. As he looked upon the fair face through the light gauze which still overhung but not obscured it, he readily perceived, despite the sprightly smile, something like distress, and as she spoke this became still more evident in her hurried undertone. " 'Sieur Frowenfel', I want you to sell me doze basilic." As she slipped the rings of her purse apart her fingers trembled. " It is waiting for you," said Frowenfeld ; but the lady did not hear him ; she was giving her attention to the loud voice of Agricola saying in the course of discussion : " The Louisiana Creole is the noblest variety of enlightened man ! " " Oo dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " she asked, softly, but with an excited eve. " That is Mr. Agricola Fusilier," answered Joseph in the same tone, his heart leaping inexplicably as 68 The Grandissimes he met her glance. With an angry flush she looked quickly around, scrutinized the old man in an instan- taneous, thorough way, and then glanced back at the apothecary again, as if asking him to fulfil her request the quicker. He hesitated, in doubt as to her meaning. " Wrap it yonder," she almost whispered. He went, and in a moment returned, with the basil only partially hid in a paper covering. But the lady, muffled again in her manifold veil, had once more lost her eagerness for it ; at least, instead of taking it, she moved aside, offering room for a masculine figure just entering. She did not look to see who it might be — plenty of time to do that by accident, by and by. There she made a mistake ; for the new-comer, with a silent bow of thanks, declined the place made for him, moved across the shop, and occupied his eyes with the con- tents of the glass case, his back being turned to the lady and Frowenfeld. The apothecary recognized the Creole whom he had met under the live-oak. The lady put forth her hand suddenly to receive the package. As she took it and turned to depart, another small hand was laid upon it and it was returned to the counter. Something was said in a low-pitched undertone, and the two sisters — if Frowenfeld's guess was right — confronted each other. For a single instant only they stood so ; an earnest and hurried murmur of French words passed between them, and they turned together, bowed with great suavity, and were gone. " Oo Dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " 69 " The Cession is a mere temporary political manoeuvre ! " growled M. Fusilier. Frowenfeld's merchant friend came from his place of waiting, and spoke twice before he attracted the attention of the bewildered apothecary. "Good-day, Mr. Frowenfeld ; I have been told that " Joseph gazed after the two ladies crossing the street, and felt uncomfortable that the group of gossips did the same. So did the black attendant who glanced furtively back. " Good-day, Mr. Frowenfeld ; I " " Oh ! how do you do, sir ? " exclaimed the apothecary, with great pleasantness of face. It seemed the most natural thing that they should resume their late conversation just where they had left off, and that would certainly be pleasant. But the man of more experience showed an unrespon- sive expression, that was as if he remembered no conversation of any note. " I have been told that you might be able to re- place the glass in this thing out of your private stock." He presented a small, leather-covered case, evi- dently containing some optical instrument. " It will give me a pretext for going," he had said to himself, as he put it into his pocket in his count- ing-room. He was not going to let the apothecary know he had taken such a fancy to him. " I do not know," replied Frowenfeld, as he touched the spring of the case ; " I will see what I have." jo The Grandissimes He passed into the back room, more than willing to get out of sight till he might better collect himself. " I do not keep these things for sale," said he as he went. " Sir ? " asked the Creole, as if he had not under- stood, and followed through the open door. " Is this what that lady was getting ? " he asked, touching the remnant of the basil in the box. " Yes, sir," said the apothecary, with his face in the drawer of a table. "They had no carriage with them." The Creole spoke with his back turned, at the same time run- ning his eyes along a shelf of books. Frowenfeld made only the sound of rejecting bits of crystal and taking up others. " I do not know who they are," ventured the merchant. Joseph still gave no answer, but a moment after approached, with the instrument in his extended hand. " You had it ? I am glad," said the owner, re- ceiving it, but keeping one hand still on the books. Frowenfeld put up his materials. " Mr. Frowenfeld, are these your books ? I mean do you use these books?" " Yes, sir." The Creole stepped back to the door. " Agricola ! " " Quoi .'" " Vien ici." Citizen Fusilier entered, followed by a small " Oo Dad is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " 71 volley of retorts from those with whom he had been disputing, and who rose as he did. The stranger said something very sprightly in French, running the back of one finger down the rank of books, and a lively dialogue followed. "You must be a great scholar," said the un- known by and by, addressing the apothecary. " He is a professor of chimistry," said the old man. " I am nothing, as yet, but a student," said Joseph, as the three returned into the shop ; " cer- tainly not a scholar, and still less a professor." He spoke with a new quietness of manner that made the younger Creole turn upon him a pleasant look. " H-my young friend," said the patriarch, turn- ing toward Joseph with a tremendous frown, " when I, Agricola Fusilier, pronounce you a professor, you are a professor. Louisiana will not look to you for your credentials ; she will look to me ! " He stumbled upon some slight impediment under foot. There were times when it took but little to make Agricola stumble. Looking to see what it was, Joseph picked up a silken purse. There was a name embroidered on it. 72 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XI SUDDEN FLASHES OF LIGHT The day was nearly gone. The company that had been chatting at the front door, and which in warmer weather would have tarried until bed-time, had wandered off; however, by stepping toward the light the young merchant could decipher the letters on the purse. Citizen Fusilier drew out a pair of spectacles, looked over his junior's shoulder, read aloud, " Aurore De G. Nanca ," and uttered an imprecation. " Do not speak to me ! " he thundered ; " do not approach me ! she did it maliciously ! " " Sir ! " began Frowenfeld. But the old man uttered another tremendous malediction and hurried into the street and away. " Let him pass," said the other Creole calmly. " What is the matter with him ? " asked Frowen- feld. " He is getting old." The Creole extended the purse carelessly to the apothecary. " Has it any- thing inside ?" " But a single pistareen." " That is why she wanted the basilic, eh ? " " I do not understand you, sir." " Do you not know what she was going to do with it ? " " With the basil ? No sir." Sudden Flashes of Light 73 " May be she was going to make a little tisane, eh ? " said the Creole, forcing down a smile. But a portion of the smile would come when Frowenfeld answered, with unnecessary resentment : " She was going to make some proper use of it, which need not concern me." " Without doubt." The Creole quietly walked a step or two forward and back and looked idly into the glass case. " Is this young man in love with her ? " he asked him- self. He turned around. "Do you know those ladies, Mr. Frowenfeld ? Do you visit them at home ? " He drew out his porte-monnaie. " No, sir." " I will pay you for the repair of this instrument ; have you change for " " I will see," said the apothecary. As he spoke he laid the purse on a stool, till he should light his shop, and then went to his till without again taking it. The Creole sauntered across to the counter and nipped the herb which still lay there. " Mr. Frowenfeld, you know what some very excellent people do with this ? They rub it on the sill of the door to make the money come into the house." Joseph stopped aghast with the drawer half drawn. " Not persons of intelligence and " "All kinds. It is only some of the foolishness 74 The Grandissimes which they take from the slaves. Many of your best people consult the voudou horses." " Horses ? " " Priestesses, you might call them," explained the Creole, " like Momselle Marcelline or 'Zabeth Philosophe." " Witches ! " whispered Frowenfeld. " Oh no," said the other with a shrug ; " that is too hard a name ; say fortune-tellers. But Mr. Frowenfeld, I wish you to lend me your good offices. Just supposing the possi&'/ity that that lady may be in need of money, you know, and will send back or come back for the purse, you know, knowing that she most likely lost it here, I ask you the favor that you will not let her know I have filled it with gold. In fact, if she mentions my name " " To confess the truth, sir, I am not acquainted with your name." The Creole smiled a genuine surprise. " I thought you knew it." He laughed a little at himself. " We have nevertheless become very good friends — I believe ? Well, in fact then, Mr. Frowenfeld, you might say you do not know who put the money in." He extended his open palm with the purse hanging across it. Joseph was about to object to this statement, but the Creole, putting on an expression of anxious desire, said : " I mean, not by name. It is somewhat important to me, Mr. Frowenfeld, that that lady should not know my present action. If you want to do those two Sudden Flashes of Light 75 ladies a favor, you may rest assured the way to do it is to say you do not know who put this gold." The Creole in his earnestness slipped in his idiom. " You will excuse me if I do not tell you my name ; you can find it out at any time from Agricola. Ah ! I am glad she did not see me ! You must not tell anybody about this little event, eh ? " " No, sir," said Joseph, as he finally accepted the purse. " I shall say nothing to any one else, and only what I cannot avoid saying to the lady and her sister." "'Tis not her sister" responded the Creole, "'tis her daughter." The italics signify, not how the words were said, but how they sounded to Joseph. As if a dark lantern were suddenly turned full upon it, he saw the significance of Citizen Fusilier's transport. The fair strangers were the widow and daughter of the man whom Agricola had killed in duel — the ladies with whom Doctor Keene had desired to make him acquainted. "Well, good evening, Mr. Frowenfeld." The Creole extended his hand (his people are great hand-shakers). "Ah " and then, for the first time, he came to the true object of his visit. " The conversation we had some weeks ago, Mr. Frowen- feld, has started a train of thought in my mind " — he began to smile as if to convey the idea that Joseph would find the subject a trivial one — "which has almost brought me to the " A light footfall accompanied with the soft sweep 76 The Grandissimes of robes cut short his words. There had been two or three entrances and exits during the time the Creole had tarried, but he had not allowed them to disturb him. Now, however, he had no sooner turned and fixed his glance upon this last comer, than without so much as the invariable Creole leave- taking of " Well, good evening, sir," he hurried out. CHAPTER XII THE PHILOSOPHE The apothecary felt an inward nervous start as there advanced into the light of his hanging lamp and toward the spot where he had halted, just out- side the counter, a woman of the quadroon caste, of superb stature and poise, severely handsome features, clear, tawny skin and large, passionate black eyes. " Bon soi', Miche." [Monsieur.] A rather hard, yet not repellent smile showed her faultless teeth. Frowenfeld bowed. " Mo vien c'erc'er la bourse de Madame." She spoke the best French at her command, but it was not understood. The apothecary could only shake his head. "La bourse" she repeated, softly smiling, but with a scintillation of the eyes in resentment of his scrutiny. " La bourse," she reiterated. " Purse ? " " Qui, Miche." The Philosophe 77 " You are sent for it ? " " Oui, Miche." He drew it from his breast pocket and marked the sudden glisten of her eyes, reflecting the glisten of the gold in the silken mesh. " Oui, c est ca," said she, putting her hand out eagerly. " I am afraid to give you this to-night," said Joseph. " Oui," ventured she, dubiously, the lightning playing deep back in her eyes. " You might be robbed," said Frowenfeld. " It is very dangerous for you to be out alone. It will not be long, now, until gun-fire." (Eight o'clock p. m. — the gun to warn slaves to be indoors, under pain of arrest and imprisonment.) The object of this solicitude shook her head with a smile at its gratuitousness. The smile showed determination also. " Mo pas compren'," she said. "Tell the lady to send for it to-morrow." She smiled helplessly and somewhat vexedly, shrugged and again shook her head. As she did so she heard footsteps and voices in the door at her back. " C est ca," she said again with a hurried attempt at extreme amiability; " Dat it; oui;" and lifting her hand with some rapiditv made a sudden eager reach for the purse, but failed. " No ! " said Frowenfeld, indignantly. " Hello ! " said Charlie Keene amusedly, as he approached from the door. j 8 The Grandissimes The woman turned, and in one or two rapid sen- tences in the Creole dialect offered her explanation. " Give her the purse, Joe ; I will answer for its being all right." Frowenfeld handed it to her. She started to pass through the door in the rue Royale by which Doctor Keene had entered ; but on seeing on its threshold Agricola frowning upon her, she turned quickly with evident trepidation, and hurried out into the darkness of the other street. Agricola entered. Doctor Keene looked about the shop. " I tell you, Agricole, you did n't have it with you ; Frowenfeld, you have n't seen a big knotted walking-stick ? " Frowenfeld was sure no walking-stick had been left there. " Oh, yes, Frowenfeld," said Doctor Keene, with a little laugh, as the three sat down, " I 'd a'most as soon trust that woman as if she was white." The apothecary said nothing. " How free," said Agricola, beginning with a meditative gaze at the sky without, and ending with a philosopher's smile upon his two com- panions, — " how free we people are from prejudice against the negro ! " " The white people," said Frowenfeld, half abstractedly, half inquiringly. " H-my young friend, when we say, ' we people,' we always mean we white people. The non-men- tion of color always implies pure white ; and what- The Philosophe 79 ever is not pure white is to all intents and purposes pure black. When I say the ' whole community,' I mean the whole white portion ; when I speak of the ' undivided public sentiment,' I mean the sen- timent of the white population. What else could I mean ? Could you suppose, sir, the expression which you may have heard me use — ' my down- trodden country' — includes blacks and mulattoes ? What is that up yonder in the sky ? The moon. The new moon, or the old moon, or the moon in her third quarter, but always the moon ! Which part of it ? Why, the shining part — the white part, always and only ! Not that there is a prej- udice against the negro. By no means. Wherevei he can be of any service in a strictly menial capacity we kindly and generously tolerate his presence." Was the immigrant growing wise, or weak, that he remained silent ? Agricola rose as he concluded and said he would go home. Doctor Keene gave him his hand lazily, without rising. " Frowenfeld," he said, with a smile and in an undertone, as Agricola's footsteps died away, " don't vou know who that woman is ? " "No." " Well, I '11 tell you." He told him. On that lonely plantation at the Cannes Brulees, where Aurore Nancanou's childhood had been passed without brothers or sisters, there had been 80 The Grandissimes given her, according to the well-known custom of plantation life, a little quadroon slave-maid as her constant and only playmate. This maid began early to show herself in many ways remarkable. While yet a child she grew tall, lithe, agile ; her eyes were large and black, and rolled and sparkled if she but turned to answer to her name. Her pale yellow forehead, low and shapely, with the jet hair above it, the heavily pencilled eyebrows and long lashes below, the faint red tinge that blushed with a kind of cold passion through the clear yellow skin of the cheek, the fulness of the red, voluptuous lips and the roundness of her perfect neck, gave her, even at fourteen, a barbaric and magnetic beauty, that startled the beholder like an unexpected drawing out of a jewelled sword. Such a type could have sprung only from high Latin an- cestry on the one side and — we might venture — Jaloff African on the other. To these charms of person she added mental acuteness, conversational adroitness, concealed cunning, and noiseless but visible strength of will ; and to these, that rarest of gifts in one of her tincture, the purity of true womanhood. At fourteen a necessity which had been parleyed with for two years or more became imperative, and Aurore's maid was taken from her. Explanation is almost superfluous. Aurore was to become a lady and her playmate a lady's maid ; but not her maid, because the maid had become, of the two, the ruling spirit. It was a question of grave debate The Philosophe 81 in the mind of M. De Grapion what disposition to make of her. About this time the Grandissimes and De Grapions, through certain efforts of Honore's father (since dead) were making some feeble pre- tences of mutual good feeling, and one of those Kentuckian dealers in corn and tobacco whose flatboat fleets were always drifting down the Mississippi, becoming one day M. De Grapion's transient guest, accidentally mentioned a wish of Agricola Fusilier. Agricola, it appeared, had com- missioned him to buy the most beautiful lady's maid that in his extended journeyings he might be able to find ; he wanted to make her a gift to his niece, Honore's sister. The Kentuckian saw the demand met in Aurore's playmate. M. De Gra- pion would not sell her. (Trade with a Grandis- sime? Let them suspect he needed money?) No ; but he would ask Agricola to accept the services of the waiting-maid for, say, ten years. The Kentuckian accepted the proposition on the spot and it was by and by carried out. She was never recalled to the Cannes Brulees, but in subse- quent years received her freedom from her master, and in New Orleans becam ; Palmyre la Philosophe, as they say in the corrupt French of the old Creoles, or Palmyre Philosophe, noted for her taste and skill as a hair-dresser, for the efficiency of her spells and the sagacity of her divinations, but most of all for the chaste austerity with which she practised the less baleful rites of the voudous. 6 82 The Grandissimes " That 's the woman," said Doctor Keene, rising to go, as he concluded the narrative, — " that 's she, Palmyre Philosophe. Now you get a view of the vastness of Agricole's generosity ; he tolerates her even though she does not present herself in the ' strictly menial capacity.' Reason why — he 's afraid of her." Time passed, if that may be called time which we have to measure with a clock. The apothecary of the rue Royale found better ways of measure- ment. As quietly as a spider he was spinning in- formation into knowledge and knowledge into what is supposed to be wisdom ; whether it was or not we shall see. His unidentified merchant friend who had adjured him to become acclimated as " they all did " had also exhorted him to study the human mass of which he had become a unit; but whether that study, if pursued, was sweetening and ripening, or whether it was corrupting him, that friend did not come to see ; it was the busy time of year. Certainly so young a solitary, coming among a people whose conventionalities were so at variance with his own door-yard ethics, was in sad danger of being unduly — as we might say — Timonized. His acquaintances continued to be few in number. During this fermenting period he chronicled much wet and some cold weather. This may in part account for the uneventfulness of its passage ; events do not happen rapidly among the Creoles in bad weather. However, trade was good. A Call from the Rent-Spectre 83 But the weather cleared ; and when it was get- ting well on into the Creole spring and approach- ing the spring of the almanacs, something did occur that extended Frowenfeld's acquaintance without Doctor Keene's assistance. CHAPTER XIII A CALL FROM THE RENT-SPECTRE It is nearly noon of a balmy morning late in February. Aurore Nancanou and her daughter have only this moment ceased sewing, in the small front room of No. 19 rue Bienville. Number 19 is the right-hand half of a single-story, low-roofed tenement, washed with yellow ochre, which it shares generously with whoever leans against it. It sits as fast on the ground as a toad. There is a kitchen belonging to it somewhere among the weeds in the back yard, and besides this room where the ladies are, there is, directly behind it, a sleeping apart- ment. Somewhere back of this there is a little nook where in pleasant weather they eat. Their cook and housemaid is the plain person who at- tends them on the street. Her bedchamber is the kitchen and her bed the floor. The house's only other protector is a hound, the aim of whose life is to get thrust out of the ladies' apartments every fifteen minutes. Yet if you hastily picture to yourself a forlorn- 84 The Grandissimes looking establishment, you will be moving straight away from the fact. Neatness, order, excellence, are prevalent qualities in all the details of the main house's inward garniture. The furniture is old- fashioned, rich, French, imported. The carpets, if not new, are not cheap, either. Bits of crystal and silver, visible here and there, are as bright as they are antiquated ; and one or two portraits, and the picture of Our Lady of Many Sorrows, are pass- ably good productions. The brass work, of which there is much, is brilliantly burnished, and the front room is bright and cheery. At the street door of this room somebody has just knocked. Aurore has risen from her seat. The other still sits on a low chair with her hands and sewing dropped into her lap, looking up stead- fastly into her mother's face with a mingled expres- sion of fondness and dismayed expectation. Aurore hesitates beside her chair, desirous of resuming her seat, even lifts her sewing from it ; but tarries a moment, her alert suspense showing in her eyes. Her daughter still looks up into them. It is not strange that the dwellers round about dispute as to which is the fairer, nor that in the six months dur- ing which the two have occupied Number 19 the neighbors have reached no conclusion on this subject. If some young enthusiast compares the daughter — in her eighteenth year — to a bursting blush rosebud full of promise, some older one immedi- ately retorts that the other — in her thirty-fifth — is the red, red, full-blown, faultless joy of the gar- A Call from the Rent-Spectre 85 den. If one says the maiden has the dew of youth, — "But!" cry two or three mothers in a breath, " that other one, child, will never grow old. With her it will always be morning. That woman is going to last forever ; ha-a-a-a ! — even longer ! " There was one direction in which the widow evi- dently had the advantage ; you could see from the street or the opposite windows that she was a wise householder. On the day they moved into Num- ber 19 she had been seen to enter in advance of all her other movables, carrying into the emptv house a new broom, a looking-glass, and a silver coin. Every morning since, a little watching would have discovered her at the hour of sunrise sprinkling water from her side casement, and her opposite neighbors often had occasion to notice that, sitting at her sewing by the front window, she never pricked her finger but she quickly ran it up be- hind her ear, and then went on with her work. Would anybody but Joseph Frowenfeld ever have lived in and moved away from the two-story brick next them on the right and not have known of the existence of such a marvel ? " Ha ! " they said, " she knows how to keep off bad luck, that Madame yonder. And the younger one seems not to like it. Girls think themselves so smart these days." Ah, there was the knock again, right there on the street-door, as loud as if it had been given with a joint of sugar-cane ! The daughter's hand, which had just resumed 86 The Grandissimes the needle, stood still in mid-course with the white thread half-drawn. Aurore tiptoed slowly over the carpeted floor. There came a shuffling sound, and the corner of a folded white paper commenced appearing and disappearing under the door. She mounted a chair and peeped through that odd little jalousie which formerly was in almost all New Orleans street-doors ; but the missive had mean- time found its way across the sill, and she saw only the unpicturesque back of a departing errand-boy. But that was well. She had a pride, to maintain which — and a poverty, to conceal which — she felt to be necessary to her self-respect ; and this made her of necessity a trifle unsocial in her own castle. Do you suppose she was going to put on the face of having been born or married to this degraded condition of things ? Who knows ? — the knock might have been from 'Sieur Frowenfel' — ha, ha ! He might be just silly enough to call so early ; or it might have been from that polisson of a Grandissime, — which one did n't matter, they were all detestable, — coming to collect the rent. That was her original fear ; or, worse still, it might have been, had it been softer, the knock of some possible lady visitor. She had no intention of admitting any feminine eyes to detect this carefully covered up indigence. Besides, it was Monday. . There is no sense in trifling with bad luck. The reception of Monday callers is a source of misfortune never known to fail, save in rare cases when good luck has already been secured by smear- A Call from the Rent-Spectre 87 ing the front walk or the banquette with Venetian red. Before the daughter could dart up and disengage herself from her work her mother had pounced upon the paper. She was standing and reading, her rich black lashes curtaining their downcast eyes, her infant waist and round, close-fitted, childish arms harmonizing prettily with her mock frown of infantile perplexity, and her long, limp robe height- ening the grace of her posture, when the younger started from her seat with the air of determining not to be left at a disadvantage. But what is that on the dark eyelash ? With a sudden additional energy the daughter dashes the sewing and chair to right and left, bounds up, and in a moment has Aurore weeping in her embrace and has snatched the note from her hand. "Ah! maman! Ah! ma chere mere ! " The mother forced a laugh. She was not to be mothered by her daughter ; so she made a dash at Clotilde's uplifted hand to recover the note, which was unavailing. Immediately there arose in colo- nial French the loveliest of contentions, the issue of which was that the pair sat down side by side, like two sisters over one love-letter, and undertook to decipher the paper. It read as follows : "New Orleans, 20 Feb' re, 1804. " Madame Nancanou : I muss oblige to ass you for rent of that house whare you living, it is at number 19 Bienville street whare I do not received thos rent from you not since tree mons and I demand you this is mabe thirteen 88 The Grandissimes time. And I give to you notice of 19 das writen in Ang- lish as the new law requi. That witch the law make necessare only for 15 das, and when you not pay me those rent in 19 das till the tense of Marh I will rekes you to move out. That witch make me to be verry sorry. I have the honor to remain, Madam, " Your humble servant, "H. Grandissime. "per Z. F." There was a short French postscript on the opposite page signed only by M. Zenon Francois, explaining that he, who had allowed them in the past to address him as their landlord and by his name, was but the landlord's agent; that the land- lord was a far better-dressed man than he could afford to be ; that the writing opposite was a notice for them to quit the premises they had rented (not leased), or pay up ; that it gave the writer great pain to send it, although it was but the necessary legal form and he only an irresponsible drawer of an inadequate salary, with thirteen children to sup- port ; and that he implored them to tear off and burn up this postscript immediately they had read it. " Ah, the miserable ! " was all the comment made upon it as the two ladies addressed their energies to the previous English. They had never sus- pected him of being M. Grandissime. Their eyes dragged slowly and ineffectually along the lines to the signature. "H. Grandissime! Loog ad 'im ! " cried the A Call from the Rent-Spectre 89 widow, with a sudden short laugh, that brought the tears after it like a wind-gust in a rose-tree. She held the letter out before them as if she was lifting something alive by the back of the neck, and to intensify her scorn spoke in the hated tongue pre- scribed by the new courts. " Loog ad 'im ! dad ridge gen'leman 00 give so mudge money to de 'ozpill ! " " Bud, maman," said the daughter, laying her hand appeasingly upon her mother's knee, " ee do nod know 'ow we is poor." "Ah!" retorted Aurore, "par example! Non? Ee thingue we is ridge, eh ? Ligue his oncle, eh ? Ee thing so, too, eh ? " She cast upon her daugh- ter the look of burning scorn intended for Agricola Fusilier. " You wan' to tague the pard of dose Grandissime' ? " The daughter returned a look of agony. " No," she said, " bud a man wad godd some 'ouses to rend, muz ee nod boun' to ged 'is rend ? " " Boun' to ged — ah ! yez ee muz do 'is possible to ged 'is rend. Oh ! certain/Vf. Ee is ridge, bud ee need a lill money, bad, bad. Fo' w'at?" The excited speaker rose to her feet under a sudden inspiration. " Tenez, Mademoiselle!" She began to make great show of unfastening her dress. " Mais, comment ? " demanded the suffering daughter. " Yez ! " continued Aurore, keeping up the demonstration, " you wand 'im to 'ave 'is rend so bad ! An' I godd honely my cloze ; so you juz 90 The Grandissimes tague diz to you' fine gen'lemen, 'Sieur Honore Grandissime." " Ah-h-h-h ! " cried the martyr. " An' you is righd," persisted the tormentor, still unfastening; but the daughter's tears gushed forth, and the repentant tease threw herself upon her knees, drew her child's head into her bosom and wept afresh. Half an hour was passed in council; at the end of which they stood beneath their lofty mantel- shelf, each with a foot on a brazen fire-dog, and no conclusion reached. "Ah, my child!" — they had come to them- selves now and were speaking in their peculiar French — " if we had here in these hands but the tenth part of what your papa often played away in one night without once getting angry ! But we have not. Ah ! but your father was a fine fellow ; if he could have lived for you to know him ! So accomplished ! Ha, ha, ha ! I can never avoid laughing, when I remember him teaching me to speak English ; I used to enrage him so ! " The daughter brought the conversation back to the subject of discussion. There were nineteen days yet allowed them. God knows — by the ex- piration of that time they might be able to pay. With the two music scholars whom she then had and three more whom she had some hope to get, she made bold to say they could pay the rent. " Ah, Clotilde, my child," exclaimed Aurore, with sudden brightness, " you don't need a. mask A Call from the Rent-Spectre 91 and costume to resemble your great-grandmother, the casket-girl ! " Aurore felt sure, on her part, that with the one embroidery scholar then under her tutelage, and the three others who had declined to take lessons, they could easily pay the rent — and how kind it was of Monsieur, the aged father of that one embroidery scholar, to procure those invi- tations to the ball ! The dear old man ! He said he must see one more ball before he should die. Aurore looked so pretty in the reverie into which she fell that her daughter was content to admire her silently. " Clotilde," said the mother, presently looking up, " do you remember the evening you treated me so ill ? " The daughter smiled at the preposterous charge. " I did not treat you ill." " Yes, don't you know — the evening you made me lose my purse ? " " Certainly, I know ! " The daughter took her foot from the andiron ; her eyes lighted up aggres- sively. " For losing your purse blame yourself. For the way you found it again — which was far worse — thank Paimyre. If you had not asked her to find it and shared the gold with her we could have returned with it to 'Sieur Frowenfel' ; but now we are ashamed to let him see us. I do not doubt he filled the purse." " He ? He never knew it was empty. It was Nobody who filled it. Paimyre says that Papa Lebat " 92 The Grandissimes " Ha ! " exclaimed Clotilde at this superstitious mention. The mother tossed her head and turned her back, swallowing the unendurable bitterness of being re- buked by her daughter. But the cloud hung over but a moment. " Clotilde," she said, a minute after, turning with a look of sun-bright resolve, " I am going to see him." " To see whom ? " asked the other, looking back from the window, whither she had gone to recover from a reactionary trembling. " To whom, my child ? Why " " You do not expect mercy from Honore Grandissime ? You would not ask it ? " " No. There is no mercy in the Grandissime blood ; but cannot I demand justice ? Ha ! it is justice that I shall demand ! " " And you will really go and see him ? " " You will see, Mademoiselle," replied Aurore, dropping a broom with which she had begun to sweep up some spilled buttons. " And I with you ? " ,c No ! To a counting-room ? To the presence of the chief of that detestable race ? No ! " " But you don't know where his office is." " Anybody can tell me." Preparation began at once. By and by "Clotilde." Clotilde was stooping behind her mother, with a ribbon between her lips, arranging a flounce. A Call from the Rent-Spectre 93 " M-m-m." " You must not watch me go out of sight ; do you hear ? * * But it is dangerous. I knew of a gentleman who watched his wife go out of his sight and she never came back ! " " Hold still ! " said Clotilde. " But when my hand itches," retorted Aurore in a high key, " have n't I got to put it instantly into my pocket if I want the money to come there ? Well, then ! " The daughter proposed to go to the kitchen and tell Alphonsina to put on her shoes. " My child," cried Aurore, " you are crazy ! Do you want Alphonsina to be seized for the rent ? " " But you cannot go alone — and on foot ! " " I must go alone ; and — can you lend me your carriage ? Ah, you have none ? Certainly I must go alone and on foot if I am to say I cannot pay the rent. It is no indiscretion of mine. If any- thing happens to me it is M. Grandissime who is responsible." Now she is ready for the adventurous errand. She darts to the mirror. The high-water marks are gone from her eyes. She wheels half around and looks over her shoulder. The flaring bonnet and loose ribbons gave her a more girlish look than ever. " Now which is the older, little old woman ? " she chirrups, and smites her daughter's cheek softly with her palm. " And you are not afraid to go alone ? " 94 The Grandissimes " No ; but remember ! look at that dog ! " The brute sinks apologetically to the floor. Clotilde opens the street door, hands Aurore the note, Aurore lays a frantic kiss upon her lips, press- ing it on tight so as to get it again when she comes back, and — while Clotilde calls the cook to gather up the buttons and take away the broom, and while the cook, to make one trip of it, gathers the hound into her bosom and carries broom and dog out together — Aurore sallies forth, leaving Clotilde to resume her sewing and await the coming of a guitar scholar. " It will keep her fully an hour," thought the girl, far from imagining that Aurore had set about a little private business which she proposed to her- self to accomplish before she even started in the direction of M. Grandissime's counting-rooms. CHAPTER XIV BEFORE SUNSET In old times, most of the sidewalks of New Orleans not in the heart of town were only a rough, rank turf, lined on the side next the ditch with the gunwales of broken-up flatboats — ugly, narrow, slippery objects. As Aurora — it sounds so much pleasanter to anglicize her name — as Aurora gained a corner where two of these gunwales met, she stopped and looked back to make sure that Clotilde Before Sunset 95 was not watching her. That others had noticed her here and there she did not care ; that was something beauty would have to endure, and it only made her smile to herself. " Everybody sees I am from the country — walk- ing on the street without a waiting-maid." A boy passed, hushing his whistle, and gazing at the lone lady until his turning neck could twist no farther. She was so dewy fresh ! After he had got across the street he turned to look again. Where could she have disappeared ? The only object to be seen on the corner from which she had vanished was a small, yellow-washed house much like the one Aurora occupied, as it was like hundreds that then characterized and still char- acterize the town, only that now they are of brick instead of adobe. They showed in those davs, even more than now, the wide contrast between their homely exteriors and the often elegant apartments within. However, in this house the front room was merely neat. The furniture was of rude, heavy pattern, Creole-made, and the walls were unadorned; the day of cheap pictures had not come. The lofty bedstead which filled one corner was spread and hung with a blue stuff showing through a web of white needlework. The brazen feet of the chairs were brightly burnished, as were the brass mount- ings of the bedstead and the brass globes on the cold andirons. Curtains of blue and white hung at the single window. The floor, from habitual scrubbing with the common weed which politeness 96 The Grandissimes has to call Helenium autumnale, was stained a bright, clean yellow. On it were, here and there in places, white mats woven of bleached palmetto-leaf. Such were the room's appointments ; there was but one thing more, a singular bit of fantastic carving, — a small table of dark mahogany supported on the upward-writhing images of three scaly serpents. Aurora sat down beside this table. A dwarf Congo woman, as black as soot, had ushered her in, and, having barred the door, had disappeared, and now the mistress of the house entered. February though it was, she was dressed — and looked comfortable — in white. That barbaric beauty which had begun to bud twenty years before was now in perfect bloom. The united grace and pride of her movement was inspiring but — what shall we say? — feline? It was a femininity with- out humanity, — something that made her, with all her superbness, a creature that one would want to find chained. It was the woman who had received the gold from Frowenfeld — Palmyre Philosophe. The moment her eyes fell upon Aurora her whole appearance changed. A girlish smile lighted up her face, and as Aurora rose up reflecting it back, they simultaneously clapped hands, laughed and advanced joyously toward each other, talking rapidly without regard to each other's words. " Sit down," said Palmyre, in the plantation French of their childhood, as they shook hands. They took chairs and drew up face to face as close as they could come, then sighed and smiled a Before Sunset 97 moment, and then looked grave and were silent. For in the nature of things, and notwithstanding the amusing familiarity common between Creole ladies and the menial class, the unprotected little widow should have had a very serious errand to bring her to the voudou's house. " Palmyre," began the lady, in a sad tone. " Momselle Aurore." " I want you to help me." The former mistress not only cast her hands into her lap, lifted her eyes supplicatingly and dropped them again, but actually locked her fingers to keep them from trembling. " Momselle Aurore " began Palmyre, solemnly. " Now, I know what you are going to say — but it is of no use to say it ; do this much for me this one time and then I will let voudou alone as much as you wish — forever ! " " You have not lost your purse again ? " "Ah! foolishness, no." Both laughed a little, the philosophe feebly, and Aurora with an excited tremor. "Well ? " demanded the quadroon, looking grave again. Aurora did not answer. " Do you wish me to work a spell for you ? " The widow nodded, with her eyes cast down. Both sat quite still for some time ; then the phil- osophe gently drew the landlord's letter from between Aurora's hands. 7 98 The Grandissimes " What is this ? " She could not read in any language. " I must pay my rent within nineteen days." " Have you not paid it? " The delinquent shook her head. " Where is the gold that came into your purse ? All gone? " " For rice and potatoes," said Aurora, and for the first time she uttered a genuine laugh, under that condition of mind which Latins usually sub- stitute for fortitude. Palmyre laughed too, very properly. Another silence followed. The lady could not return the quadroon's searching gaze. " Momselle Aurore," suddenly said Palmyre, " you want me to work a spell for something else." Aurora started, looked up for an instant in a frightened way, and then dropped her eyes and let her head droop, murmuring : " No, I do not." Palmyre fixed a long look upon her former mistress. She saw that though Aurora might be distressed about the rent, there was something else, — a deeper feeling, — impelling her upon a course the very thought of which drove the color from her lips and made her tremble. " You are wearing red," said the philosophe. Aurora's hand went nervously to the red ribbon about her neck. " It is an accident; I had nothing else conven- ient." Before Sunset 99 "Miche Agoussou loves red," persisted Palmyre. (Monsieur Agoussou is the demon upon whom the voudous call in matters of love.) The color that came into Aurora's cheek ought to have suited Monsieur precisely. " It is an accident," she feebly insisted. " Well," presently said Palmyre, with a pretence of abandoning her impression, " then you want me to work you a spell for money, do you ? " Aurora nodded, while she still avoided the quad- roon's glance. "I know better," thought the philosophe. "You shall have the sort you want." The widow stole an upward glance. "Oh!" said Palmyre, with the manner of one making a decided digression, " I have been wanting to ask you something. That evening at the phar- macy — was there a tall, handsome gentleman stand- ing by the counter? " " He was standing on the other side." " Did you see his face ? " " No ; his back was turned." " Momselle Aurore," said Palmyre, dropping her elbows upon her knees and taking the lady's hand as if the better to secure the truth, " was that the gentleman you met at the ball ? " " My faith ! " said Aurora, stretching her eye- brows upward. " I did not think to look. Who was it ? " But Palmyre Philosophe was not going to give more than she got, even to her old-time Momselle ; ioo The Grandissimes she merely straightened back into her chair with an amiable face. " Who do you think he is ? " persisted Aurora, after a pause, smiling downward and toying with her rings. The quadroon shrugged. They both sat in reverie for a moment — a long moment for such sprightly natures — and Palmyre's mien took on a professional gravity. She presently pushed the landlord's letter under the lady's hands as they lay clasped in her lap, and a moment after drew Aurora's glance with her large, strong eyes and asked : " What shall we do ? " The lady immediately looked startled and alarmed and again dropped her eyes in silence. The quad- roon had to speak again. " We will burn a candle." Aurora trembled. " No," she succeeded in saying. " Yes," said Palmyre, " you must get your rent money." But the charm which she was meditating had no reference to rent money. " She knows that," thought the voudou. As she rose and called her Congo slave-woman, Aurora made as if to protest further ; but utterance failed her. She clenched her hands and prayed to fate for Clotilde to come and lead her away as she had done at the apothecary's. And well she might. The articles brought in by the servant were simply a little pound-cake and cordial, a tumbler Before Sunset 101 half-filled with the strop naturelle of the sugar-cane, and a small piece of candle of the kind made from the fragrant green wax of the candleberry myrtle. These were set upon the small table, the bit of candle standing, lighted, in the tumbler of sirup, the cake on a plate, the cordial in a wine-glass. This feeble child's play was all ; except that as Palmyre closed out all daylight from the room and received the offering of silver that " paid the floor" and averted guillons (interferences of outside imps), Aurora, — alas ! alas ! — went down upon her knees with her gaze fixed upon the candle's flame, and silently called on Assonquer (the imp of good fortune) to cast his snare in her behalf around the mind and heart of — she knew not whom. By and by her lips, which had moved at first, were still and she only watched the burning wax. When the flame rose clear and long it was a sign that Assonquer was enlisted in the coveted endeavor. When the wick sputtered, the devotee trembled in fear of failure. Its charred end curled down and twisted away from her and her heart sank ; but the tall figure of Palmyre for a moment came between, the wick was snuffed, the flame tapered up again, and for a long time burned, a bright, tremulous cone. Again the wick turned down, but this time toward her, — a propitious omen, — and suddenly fell through the expended wax and went out in the sirup. The daylight, as Palmyre let it once more into the apartment, showed Aurora sadly agitated. In 102 The Grandissimes evidence of the innocence of her fluttering heart, guilt, at least for the moment, lay on it, an appalling burden. " That is all, Palmyre, is it not ? I am sure that is all — it must be all. I cannot stay any longer. I wish I was with Clotilde ; I have stayed too long." " Yes ; all for the present," replied the quadroon. " Here, here is some charmed basil ; hold it between your lips as you walk " " But I am going to my landlord's office ! " " Office ? Nobody is at his office now ; it is too late. You would find that your landlord had gone to dinner. I will tell you, though, where you must go. First go home; eat your dinner; and this evening [the Creoles never say afternoon], about a half-hour before sunset, walk down Royale to the lower corner of the Place d'Armes, pass entirely around the square and return up Royale. Never look behind until you get into your house again." Aurora blushed with shame. " Alone ? " she exclaimed, quite unnerved and tremulous. " You will seem to be alone ; but I will follow behind you when you pass here. Nothing shall hurt you. If you do that, the charm will certainly work; if you do not " The quadroon's intentions were good. She was determined to see who it was that could so infatuate her dear little Momselle; and, as on such an evening as the present afternoon promised to merge into all I f) JRA Hj « R K^' ■♦ •:•■'■■■ g5,l tft-V Mffi^^fi'l | "' •' . ^WP ^^^^KIB^ o^ 1 || 'jjri*"*"- -"" Before Sunset 103 New Orleans promenaded on the Place d'Armes and the levee, her charm was a very practical one. "And that will bring the money, will it? " asked Aurora. " It will bring anything you want." " Possible ? " " These things that you want, Momselle Aurore, are easy to bring. You have no charms working against you. But, oh, I wish to God I could work the curse I want to work ! " The woman's eyes blazed, her bosom heaved, she lifted her clenched hand above her head and looked upward, crying : " I would give this right hand off at the wrist to catch Agricola Fusilier where I could work him a curse ! But I shall ; I shall some day be revenged ! " She pitched her voice still higher. " I cannot die till I have been ! There is nothing that could kill me, I want my revenge so bad ! " As suddenly as she had broken out, she hushed, unbarred the door, and with a stern farewell smile saw Aurora turn homeward. " Give me something to eat, cherie," cried the exhausted lady, dropping into Clotilde's chair and trying to die. " Ah ! maman, what makes you look so sick ? " Aurora waved her hand contemptuously and gasped. " Did you see him ? What kept you so long — so long? " " Ask me nothing ; I am so enraged with dis- appointment. He was gone to dinner! " 104 The Grandissimes "Ah! my poor mother ! " " And I must go back as soon as I can take a little sieste. I am determined to see him this very day." " Ah ! my poor mother ! " CHAPTER XV ROLLED IN THE DUST " No, Frowenfeld," said little Doctor Keene, speaking for the after-dinner loungers, " you must take a little human advice. Go, get the air on the Plaza. We will keep shop for you. Stay as long as you like and come home in any condition you think best." And Joseph, tormented into this course, put on his hat and went out. " Hard to move as a cow in the moonlight," con- tinued Doctor Keene, " and knows just about as much of the world. He was n't aware, until I told him to-day, that there are two Honore Grandis- simes." [Laughter.] " Why did you tell him ? " "I didn't give him anything but the bare fact. I want to see how long it will take him to find out the rest." The Place d'Armes offered amusement to every one else rather than to the immigrant. The family relation, the most noticeable feature of its well- Rolled in the Dust 105 pleased groups, was to him too painful a reminder of his late losses, and, after an honest endeavor to flutter out of the inner twilight of himself into the outer glare of a moving world, he had given up the effort and had passed beyond the square and seated himself upon a rude bench which encircled the trunk of a willow on the levee. The negress, who, resting near by with a tray of cakes before her, has been for some time contem- plating the three-quarter face of her unconscious neighbor, drops her head at last with a small, Ethi- opian, feminine laugh. It is a self-confession that, pleasant as the study of his countenance is, to re- solve that study into knowledge is beyond her powers ; and very pardonablv so it is, she being but a marchande des gateaux (an itinerant cake-vender), and he, she concludes, a man of parts. There is a purpose, too, as well as an admission, in the laugh. She would like to engage him in conversation. But he does not notice. Little supposing he is the object ot even a cake-merchant's attention, he is lost in idle meditation. One would guess his age to be as much as twenty- six. His face is beardless, of course, like almost everybody's around him, and of a German kind of seriousness. A certain diffidence in his look may tend to render him unattractive to careless eyes, the more so since he has a slight appearance of self- neglect. On a second glance, his refinement shows out more distinctly, and one also sees that he is not shabby. The little that seems lacking is woman's 1 06 The Grandissimes care, the brush of attentive fingers here and there, the turning of a fold in the high-collared coat, and a mere touch on the neckerchief and shirt-frill. He has a decidedly good forehead. His blue eyes, while they are both strong and modest, are notice- able, too, as betraying fatigue, and the shade of gravity in them is deepened by a certain worn look of excess — in books; a most unusual look in New Orleans in those days, and pointedly out of keeping with the scene which was absorbing his attention. You might mistake the time for mid-May. Before the view lies the Place d'Armes in its green-breasted uniform of new spring grass crossed diagonally with white shell walks for facings, and dotted with the 'elite of the city for decorations. Over the line of shade-trees which marks its farther boundary, the white-topped twin turrets of St. Louis Cathedral look across it and beyond the bared site of the re- moved battery (built by the busy Carondelet to protect Louisiana from herself and Kentucky, and razed by his immediate successors) and out upon the Mississippi, the color of whose surface is begin- ning to change with the changing sky of this beau- tiful and now departing day. A breeze, which is almost early June, and which has been hovering over the bosom of the great river and above the turf-covered levee, ceases, as if it sank exhausted under its burden of spring odors, and in the pro- found calm the cathedral bell strikes the sunset hour. From its neighboring garden, the convent of the Ursulines responds in a tone of devoutness, Rolled in the Dust 107 while from the parapet of the less pious little Fort St. Charles, the evening gun sends a solemn ejacula- tion rumbling down the "coast; " a drum rolls, the air rises again from the water like a flock of birds, and many in the square and on the levee's crown turn and accept its gentle blowing. Rising over the levee willows, and sinking into the streets, — which are lower than the water, — it flutters among the balconies and in and out of dim Spanish arcades, and finally drifts away toward that part of the sky where the sun is sinking behind the low, unbroken line of forest. There is such seduction in the even- ing air, such sweetness of flowers on its every motion, such lack of cold, or heat, or dust, or wet, that the people have no heart to stay in-doors ; nor is there any reason why they should. The levee road is dotted with horsemen, and the willow avenue on the levee's crown, the whole short mile between Terre aux Bceufs gate on the right and Tchoupitou- las gate on the left, is bright with promenaders, although the hour is brief and there will be no twi- light ; for, so far from being May, it is merely that same nineteenth of which we have already spoken, — the nineteenth of Louisiana's delicious February. Among the throng were many whose names were going to be written large in history. There was Casa Calvo, — Sebastian de Casa Calvo de la Puerta y O'Farril, Marquis of Casa Calvo, — a man then at the fine age of fifty-three, elegant, fascinating, per- fect in Spanish courtesy and Spanish diplomacy, rolling by in a showy equipage surrounded by a 108 The Grandissimes clanking body-guard of the Catholic king's cavalry. There was young Daniel Clark, already beginning to amass those riches which an age of litigation has not to this day consumed ; it was he whom the French colonial prefect, Laussat, in a late letter to France, had extolled as a man whose " talents for intrigue were carried to a rare degree of excellence." There was Laussat himself, in the flower of his years, sour with pride, conscious of great official in- significance and full of petty spites — he yet tarried in a land where his beautiful wife was the " model of taste." There was that convivial old fox, Wil- kinson, who had plotted for years with Miro and did not sell himself and his country to Spain because — as we now say — " he found he could do better ; " who modestly confessed himself in a traitor's letter to the Spanish king as a man " whose head may err, but whose heart cannot deceive ! " and who brought Governor Gayoso to an early death-bed by simply out-drinking him. There also was Edward Living- ston, attorney-at-law, inseparably joined to the mention of the famous Batture cases — though that was later. There also was that terror of colonial peculators, the old ex-Intendant Morales, who, having quarrelled with every governor of Louisiana he ever saw, was now snarling at Casa Calvo from force of habit. And the Creoles — the Knickerbockers of Lou- isiana — but time would fail us. The Villeres and Destrehans — patriots and patriots' sons ; the De La Chaise family in mourning for young Auguste Rolled in the Dust 109 La Chaise of Kentuckian-Louisianian-San Domin- gan history ; the Livaudaises,^>t7V etfils, of Haunted House fame, descendants of the first pilot of the Belize ; the pirate brothers Lafitte, moving among the best ; Marigny de Mandeville, afterwards the marquis member of Congress ; the Davezacs, the Mossys, the Boulignys, the Labatuts, the Bringiers, the De Trudeaus, the De Macartys, the De la Houssayes, the De Lavillebceuvres, the Grandpres, the Forstalls ; and the proselyted Creoles : Etienne de Bore (he was the father of all such as handle the sugar-kettle) ; old man Pitot, who became mayor ; Madame Pontalba and her unsuccessful suitor, John McDonough ; the three Girods, the two Graviers, or the lone Julian Poydras, godfather of orphan girls. Besides these, and among them as shining fractions of the community, the numerous repre- sentatives of the not only noble, but noticeable and ubiquitous, family of Grandissime : Grandissimes simple and Grandissimes compound ; Brahmins, Mandarins and Fusiliers. One, 'Polyte by name, a light, gay fellow, with classic features, hair turning gray, is standing and conversing with this group here by the mock-cannon inclosure of the grounds. Another, his cousin, Charlie Mandarin, a tall, very slender, bronzed gentleman in a flannel hunting- shirt and buckskin leggings, is walking, in moccasins, with a sweet lady in whose tasteful attire feminine scrutiny, but such only, might detect economy, but whose marked beauty of yesterday is retreating and reappearing in the flock of children who are nois- iio The Grandissimes ily running round and round them, nominally in the care of three fat and venerable black nurses. Another, yonder, Theophile Grandissime, is whip- ping his stockings with his cane, a lithe youngster in the height of the fashion (be it understood the fashion in New Orleans was five years or so behind Paris), with a joyous, noble face, a merry tongue and giddy laugh, and a confession of experiences which these pages, fortunately for their moral tone, need not recount. All these were there and many others. This throng, shifting like the fragments of colored glass in the kaleidoscope, had its far-away interest to the contemplative Joseph. To them he was of little interest, or none. Of the many passers, scarcely an occasional one greeted him, and such only with an extremely polite and silent dignity which seemed to him like saying something of this sort : " Most noble alien, give you good-day — stay where you are. Profoundly yours " Two men came through the Place d'Armes on conspicuously fine horses. One it is not necessary to describe. The other, a man of perhaps thirty- three or thirty-four years of age, was extremely handsome and well dressed, the martial fashion of the day showing his tall and finely knit figure to much advantage. He sat his horse with an uncom- mon grace, and, as he rode beside his companion, spoke and gave ear by turns with an easy dignity sufficient of itself to have attracted popular obser- vation. It was the apothecary's unknown friend. Rolled in the Dust 1 1 i Frowenfeld noticed them while they were yet in the middle of the grounds. He could hardly have failed to do so, for some one close beside his bench in undoubted allusion to one of the approaching figures exclaimed : " Here comes Honore Grandissime." Moreover, at that moment there was a slight unwonted stir on the Place d'Armes. It began at the farther corner of the square, hard by the Prin- cipal, and spread so quickly through the groups near about, that in a minute the entire company were quietly made aware of something going notably wrong in their immediate presence. There was no running to see it. There seemed to be not so much as any verbal communication of the matter from mouth to mouth. Rather a consciousness appeared to catch noiselessly from one to another as the knowledge of human intrusion comes to groups of deer in a park. There was the same elevating of the head here and there, the same rounding of beautiful eyes. Some stared, others slowly ap- proached, while others turned and moved away ; but a common indignation was in the breast of that thing dreadful evervwhere, but terrible in Louisiana, the Majority. For there, in the presence of those good citizens, before the eyes of the proudest and fairest mothers and daughters of New Orleans, glaringly, on the open Plaza, the Creole whom Joseph had met by the graves in the field, Honore Grandissime, the uttermost flower on the topmost branch of the tallest family tree ever transplanted 1 1 2 The Grandissimes from France to Louisiana, Honore, — the wor- shiped, the magnificent, — in the broad light of the sun's going down, rode side by side with the Yankee governor and was not ashamed ! Joseph, on his bench, sat contemplating the two parties to this scandal as they came toward him. Their horses' flanks were damp from some pleasant gallop, but their present gait was the soft, mettle- some movement of animals who will even submit to walk if their masters insist. As they wheeled out of the broad diagonal path that crossed the square, and turned toward him in the highway, he fancied that the Creole observed him. He was not mistaken. As they seemed about to pass the spot where he sat, M. Grandissime interrupted the governor with a word and, turning his horse's head, rode up to the bench, lifting his hat as he came. "Good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld." Joseph, looking brighter than when he sat unac- costed, rose and blushed. " Mr. Frowenfeld, you know my uncle very well, I believe — Agricole Fusilier — long beard?" " Oh ! yes, sir, certainly." " Well, Mr. Frowenfeld, I shall be much obliged if you will tell him — that is, should you meet him this evening — that I wish to see him. If you will be so kind ? " " Oh ! yes, sir, certainly." Frowenfeld's diffidence made itself evident in this reiterated phrase. Rolled in the Dust i 1 3 " I do not know that you will see him, but if you should, you know " " Oh, certainly, sir ! " The two paused a single instant, exchanging a smile of amiable reminder from the horseman and of bashful but pleased acknowledgment from the one who saw his precepts being reduced to practice. " Well, good-evening, Mr. Frowenfeld." M. Grandissime lifted his hat and turned. Frowenfeld sat down. " Bou zou, Miche Honore ! " called the marchande. " Comment to ye, Clemence ? " The merchant waved his hand as he rode awav with his companion. " Beau Miche, la" said the marchande, catching Joseph's eye. He smiled his ignorance and shook his head. " Dass one fine gen'leman," she repeated. " Mo pa'le Angle," she added with a chuckle. " You know him ? " " Oh ! yass, sah ; Mawse Honore knows me, yass. All de gen'lemens knows me. I sell de calas ; mawnin's sell calas, evenin's sell zinzer-cake. You know me " (a fact which Joseph had all along been aware of). " Dat me w'at pass in rue Royale ev'y mawnin' holl'in' ' Be calas touts chauds,' an' singin' ; don't vou know ? " The enthusiasm of an artist overcame any timidity she might have been supposed to possess, and, waiving the formality of an invitation, she began, 1 1 4 The Grandissimes to Frowenfeld's consternation, to sing, in a loud, nasal voice. But the performance, long familiar, attracted no public attention, and he for whose special delight it was intended had taken an attitude of disclaimer and was again contemplating the quiet groups of the Place d'Armes and the pleasant hurry of the levee road. " Don't you know ? " persisted the woman. "Yass, sah, dass me; I 's Clemence." But Frowenfeld was looking another way. " You know my boy," suddenly said she. Frowenfeld looked at her. " Yass, sah. Dat boy w'at bring you de box of basilic lass Chrismus ; dass my boy." She straightened her cakes on the tray and made some changes in their arrangement that possibly were important. " I learned to speak English in Fijinny. Bawn dah." She looked steadily into the apothecary's ab- sorbed countenance for a full minute, then let her eyes wander down the highway. The human tide was turning cityward. Presently she spoke again. " Folks comin' home a'ready, yass." Her hearer looked down the road. Suddenly a voice that, once heard, was always known, — deep and pompous, as if a lion roared, — sounded so close behind him as to startle him half from his seat. Rolled in the Dust 1 1 5 " Is this a corporeal man, or must I doubt my eyes ? Hah ! Professor Frowenfeld ! " it said. " Mr. Fusilier ! " exclaimed Frowenfeld in a sub- dued voice, while he blushed again and looked at the new-comer with that sort of awe which children experience in a menagerie. " Citizen Fusilier," said the lion. Agricola indulged to excess the grim hypocrisy of brandishing the catchwords of newfangled reforms ; they served to spice a breath that was strong with the praise of the " superior liberties of Europe," — those old, cast-iron tyrannies to get rid of which America was settled. Frowenfeld smiled amusedly and apologetically at the same moment. " I am glad to meet you. I " He was going on to give Honore Grandissime's message, but was interrupted. " My young friend," rumbled the old man in his deepest key, smiling emotionally and holding and solemning continuing to shake Joseph's hand, " I am sure you are. You ought to thank God that you have my acquaintance." Frowenfeld colored to the temples. " I must acknowledge " he began. " Ah ! " growled the lion, " your beautiful mod- esty leads you to misconstrue me, sir. You pay my judgment no compliment. I know your worth, sir; I merely meant, sir, that in me — poor, humble me — you have secured a sympathizer in your tastes and plans. Agricola Fusilier, sir, is not 1 1 6 The Grandissimes a cock on a dunghill, to find a jewel and then scratch it aside." The smile of diffidence, but not the flush, passed from the young man's face, and he sat down forcibly. "You jest," he said. The reply was a majestic growl. " I never jest ! " The speaker half sat down, then straightened up again. " Ah, the Marquis of Caso Calvo ! — I must bow to him, though an honest man's bow is more than he deserves." "More than he deserves?" was Frowenfeld's query. " More than he deserves ! " was the response. " What has he done ? I have never heard " The denunciator turned upon Frowenfeld his most royal frown, and retorted with a question which still grows wild in Louisiana : " What " — he seemed to shake his mane — " what has he not done, sir ? " and then he with- drew his frown slowly, as if to add, " You '11 be careful next time how you cast doubt upon a public official's guilt." The marquis's cavalcade came briskly jingling by. Frowenfeld saw within the carriage two men, one in citizen's dress, the other in a brilliant uniform. The latter leaned forward, and, with a cordiality which struck the young spectator as delightful, bowed. The immigrant glanced at Citizen Fusilier, expecting to see the greeting returned with great haughtiness ; instead of which that person uncov- Rolled in the Dust i \j ered his leonine head, and, with a solemn sweep of his cocked hat, bowed half his length. Nay, he more than bowed, he bowed down — so that the action hurt Frowenfeld from head to foot. " What large gentlemen was that sitting on the other side?" asked the young man, as his com- panion sat down with the air of having finished an oration. " No gentleman at all ! " thundered the citizen. " That fellow " (beetling frown), " that fellow is Edward Livingston." " The great lawyer ? " " The great villain ! " Frowenfeld himself frowned. The old man laid a hand upon his junior's shoulder and growled benignantly : " My young friend, your displeasure delights me ! " The patience with which Frowenfeld was bearing all this forced a chuckle and shake of the head from the marchande. Citizen Fusilier went on speaking in a manner that might be construed either as address or solilo- quy, gesticulating much and occasionally letting out a fervent word that made passers look around and Joseph inwardly wince. With eyes closed and hands folded on the top of the knotted staff which he carried but never used, he delivered an apos- trophe to the " spotless soul of youth," enticed by the "spirit of adventure" to "launch away upon the unploughed sea of the future .' " He lifted one 1 1 8 The Grandissimes hand and smote the back of the other solemnly, once, twice, and again, nodding his head faintly several times without opening his eyes, as who should say, " Very impressive ; go on," and so resumed ; spoke of this spotless soul of youth searching under unknown latitudes for the " sunken treasures of experience " ; indulged, as the reporters of our day would say, in " many beautiful flights of rhetoric," and finally depicted the loathing with which the spotless soul of youth " recoils ! " — suiting the action to the word so emphatically as to make a pretty little boy who stood gaping at him start back — "on encountering in the holy cham- bers of public office the vultures hatched in the nests of ambition and avarice ! " Three or four persons lingered carelessly near by with ears wide open. Frowenfeld felt that he must bring this to an end, and, like any young person who has learned neither deceit nor disrespect to seniors, he attempted to reason it down. "You do not think many of our public men are dishonest ! " " Sir ! " replied the rhetorician, with a patronizing smile, " h-you must be thinking of France ! " " No, sir ; of Louisiana." "Louisiana! Dishonest? All, sir, all. They are all as corrupt as Olympus, sir ! " " Well," said Frowenfeld, with more feeling than was called for, " there is one who, I feel sure, is pure. I know it by his face ! " The old man gave a look of stern interrogation. Rolled in the Dust 1 1 9 " Governor Claiborne." " Ye-e-e g-hods ! Claiborne! Claiborne! Why, he is a Yankee ! " The lion glowered over the lamb like a thunder- cloud. " He is a Virginian," said Frowenfeld. " He is an American, and no American can be honest." " You are prejudiced," exclaimed the young man. Citizen Fusilier made himself larger. " What is prejudice ? I do not know." " I am an American myself," said Frowenfeld, rising up with his face burning. The citizen rose up also, but unruffled. " My beloved young friend," laying his hand heavily upon the other's shoulder, " you are not. You were merely born in America." But Frowenfeld was not appeased. " Hear me through," persisted the flatterer. " You were merely born in America. I, too, was born in America ; but will any man responsible for his opinion mistake me — Agricola Fusilier — for an American ? " He clutched his cane in the middle and glared around, but no person seemed to be making the mistake to which he so scornfully alluded, and he was about to speak again when an outcry of alarm coming simultaneously from Joseph and the mar- chande directed his attention to a lady in danger. The scene, as afterward recalled to the mind of the un-American citizen, included the figures of his i 20 The Grandissimes nephew and the new governor returning up the road at a canter; but, at the time, he knew only that a lady of unmistakable gentility, her back toward him, had just gathered her robes and started to cross the road, when there was a general cry of warning, and the marchande cried, " Garde choual ! " while the lady leaped directly into the danger and his nephew's horse knocked her to the earth ! Though there was a rush to the rescue from every direction, she was on her feet before any one could reach her, her lips compressed, nostrils dilated, cheek burning, and eyes flashing a lady's wrath upon a dismounted horseman. It was the gover- nor. As the crowd had rushed in, the startled horses, from whom the two riders had instantly leaped, drew violently back, jerking their masters with them and leaving only the governor in range of the lady's angry eye. " Mademoiselle!" he cried, striving to reach her. She pointed him in gasping indignation to his empty saddle, and, as the crowd farther separated them, waved away all permission to apologize and turned her back. " Hah ! " cried the crowd, echoing her humor. " Lady," interposed the governor, "do not drive us to the rudeness of leaving " " Animal, vous ! " cried half a dozen, and the lady gave him such a look of scorn that he did not finish his sentence. " Open the way, there," called a voice in French. It was Honore Grandissime. But just then he Rolled in the Dust i 21 saw that the lady had found the best of protectors, and the two horsemen, having no choice, remounted and rode away. As they did so, M. Grandissime called something hurriedly to Frowenfeld, on whose arm the lady hung, concerning the care of her ; but his words were lost in the short yell of derision sent after himself and his companion by the crowd. Old Agricola, meanwhile, was having a trouble of his own. He had followed Joseph's wake as he pushed through the throng ; but as the lady turned her face he wheeled abruptly away. This brought again into view the bench he had just left, where- upon he, in turn, cried out, and, dashing through all obstructions, rushed back to it, lifting his ugly staff as he went and flourishing it in the tace of Palmyre Philosophe. She stood beside the seat with the smile of one foiled and intensely conscious of peril, but neither frightened nor suppliant, holding back with her eyes the execution of Agricola's threat against her life. Presently she drew a short step backward, then another, then a third, and then turned and moved away down the avenue of willows, followed for a few steps by the lion and by the laughing comment of the marchande, who stood looking after them with her tray balanced on her head. " Ta, ya ! ye connais voudou Men ! " ' The old man turned to rejoin his companion. The day was rapidly giving place to night and the people were withdrawing to their homes. He 1 "They 're up in the voudou arts." 122 The Grandissimes crossed the levee, passed through the Place d'Armes and on into the city without meeting the object of his search. For Joseph and the lady had hurried off together. As the populace floated away in knots of three, four and five, those who had witnessed mademoi- selle's (?) mishap told it to those who had not; explaining that it was the accursed Yankee gover- nor who had designedly driven his horse at his utmost speed against the fair victim (some of them butted against their hearers by way of illustration) ; that the fiend had then maliciously laughed ; that this was all the Yankees came to New Orleans for, and that there was an understanding among them — "Understanding, indeed!" exclaimed one, " They have instructions from the President ! " — that unprotected ladies should be run down wher- ever overtaken. If you did n't believe it you could ask the tyrant, Claiborne, himself; he made no secret of it. One or two — but they were con- sidered by others extravagant — testified that, as the lady fell, they had seen his face distorted with a horrid delight, and had heard him cry : " Daz de way to knog them ! " " But how came a lady to be out on the levee, at sunset, on foot and alone ? " asked a citizen, and another replied — both using the French of the late province : " As for being on foot" — a shrug. "But she was not alone ; she had a milatraisse behind her." "Ah ! so; that was well." Starlight in the rue Chartres 123 " But — ha, ha ! — the milatraisse, seeing her mistress out of danger, takes the opportunity to try to bring the curse upon Agricola Fusilier by sitting down where he had just risen up, and had to get away from him as quickly as possible to save her own skull." " And left the lady ? " " Yes ; and who took her to her home at last, but Frowenfeld, the apothecary ! " " Ho, ho ! the astrologer ! We ought to hang that fellow." " With his books tied to his feet," suggested a third citizen. " It is no more than we owe to the community to go and smash his show-window. He had better behave himself. Come, gentlemen, a little tafia will do us good. When shall we ever get through these exciting times ? " CHAPTER XVI STARLIGHT IN THE RUE CHARTRES " Oh ! M'sieur Frowenfel', tague me ad home !" It was Aurora, who caught the apothecary's arm vehemently in both her hands with a look of beautiful terror. And whatever Joseph's astronomy might have previously taught him to the contrary, he knew by his senses that the earth thereupon turned entirely over three times in two seconds. His confused response, though unintelligible, i 24 The Grandissimes answered all purposes, as the lady found herself the next moment hurrying across the Place d'Armes close to his side, and as they by-and-by passed its farther limits she began to be conscious that she was clinging to her protector as though she would climb up and hide under his elbow. As they turned up the rue Chartres she broke the silence. " Oh !-h ! " — breathlessly, — " 'h ! — M'sieur FrowenP — you wallcin' so faz ! " "Oh!" echoed Frowenfeld, "I did not know what I was doing." " Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed the lady, " me, too, juz de sem lag you ! attendez; wait." They halted ; a moment's deft manipulation of a veil turned it into a wrapping for her neck. " 'Sieur Frowenfel', 00 dad man was ? You know 'im ? " She returned her hand to Frowenfeld's arm and they moved on. " The one who spoke to you, or — you know the one who got near enough to apologize is not the one whose horse struck you ! " " I din know. But 00 dad odder one ? I saw h-only 'is back, bud I thing it is de sem " She identified it with the back that was turned to her during her last visit to Frowenfeld's shop ; but finding herself about to mention a matter so nearly connected with the purse of gold, she checked her- self; but Frowenfeld, eager to say a good word for his acquaintance, ventured to extol his character while he concealed his name. Starlight in the rue Chartres 125 " While I have never been introduced to him, I have some acquaintance with him, and esteem him a noble gentleman." " Were you meet him ? " " I met him first," he said, " at the graves of my parents and sisters." There was a kind of hush after the mention, and the lady made no reply. " It was some weeks after my loss," resumed Frowenfeld. "In wad time tier e dad was ? " "In no cemetery — being Protestants, you know " " Ah, yes, sir? " with a gentle sigh. " The physician who attended me procured per- mission to bury them on some private land below the city." " Not in de groun' ? " ' " Yes ; that was my father's expressed wish when he died." " You 'ad de fivver ? Oo nurse you w'en you was sick r " " An old hired negress." " Dad was all ? " " Yes." " Hm-m-m ! " she said piteouslv, and laughed in her sleeve. Who could hope to catch and reproduce the con- tinuous lively thrill which traversed the frame of the escaped book-worm as every moment there was 1 Only Jews and paupers are buried in the ground in New Orleans. i 26 The Grandissimes repeated to his consciousness the knowledge that he was walking across the vault of heaven with the even- ing star on his arm — at least, that he was, at her insti- gation, killing time along the dim, ill-lighted trottoirs of the rue Chartres, with Aurora listening sympa- thetically at his side. But let it go ; also the sweet broken English with which she now and then inter- rupted him ; also the inward, hidden sparkle of her dancing Gallic blood ; her low, merry laugh ; the roguish mental reservation that lurked behind her graver speeches ; the droll bravados she uttered against the powers that be, as with timid fingers he brushed from her shoulder a little remaining dust of the late encounter — these things, we say, we let go, — as we let butterflies go rather than pin them to paper. They had turned into the rue Bienville, and were walking toward the river, Frowenfeld in the midst of a long sentence, when a low cry of tearful delight sounded in front of them, some one in long robes glided forward, and he found his arm relieved of its burden and that burden transferred to the bosom and passionate embrace of another — we had almost said a fairer — Creole, amid a bewildering inter- change of kisses and a pelting shower of Creole French. A moment after, Frowenfeld found himself intro- duced to " my dotter, Clotilde," who all at once ceased her demonstrations of affection and bowed to him with a majestic sweetness, that seemed one instant grateful and the next, distant. Starlight in the rue Chartres I 27 " I can hardly understand that you are not sisters," said Frowenfeld, a little awkwardly. "Ah ! ecoutez!" exclaimed the younger. " Ah ! par exemple ! " cried the elder, and they laughed down each other's throats, while the immi- grant blushed. This encounter was presently followed by a silent surprise when they stopped and turned before the door of Number 19, and Frowenfeld contrasted the women with their painfully humble dwelling. But therein is where your true Creole was, and still continues to be, properly, yea, delightfully un- American ; the outside of his house may be as rough as the outside of a bird's nest ; it is the inside that is for the birds ; and the front room of this house, when the daughter presently threw open the batten shutters of its single street door, looked as bright and happy, with its candelabra glittering on the mantel, and its curtains of snowy lace, as its bright-eyed tenants. " 'Sieur Frowenfel', if you pliz to come in," said Aurora, and the timid apothecary would have bravely accepted the invitation, but for a quick look which he saw the daughter give the mother ; where- upon he asked, instead, permission to call at some future day, and received the cordial leave of Aurora and another bow from Clotilde. 128 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XVII THAT NIGHT Do we not fail to accord to our nights their true value ? We are ever giving to our days the credit and blame of all we do and mis-do, forgetting those silent, glimmering hours when plans — and some- times plots — are laid ; when resolutions are formed or changed ; when heaven, and sometimes heaven's enemies, are invoiced ; when anger and evil thoughts are recalled, and sometimes hate made to inflame and fester ; when problems are solved, riddles guessed, and things made apparent in the dark, which day refused to reveal. Our nights are the keys to our days. They explain them. They are also the day's correctors. Night's leisure untangles the mistakes of day's haste. We should not at- tempt to comprise our pasts in the phrase, " in those days ; " we should rather say " in those days and nights." That night was a long-remembered one to the apothecary of the rue Royale. But it was after he had closed his shop, and in his back room sat pondering the unusual experiences of the evening, that it began to be, in a higher degree, a night of events to most of those persons who had a part in its earlier incidents. That Honore Grandissime whom Frowenfeld had That Night 129 only this day learned to know as the Honore Grandissime and the young governor-general were closeted together. " What can you expect, my-de'-seh ? " the Creole was asking, as they confronted each other in the smoke of their choice tobacco. " Remember, they are citizens by compulsion. You say your best and wisest law is that one prohibiting the slave-trade ; my-de'-seh, I assure you, privately, I agree with you ; but they abhor your law ! "Your principal danger — at least, I mean dif- ficulty — is this: that the Louisianais themselves, some in pure lawlessness, some through loss of office, some in a vague hope of preserving the old condition of things, will not only hold off from all participation in your government, but will make all sympathy with it, all advocacy of its principles, and especially all office-holding under it, odious — disreputable — infamous. You may find yourself constrained to fill vour offices with men who can face down the contumely of a whole people. You know what such men generally are. One out of a hundred may be a moral hero — the ninety-nine will be scamps ; and the moral hero will most likely get his brains blown out early in the day. "Count O'Reilly, when he established the Spanish power here thirty-five years ago, cut a similar knot with the executioner's sword ; but, my-de'-seh, you are here to establish a free government ; and how can you make it freer than the people wish it ? There is your riddle ! They hold off and say, 9 i 3 o The Grandissimes ' Make your government as free as you can, but do not ask us to help you ; ' and before you know it you have no retainers but a gang of shameless mercenaries, who will desert you whenever the indignation of this people overbalances their in- dolence ; and you will fall the victim of what you may call our mutinous patriotism." The governor made a very quiet, unappreciative remark about a " patriotism that lets its government get choked up with corruption and then blows it out with gunpowder ! " The Creole shrugged. "And repeats the operation indefinitely," he said. The governor said something often heard, before and since, to the effect that communities will not sacrifice themselves for mere ideas. " My-de'-seh," replied the Creole, " you speak like a true Anglo-Saxon ; but, sir ! how many com- munities have committed suicide. And this one ? — why, it is just the kind to do it ! " " Well," said the governor, smilingly, " you have pointed out what you consider to be the breakers, now can you point out the channel ? " " Channel ? There is none ! And you, nor I, cannot dig one. Two great forces may ultimately do it, Religion and Education — as I was telling you I said to my young friend, the apothecary, — but still I am free to say what would be my first and principal step, if I was in your place — as I thank God I am not." The listener asked him what that was. That Night i 3 1 " Wherever I could find a Creole that I could venture to trust, my-de'-seh, I would put him in office. Never mind a little political heterodoxy, you know; almost any man can be trusted to shoot away from the uniform he has on. And then " " But," said the other, " I have offered you " "Oh !" replied the Creole, like a true merchant, "me, I am too busy ; it is impossible ! But, I say, I would compel, my-de'-seh, this people to govern themselves ! " " And pray, how would you give a people a free government and then compel them to administer it ? " " My-de'-seh, you should not give one poor Creole the puzzle which belongs to your whole Congress ; but you may depend on this, that the worst thing for all parties — and I say it only because it is worst for all — would be a feeble and dilatory punishment of bad faith." When this interview finally drew to a close the governor had made a memorandum of some fifteen or twenty Grandissimes, scattered through different cantons of Louisiana, who, their kinsman Honore thought, would not decline appointments. Certain of the Muses were abroad that night. Faintly audible to the apothecary of the rue Royale through that deserted stillness which is yet the marked peculiarity of New Orleans streets by night, came from a neighboring slave-yard the monotonous chant and machine-like tune-beat of an African 132 The Grandissimes dance. There our lately met marchande (albeit she was but a guest, fortified against the street-watch with her master's written " pass ") led the ancient Calinda dance with that well-known song of derision, in whose ever multiplying stanzas the helpless satire of a feeble race still continues to celebrate the per- sonal failings of each newly prominent figure among the dominant caste. There was a new distich to the song to-night, signifying that the pride of the Grandissimes must find his friends now among the Yankees : " Mich(5 Hon'r<§, alte ! h-alte ! Trouv6 to zamis parmi les Yankis. Danc6 calinda, bou-joum ! bou-joum ! Dancd calinda, bou-joum ! bou-joum ! Frowenfeld, as we have already said, had closed his shop, and was sitting in the room behind it with one arm on his table and the other on his celestial globe, watching the flicker of his small fire and musing upon the unusual experiences of the even- ing. Upon every side there seemed to start away from his turning glance the multiplied shadows of something wrong. The melancholy face of that Honore Grandissime, his landlord, at whose men- tion Dr. Keene had thought it fair to laugh without explaining; the tall, bright-eyed milatraisse ; old Agricola ; the lady of the basil ; the newly identified merchant friend, now the more satisfactory Honore, — they all came before him in his meditation, pro- voking among themselves a certain discord, faint but persistent, to which he strove to close his ear. That Night i 3 3 For he was brain-weary. Even in the bright recol- lection of the lady and her talk, he became involved among shadows, and going from bad to worse, seemed at length almost to gasp in an atmosphere of hints, allusions, faint unspoken admissions, ill- concealed antipathies, unfinished speeches, mistaken identities and whisperings of hidden strife. The cathedral clock struck twelve and was answered again from the convent belfry ; and as the notes died away he suddenly became aware that the weird, drowsy throb of the African song and dance had been swinging drowsily in his brain for an unknown lapse of time. The apothecary nodded once or twice, and there- upon rose up and prepared for bed, thinking to sleep till morning. Aurora and her daughter had long ago put out their chamber light. Early in the evening the younger had made favorable mention of retiring, to which the elder replied by asking to be left awhile to her own thoughts. Clotilde, after some tender protestations, consented, and passed through the open door that showed, beyond it, their couch. The air had grown just cool and humid enough to make the warmth of one small brand on the hearth acceptable, and before this the fair widow settled herself to gaze beyond her tiny, slippered feet into its wavering flame, and think. Her thoughts were such as to bestow upon her face that enhancement of beauty that comes of pleasant reverie, and to J 34 The Grandissimes make it certain that that little city afforded no fairer sight, — unless, indeed, it was the figure of Clotilde just beyond the open door, as in her white night- dress, enriched with the work of a diligent needle, she knelt upon the low prie-Dieu before the little family altar, and committed her pure soul to the Divine keeping. Clotilde could not have been many minutes asleep when Aurora changed her mind and decided to fol- low. The shade upon her face had deepened for a moment into a look of trouble ; but a bright philos- ophy, which was part of her paternal birthright, quickly chased it away, and she passed to her room, disrobed, lay softly down beside the beauty already there and smiled herself to sleep, — " Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again." But she also wakened again, and lay beside her unconscious bedmate, occupied with the company of her own thoughts. " Why should these little concealments ruffle my bosom ? Does not even Nature herself practise wiles ? Look at the inno- cent birds ; do they build where everybody can count their eggs ? And shall a poor human crea- ture try to be better than a bird ? Did n't I say my prayers under the blanket just now ? " Her companion stirred in her sleep, and she rose upon one elbow to bend upon the sleeper a gaze of ardent admiration. " Ah, beautiful little chick ! how guileless ! indeed, how deficient in that respect ! " That Night 135 She sat up in the bed and hearkened ; the bell struck for midnight. Was that the hour ? The fates were smiling! Surely M. Assonquer himself must have wakened her to so choice an opportunity. She ought not to despise it. Now, by the applica- tion of another and easily wrought charm, that dark- ened hour lately spent with Palmyre would have, as it were, its colors set. The night had grown much cooler. Stealthily, bv degrees, she rose and left the couch. The open- ings of the room were a window and two doors, and these, with much caution, she contrived to open without noise. None of them exposed her to the possibility of public view. One door looked into the dim front room ; the window let in only a flood of moonlight over the top of a high house which was without openings on that side ; the other door revealed a weed-grown back yard, and that invalu- able protector, the cook's hound, lying fast asleep. In her night-clothes as she was, she stood a moment in the centre of the chamber, then sank upon one knee, rapped the floor gently but audibly thrice, rose, drew a step backward, sank upon the other knee, rapped thrice, rose again, stepped back- ward, knelt the third time, the third time rapped, and then, rising, murmured a vow to pour upon the ground next dav an oblation of champagne — then closed the doors and window and crept back to bed. Then she knew how cold she had become. It seemed as though her very marrow was frozen. She was seized with such an uncontrollable shivering 136 The Grandissimes that Clotilde presently opened her eyes, threw her arm about her mother's neck, and said : "Ah ! my sweet mother, are you so cold ? " " The blanket was all off of me," said the mother, returning the embrace, and the two sank into uncon- sciousness together. Into slumber sank almost at the same moment Joseph Frowenfeld. He awoke, not a great while later, to find himself standing in the middle of the floor. Three or four men had shouted at once, and three pistol-shots, almost in one instant, had resounded just outside his shop. He had barely time to throw himself into half his garments when the knocker sounded on his street door, and when he opened it Agricola Fusilier entered, supported by his nephew Honore on one side and Doctor Keene on the other. The latter's right hand was pressed hard against a bloody place in Agricola's side. " Give us plenty of light, Frowenfeld," said the doctor, "and a chair and some lint, and some Castile soap, and some towels and sticking-plaster, and any- thing else you can think of. Agricola's about scared to death " " Professor Frowenfeld," groaned the aged citizen, " I am basely and mortally stabbed ! " " Right on, Frowenfeld," continued the doctor, " right on into the back room. Fasten that front door. Here, Agricola, sit down here. That's right, Frow., stir up a little fire. Give me — never mind, I '11 just cut the cloth open." That Night 137 There was a moment of silent suspense while the wound was being reached, and then the doctor spoke again. "Just as I thought; only a safe and comfortable gash that will keep you in-doors a while with your arm in a sling. You are more scared than hurt, I think, old gentleman." " You think an infernal falsehood, sir ! " " See here, sir," said the doctor, without ceasing to ply his dexterous hands in his art, " I '11 jab these scissors into your back if you say that again." "I suppose," growled the "citizen," "it is just the thing your professional researches have qualified you for, sir ! " "Just stand here, Mr. Frowenfeld," said the little doctor, settling down to a professional tone, " and hand me things as I ask for them. Honore, please hold this arm ; so." And so, after a moderate lapse of time, the treatment that medical science of those days dictated was applied — whatever that was. Let those who do not know give thanks. M. Grandissime explained to Frowenfeld what had occurred. " You see, I succeeded in meeting my uncle, and we went together to my office. My uncle keeps his accounts with me. Sometimes we look them over. We stayed until midnight ; I dismissed my carriage. As we walked homeward we met some friends coming out of the rooms of the Bagatelle Club ; five or six of my uncles and cousins, and also Doctor Keene. We all fell a-talking of my 138 The Grandissimes grandfather's fete de grandpere of next month, and went to have some coffee. When we separated, and my uncle and my cousin Achille Grandissime and Doctor Keene and myself came down Royal street, out from that dark alley behind your shop jumped a little man and stuck my uncle with a knife. If I had not caught his arm he would have killed my uncle." " And he escaped," said the apothecary. " No, sir ! " said Agricola, with his back turned. " I think he did. I do not think he was struck." " And Mr. , your cousin ? " " Achille ? I have sent him for a carriage." " Why, Agricola," said the doctor, snipping the loose ravellings from his patient's bandages, " an old man like you should not have enemies." " I am not an old man, sir ! " " I said young man." " I am not a young man, sir ! " " I wonder who the fellow was," continued Doctor Keene, as he readjusted the ripped sleeve. "That is my affair, sir ; I know who it was." "And yet she insists," M. Grandissime was ask- ing Frowenfeld, standing with his leg thrown across the celestial globe, " that I knocked her down intentionally ? " Frowenfeld, about to answer, was interrupted by a rap on the door. " That is my cousin, with the carriage," said M. Grandissime, following the apothecary into the shop. That Night 139 Frowenfeld opened to a young man, — a rather poor specimen of the Grandissime type, deficient in stature but not in stage manner. " Est il mart ? " he cried at the threshold. " Mr. Frowenfeld, let me make you acquainted with my cousin, Achille Grandissime." Mr. Achille Grandissime gave Frowenfeld such a bow as we see now only in pictures. " Ve'y 'appe to meek yo' acquaintenz ! " Agricola entered, followed by the doctor, and demanded in indignant thunder-tones, as he entered : " Who — ordered — that — carriage ? " " I did," said Honore. " Will you please get into it at once." "Ah! dear Honore!" exclaimed the old man, "always too kind ! I go in it purely to please you." Good-night was exchanged ; Honore entered the vehicle and Agricola was helped in. Achille touched his hat, bowed and waved his hand to Joseph, and shook hands with the doctor, and saying, " Well, good-night, Doctor Keene," he. shut himself out of the shop with another low bow. " Think I am going to shake hands with an apoth- ecary ? " thought M. Achille. Doctor Keene had refused Honore's invitation to go with them. " Frowenfeld," he said, as he stood in the middle of the shop wiping a ring with a towel and looking at his delicate, freckled hand, " I propose, before going to bed with you, to eat some of your bread and cheese. Are n't you glad ? " 140 The Grandissimes " I shall be, Doctor," replied the apothecary, " if you will tell me what all this means." "Indeed I will not, — that is, not to-night. What ? Why, it would take until breakfast to tell what ' all this means,' — the story of that pestiferous darky Bras Coupe, with the rest ? Oh, no, sir. I would sooner not have any bread and cheese. What on earth has waked your curiosity so sud- denly, anyhow ? " " Have you any idea who stabbed Citizen Fusi- lier ?" was Joseph's response. " Why, at first I thought it was the other Honore Grandissime ; but when I saw how small the fellow was, I was at a loss, completely. But, whoever it is, he has my bullet in him, whatever Honore may think." " Will Mr. Fusilier's wound give him much trouble ? " asked Joseph, as they sat down to a luncheon at the fire. " Hardly ; he has too much of the blood of Lufki-Humma in him. But I need not say that; for the Grandissime blood is just as strong. A wonderful family, those Grandissimes ! They are an old, illustrious line, and the strength that was once in the intellect and will is going down into the muscles. I have an idea that their greatness began, hundreds of years ago, in ponderosity of arm, — of frame, say, — and developed from generation to generation, in a rising scale, first into fineness of sinew, then, we will say, into force of will, then into power of mind, then into subtleties of genius. Now That Night 141 they are going back down the incline. Look at Honore ; he is high up on the scale, intellectual and sagacious. But look at him physically, too. What an exquisite mold ! What compact strength ! I should not wonder if he gets that from the Indian Oueen. What endurance he has ! He will prob- ably go to his business by and by and not see his bed for seventeen or eighteen hours. He is the flower of the family, and possibly the last one. Now, old Agricola shows the down-_^gflr^ , ward grade better. Seventy-five, it he is a Tr^^P*^ day, with, maybe, one-fourth the attain- pretends to have, and still less sense; but strong — as an orang outang. Shall we go to bed?" CHAPTER XVIII NEW LIGHT UPON DARK PLACES HEN the long, wakeful night was over, and the doctor gone, Frowenfeld seated himself to record his usual observations of the weather ; but his mind was else- where — ■ here, there, yonder. There are under- standings that expand, not imperceptibly hour by hour, but as certain flowers do, by little explosive ruptures, with periods of quiescence between. After this night of experiences it was natural that Frowen- feld should find the circumference of his perceptions consciously enlarged. The daylight shone, not into his shop alone, but into his heart as well. The face of Aurora, which had been the dawn to him before, was now a perfect sunrise, while in pleasant time- liness had come in this Apollo of a Honore 144 The Grandissimes Grandissime. The young immigrant was dazzled. He felt a longing to rise up and run forward in this flood of beams. He was unconscious of fatigue, or nearly so — would have been wholly so but for the return by and by of that same dim shadow, or shadows, still rising and darting across every motion of the fancy that grouped again the actors in last night's scenes ; not such shadows as naturally go with sunlight to make it seem brighter, but a something which qualified the light's perfection and the air's freshness. Wherefore, resolved : that he would compound his life, from this time forward, by a new formula : books, so much ; observation, so much ; social in- tercourse, so much; love — as to that, time enough for that in the future (if he was in love with any- body, he certainly did not know it) ; of love, there- fore, amount not yet necessary to state, but probably (when it should be introduced), in the generous proportion in which physicians prescribe aqua. Resolved, in other words, without ceasing to be Frowenfeld the studious, to begin at once the perusal of this newly found book, the Community of New Orleans. True, he knew he should find it a difficult task — not only that much of it was in a strange tongue, but that it was a volume whose displaced leaves would have to be lifted tenderly, blown free of much dust, re-arranged, some torn fragments laid together again with much painstak- ing, and even the purport of some pages guessed out. Obviously, the place to commence at was New Light upon Dark Places 145 that brightly illuminated title-page, the ladies Nancanou. As the sun rose and diffused its beams in an atmosphere whose temperature had just been re- corded as 50° F., the apothecary stepped half out of his shop-door to face the bracing air that came blowing upon his tired forehead from the north. As he did so, he said to himself: " How are these two Honore Grandissimes re- lated to each other, and why should one be thought capable of attempting the life of Agricola ? " The answer was on its way to him. There is left to our eyes but a poor vestige of the picturesque view presented to those who looked down the rue Royale before the garish day that changed the rue Enghien into Ingine street, and dropped the 'e' from Royale. It was a long, nar- rowing perspective of arcades, lattices, balconies, zaguans, dormer windows, and blue sky — of low, tiled roofs, red and wrinkled, huddled down into their own shadows; of canvas awnings with flutter- ing borders, and of grimy lamp-posts twenty feet in height, each reaching out a gaunt iron arm over the narrow street and dangling a lamp from its end. The human life which dotted the view displayed a variety of tints and costumes such as a painter would be glad to take just as he found them : the gayly feathered Indian, the slashed and tinselled Mexican, the leather-breeched raftsmen, the blue- or yellow-turbaned negresse, the sugar-planter in white flannel and moccasins, the average townsman 146 The Grandissimes in the last suit of clothes of the lately deceased century, and now and then a fashionable man in that costume whose union of tight-buttoned mar- tial severity, swathed throat, and effeminate super- abundance of fine linen seemed to offer a sort of state's evidence against the pompous tyrannies and frivolities of the times. The marchande des calas was out. She came to- ward Joseph's shop, singing in a high-pitched nasal tone this new song : " De 'tit zozos — ye te assis — De 'tit zozos — si la barrier. De 'tit zozos, qui zabotte ; Qui 9a ye di' mo pas conne. " Manzeur-poulet vini simin, Croupe si ye et croque ye ; Personn' pli' 'tend' ye zabotte — De 'tit zozos si la barrier." " You lak dat song ? " she asked, with a chuckle, as she let down from her turbaned head a flat Indian basket of warm rice cakes. " What does it mean ? " She laughed again — more than the questioner could see occasion for. " Dat mean — two lill birds ; dey was sittin' on de fence an' gabblin' togeddah, you know, lak you see two young gals sometime', an' you can't mek out w'at dey sayin', even ef dey know demself ? H-ya ! Chicken-hawk come 'long dat road an' jes' set down an' munch 'em, an' nobody can't no mo' hea' deir lill gabblin' on de fence, you know." New Light upon Dark Places 147 Here she laughed again. Joseph looked at her with severe suspicion, but she found refuge in benevolence. " Honey, you ought to be asleep dis werry minit ; look lak folks been a-worr'in' you. I 's gwine to pick out de werry bes' calas I 's got for you." As she delivered them she courtesied, first to Joseph and then, lower and with hushed gravity, to a person who passed into the shop behind him, bowing and murmuring politely as he passed. She followed the new-comerwith her eyes, hastily accepted the price of the cakes, whispered, " Dat 's my maws- tah," lifted her basket to her head and went away. Her master was Frowenfeld's landlord. Frowenfeld entered after him, calas in hand, and with a grave " Good-morning, sir." " m'sieu'," responded the landlord, with a low bow. Frowenfeld waited in silence. The landlord hesitated, looked around him, seemed about to speak, smiled, and said, in his soft, solemn voice, feeling his way word by word through the unfamiliar language : " Ah lag to teg you apar'." " See me alone ? " The landlord recognized his error by a fleeting smile. " Alone," said he. " Shall we go into my room ? " " S'il vous plait, m'sieu." Frowenfeld's breakfast, furnished by contract 148 The Grandissimes from a neighboring kitchen, stood on the table. It was a frugal one, but more comfortable than for- merly, and included coffee, that subject of just pride in Creole cookery. Joseph deposited his calas with these things and made haste to produce a chair, which his visitor, as usual, declined. " Idd you' bregfuz, m'sieu'." "I can do that afterward," said Frowenfeld ; but the landlord insisted and turned away from him to look up at the books on the wall, precisely as that other of the same name had done a few weeks before. Frowenfeld, as he broke his loaf, noticed this, and, as the landlord turned his face to speak, won dered that he had not before seen the common likeness. " Dez stog," said the sombre man. " What, sir ? Oh! — dead stock ? But how can the materials of an education be dead stock ? " The landlord shrugged. He would not argue the point. One American trait which the Creole is never entirely ready to encounter is this gratui- tous Yankee way of going straight to the root of things. " Dead stock in a mercantile sense, you mean," continued the apothecary ; " but are men right in measuring such things only by their present market value ? " The landlord had no reply. It was little to him, his manner intimated ; his contemplation dwelt on deeper flaws in human right and wrong ; yet — but New Light upon Dark Places 149 it was needless to discuss it. However, he did speak. " Ah was elevade in Pariz." " Educated in Paris," exclaimed Joseph, admir- ingly. " Then you certainly cannot find your edu- cation dead stock." The grave, not amused, smile which was the landlord's only rejoinder, though perfecdy courte- ous, intimated that his tenant was sailing over depths of the question that he was little aware of. But the smile in a moment gave way for the look of one who was engrossed with another subject. " M'sieu'," he began ; but just then Joseph made an apologetic gesture and went forward to wait upon an inquirer after " Godfrey's Cordial ; " for that comforter was known to be obtainable at " Frowenfeld's." The business of the American drug-store was daily increasing. When Frowen- feld returned his landlord stood ready to address him, with the air of having decided to make short of a matter. " M'sieu' " " Have a seat, sir," urged the apothecary. His visitor again declined, with his uniform mel- ancholy grace. He drew close to Frowenfeld. " Ah wand you mague me one ouangan" he said. Joseph shook his head. He remembered Doc- tor Keene's expressed suspicion concerning the assault of the night before. " I do not understand you, sir ; what is that ? " " You know." 1 50 The Grandissimes The landlord offered a heavy, persuading smile. "An unguent? Is that what you mean — an ointment? " " M'sieu','' said the applicant, with a not-to-be- deceived expression, " vous etes astrologue — magi- cien " "God forbid!" The landlord was grossly incredulous. " You godd one ' P'tit Albert.' " He dropped his forefinger upon an iron-clasped book on the table, whose title much use had effaced. " That is the Bible. I do not know what the Tee Albare is ! " Frowenfeld darted an aroused glance into the ever-courteous eyes of his visitor, who said without a motion : " You di' n't gave Agricola Fusilier une ouangan, la nuit passe? " " Sir ? " " Ee was yeh ? — laz nighd? " " Mr. Fusilier was here last night — yes. He had been attacked by an assassin and slightly wounded. He was accompanied by his nephew, who, I sup- pose, is your cousin : he has the same name." Frowenfeld, hoping he had changed the subject, concluded with a propitiatory smile, which, how- ever, was not reflected. " Ma bruzzah," said the visitor. " Your brother ! " " Ma whide bruzzah ; ah ham nod whide, m'sieu'." New Light upon Dark Places i j i Joseph said nothing. He was too much awed to speak ; the ejaculation that started toward his lips turned back and rushed into his heart, and it was the quadroon who, after a moment, broke the silence: " Ah ham de holdez son of Numa Grandissime." "Yes — yes," said Frowenfeld, as if he would wave away something terrible. " Nod sell me — ouangan ? " asked the landlord, again. " Sir," exclaimed Frowenfeld, taking a step back- ward, " pardon me if I offend you ; that mixture of blood which draws upon you the scorn of this community is to me nothing — nothing ! And every invidious distinction made against you on that account I despise ! But, sir, whatever may be either your private wrongs, or the wrongs you suffer in common with your class, if you have it in your mind to employ any manner of secret art against the interests or person of any one " The landlord was making silent protestations, and his tenant, lost in a wilderness of indignant emotions, stopped. " M'sieu'," began the quadroon, but ceased and stood with an expression of annoyance every mo- ment deepening on his face, until he finally shook his head slowly, and said with a baffled smile : " Ah can nod spig Engliss." " Write it," said Frowenfeld, lifting forward a chair. The landlord, for the first time in their acquaint- *5 2 The Grandissimes ance, accepted a seat, bowing low as he did so, with a demonstration of profound gratitude that just perceptibly heightened his even dignity. Paper, quills, and ink were handed down from a shelf and Joseph retired into the shop. Honore Grandissime, f. m. c. (these initials could hardly have come into use until some months later, but the convenience covers the sin of the slight anachronism), Honore Grandissime, free man of color, entered from the rear room so silently that Joseph was first made aware of his presence by feel- ing him at his elbow. He handed the apothecary but a few words in time, lest we misjudge. The father of the two Honores was that Numa Grandissime — that mere child — whom the Grand Marquis, to the great chagrin of the De Grapions, had so early cadetted. The commission seems not to have been thrown away. While the province was still in first hands, Numa's was a shining name in the annals of Kerlerec's unsatisfactory Indian wars; and in 1768 (when the colonists, ill-informed, inflammable, and long ill-governed, resisted the transfer of Louisiana to Spain), at a time of life when most young men absorb all the political ex- travagances of their day, he had stood by the side of law and government, though the popular cry was a frenzied one for " liberty." Moreover, he had held back his whole chafing and stamping tribe from a precipice of disaster, and had secured valu- able recognition of their office-holding capacities New Light upon Dark Places 153 from that really good governor and princely Irish- man whose one act of summary vengeance upon a few insurgent office-coveters has branded him in history as Cruel O'Reilly. But the experience of those days turned Numa gray, and withal he was not satisfied with their outcome. In the midst of the struggle he had weakened in one manly resolve — against his will he married. The lady was a Fusilier, Agricola's sister, a person of rare intelli- gence and beauty, whom, from early childhood, the secret counsels of his seniors had assigned to him. Despite this, he had said he would never marry ; he made, he said, no pretensions to severe con- scientiousness, or to being better than others, but — as between his Maker and himself — he had for- feited the right to wed, they all knew how. But the Fusiliers had become very angry and Numa, finding strife about to ensue just when without unity he could not bring an undivided clan through the torrent of the revolution, had " nobly sacrificed a little sentimental feeling," as his family defined it, by breaking faith with the mother of the man now standing at Joseph Frowenfeld's elbow, and who was then a little toddling boy. It was necessary to save the party — nay, that was a slip; we should say, to save the family; this is not a parable. Yet Numa loved his wife. She bore him a boy and a girl, twins ; and as her son grew in physical, intel- lectual, and moral symmetry, he indulged the hope that — the ambition and pride of all the various Grandissimes now centering in this lawful son, and all *54 The Grandissimes strife being lulled — he should yet see this Honore right the wrongs which he had not quite dared to uproot. And Honore inherited the hope and began to make it an intention and aim even before his departure (with his half-brother the other Honore) for school in Paris, at the early age of fifteen. Numa soon after died, and Honore, after various fortunes in Paris, London, and elsewhere, in the care, or at least company, of a pious uncle in holy orders, returned to the ancestral mansion. The father's will — by the law they might have set it aside, but that was not their way — left the darker Honore the bulk of his fortune, the younger a competency. The latter — instead of taking office, as an ancient Grandissime should have done — to the dismay and mortification of his kindred, estab- lished himself in a prosperous commercial business. The elder bought houses and became a rentier. The landlord handed the apothecary the follow- ing writing: Mr. Joseph Frowenfeld : Think not that anybody is to be either poisoned by me nor yet to be made a sufferer by the exercise of anything by me of the character of what is generally known as grigri, otherwise magique. This, sir, I do beg your per- mission to offer my assurance to you of the same. Ah, no ! it is not for that ! I am the victim of another en- tirely and a far difFerente and dissimilar passion, i. e., Love. Esteemed sir, speaking or writing to you as unto the only man of exclusively white blood whom I believe is in Louisi- New Light upon Dark Places 155 ana willing to do my dumb, suffering race the real justice, I love Palmyre la Philosophe with a madness which is by the human lips or tongues not possible to be exclaimed (as, I may add, that I have in the same like manner since ex- actley nine years and seven months and some days). Alas ! heavens! I can't help it in the least particles at all! What, what shall I do, for ah ! it is pitiful ! She loves me not at all, but, on the other hand, is (if I suspicion not wrongfully) wrapped up head and ears in devotion of one who does not love her, either, so cold and incapable of appreciation is he. I allude to Honore Grandissime. Ah ! well do I remember the day when we returned — he and me — from the France. She was there when we landed on that levee, she was among that throng of kin- dreds and domestiques, she shind like the evening star as she stood there (it was the first time I saw her, but she was known to him when at fifteen he left his home, but I resided not under my own white father's roof — not at all — far from that). She cried out ' A la fin to vini ! " and leap herself with both resplendant arm around his neck and kist him twice on the one cheek and the other, and her resplendant eyes shining with a so great beauty. If you will give me a poudre a" amour such as I doubt not your great knowledge enable you to make of a power that cannot to be resist, while still at the same time of a harm- less character toward the life or the health of such that I shall succeed in its use to gain the affections of that emperice of my soul, I hesitate not to give you such price as it may please you to nominate up as high as to $1,000 — nay, more. Sir, will you do that ? I have the honor to remain, sir, Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. Grandissime. 156 The Grandissimes Frowenfeld slowly transferred his gaze from the paper to his landlord's face. Dejection and hope struggled with each other in the gaze that was returned ; but when Joseph said, with a counte- nance full of pity, " I have no power to help you," the disappointed lover merely looked fix- edly for a moment in the direction of the street, then lifted his hat toward his head, bowed, and departed. CHAPTER XIX ART AND COMMERCE It was some two or three days after the interview just related that the apothecary of the rue Royale found it necessary to ask a friend to sit in the shop a few minutes while he should go on a short errand. He was kept away somewhat longer than he had in- tended to stay, for, as they were coming out of the cathedral, he met Aurora and Clotilde. Both the ladies greeted him with a cordiality which was almost inebriating, Aurora even extending her hand. He stood but a moment, responding blush- ingly to two or three trivial questions from her ; yet even in so short a time, and although Clotilde gave ear with the sweetest smiles and loveliest changes of countenance, he experienced a lively renewal of a conviction that this young lady was most unjustly harboring toward him a vague dis- Art and Commerce 157 relish, if not a positive distrust. That she had some mental reservation was certain. " 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, as he raised his hat for good-day, " you din come home yet." He did not understand until he had crimsoned and answered he knew not what — something about having intended every day. He felt lifted he knew not where, Paradise opened, there was a flood of glory, and then he was alone ; the ladies, leaving adieus sweeter than the perfume they carried away with them, floated into the south and were gone. Why was it that the elder, though plainly regarded by the younger with admiration, dependence, and overflowing affection, seemed sometimes to be, one might almost say, watched by her.'' He liked Aurora the better. On his return to the shop his friend remarked that if he received many such visitors as the one who had called during his absence, he might be permitted to be vain. It was Honore Grandissime, and he had left no message. " Frowenfeld," said his friend, " it would pay you to employ a regular assistant." Joseph was in an abstracted mood. " I have some thought of doing so." Unlucky slip! As he pushed open his door next morning, what was his dismay to find himself confronted by some forty men. Five of them leaped up from the door-sill, and some thirty-five from the edge of the trottoir, brushed that part of their wearing-apparel which always fits with great 158 The Grandissimes neatness on a Creole, and trooped into the shop. The apothecary fell behind his defences, that is to say, his prescription desk, and explained to them in a short and spirited address that he did not wish to employ any of them on any terms. Nine-tenths of them understood not a word of English ; but his gesture was unmistakable. They bowed grate- fully, and said good-day. Now Frowenfeld did these young men an injus- tice ; and though they were far from letting him know it, some of them felt it and interchanged expressions of feeling reproachful to him as they stopped on the next corner to watch a man painting a sign. He had treated them as if they all wanted situations. Was this so ? Far from it. Only twenty men were applicants ; the other twenty were friends who had come to see them get the place. And again, though, as the apothecary had said, none of them knew anything about the drug busi- ness — no, nor about any other business under the heavens — they were all willing that he should teach them — except one. A young man of patrician softness and costly apparel tarried a moment after the general exodus, and quickly concluded that on Frowenfeld's account it was probably as well that he could not qualify, since he was expecting from France an important government appointment as soon as these troubles should be settled and Lou- isiana restored to her former happy condition. But he had a friend — a cousin — whom he would recommend, just the man for the position ; a Art and Commerce 159 splendid fellow; popular, accomplished — what? the best trainer of dogs that M. Frowenfeld might ever hope to look, upon ; a " so good fisherman as I never saw ! " — the marvel of the ball-room — could handle a partner of twice his weight; the speaker had seen him take a lady so tall that his head hardly came up to her bosom, whirl her in the waltz from right to left — this way! and then, as quick as lightning, turn and whirl her this way, from left to right — "so grezful ligue a peajohn ! He could read and write, and knew more comig song ! " — the speaker would hasten to secure him before he should take some other situation. The wonderful waltzer never appeared upon the scene ; yet Joseph made shift to get along, and by and by found a man who partially met his require- ments. The way of it was this : With his fore- finger in a book which he had been reading, he was one day pacing his shop floor in deep thought. There were two loose threads hanging from the web of incident weaving around him which ought to connect somewhere; but where? They were the two visits made to his shop by the young merchant, Honore Grandissime. He stopped still to think ; what " train of thought " could he have started in the mind of such a man ? He was about to resume his walk, when there came in, or more strictly speaking, there shot in, a young, auburn-curled, blue-eyed man, whose adoles- cent buoyancy, as much as his delicate, silver- buckled feet and clothes of perfect fit, pronounced 160 The Grandissimes him all-pure Creole. His name, when it was pres- ently heard, accounted for the blond type by revealing a Franco-Celtic origin. " 'Sieur Frowenfel'," he said, advancing like a boy coming in after recess, " I 'ave something beauteeful to place into yo' window." He wheeled half around as he spoke and seized from a naked black boy, who at that instant entered, a rectangular object enveloped in paper. Frowenfeld's window was fast growing to be a place of art exposition. A pair of statuettes, a golden tobacco-box, a costly jewel-casket, or a pair of richly gemmed horse-pistols — the property of some ancient gentleman or dame of emaciated fortune, and which must be sold to keep up the bravery of good clothes and pomade that hid slow starvation — went into the shop-window of the ever- obliging apothecary, to be disposed of by tombola. And it is worthy of note in passing, concerning the moral education of one who proposed to make no conscious compromise with any sort of evil, that in this drivelling species of gambling he saw nothing hurtful or improper. But " in Frowen- feld's window " appeared also articles for simple sale or mere transient exhibition ; as, for instance, the wonderful tapestries of a blind widow of ninety ; tremulous little bunches of flowers, proudly stated to have been made entirely of the bones of the ordinary catfish ; others, large and spreading, the sight of which would make any botanist fall down " and die as mad as the wild waves be," whose Art and Commerce 1 6 1 ticketed merit was that they were composed exclu- sively of materials produced upon Creole soil ; a picture of the Ursulines' convent and chapel, done in forty-five minutes by a child of ten years, the daughter of the widow Felicie Grandissime; and the siege of Troy, in ordinary ink, done entirely with the pen, the labor of twenty years, by " a citizen of New Orleans." It was natural that these things should come to " Frowenfeld's corner," for there, oftener than elsewhere, the critics were gathered together. Ah! wonderful men, those critics; and, fortunately, we have a few still left. The young man with auburn curls rested the edge of his burden upon the counter, tore away its wrappings and disclosed a painting. He said nothing — with his mouth; but stood at arm's length balancing the painting and casting now upon it and now upon Joseph Frowenfeld a look more replete with triumph than Caesar's three- worded dispatch. The apothecary fixed upon it long and silently the gaze of a somnambulist. At length he spoke : "What is it?" " Louisiana rif-using to hanter de h-Union ! " replied the Creole, with an ecstasy that threatened to burst forth in hip-hurrahs. Joseph said nothing, but silently wondered at Louisiana's anatomy. " Gran' subjec' ! " said the Creole. "Allegorical," replied the hard-pressed apothecary. " Allegoricon ? No, sir ! Allegoricon never saw 1 62 The Grandissimes dat pigshoe. If you insist to know who make dat pigshoe — de hartis' stan' bif-ore you ! " " It is your work ? " " 'T is de work of me, Raoul I nnerarity, cousin to de disting-wish Honore Grandissime. I swear to you, sir, on stack of Bible' as 'igh as yo' head ! " He smote his breast. " Do you wish to put it in the window ? " " Yes, seh." " For sale ? " M. Raoul I nnerarity hesitated a moment before replying : " 'Sieur Frowenfel', I think it is a foolishness to be too proud, eh ? I want you to say, ' My frien', 'Sieur I nnerarity, never care to sell anything; 'tis for egs-hibby-shun' ; mats — when somebody look at it, so," the artist cast upon his work a look of lan- guishing covetousness, " ' you say, foudre tonnerre ! what de dev' ! — I take dat ris-pon-sibble-ty — you can have her for two hun'red fifty dollah ! ' Better not be too proud, eh, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " " No, sir," said Joseph, proceeding to place it in the window, his new friend following him about spanielwise ; " but you had better let me say plainly that it is for sale." "Oh — I don't care — mats — my rillation' will never forgive me! Mais — go-ahead-I -don't-care ! 'T is for sale." " ' Sieur Frowenfel'," he resumed, as they came away from the window, " one week ago " — he held up one finger — "what I was doing ? Makin' bill Art and Commerce 163 of ladin', my faith ! — for my cousin Honore! an' now, I ham a hartis' ! So soon I foun' dat, I say, 'Cousin Honore,'" — the eloquent speaker lifted his foot and administered to the empty air a soft, polite kick — "I never goin' to do anoder lick o' work so long I live; adieu ! " He lifted a kiss from his lips and wafted it in the direction of his cousin's office. " Mr. Innerarity," exclaimed the apothecary, " J fear you are making a great mistake." " You tink I hass too much ? " " Well, sir, to be candid, I do ; but that is not your greatest mistake." " What she 's worse ? " The apothecary simultaneously smiled and blushed. " I would rather not say ; it is a passably good example of Creole art ; there is but one way by which it can ever be worth what you ask for it." " What dat is ? " The smile faded and the blush deepened as Frowenfeld replied : " If it could become the means of reminding this community that crude ability counts next to nothing in art, and that nothing else in this world ought to work so hard as genius, it would be worth thousands of dollars ! " " You tink she is worse a t'ousand dollah ? " asked the Creole, shadow and sunshine chasing each other across his face. " No, sir." 164 The Grandissimes The unwilling critic strove unnecessarily against his smile. " Ow much you tink ? " " Mr. Innerarity, as an exercise it is worth what- ever truth or skill it has taught you ; to a judge of paintings it is ten dollars' worth of paint thrown away ; but as an article of sale it is worth what it will bring without misrepresentation." " Two — hun-rade an' — fifty — dollahs or — not'in' ! " said the indignant Creole, clenching one fist, and with the other hand lifting his hat by the front corner and slapping it down upon the counter. "Ha, ha, ha! a pase of waint — a wase of paint! 'Sieur Frowenfel', you don' know not'in' 'bout it ! You har a jedge of painting? " he added cautiously. " No, sir." " Eh, bien ! foudre tonnerre I — look yeh ! you know ? 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? Dat de way de pub- lique halways talk about a hartis's firs' pigshoe. But, I hass you to pardon me, Monsieur Frowen- fel', if I 'ave speak a lill too warm." " Then you must forgive me if, in my desire to set you right, I have spoken with too much liberty. I probably should have said only what I first in- tended to say, that unless you are a person of inde- pendent means " " You t'ink I would make bill of ladin' ?■ Ah ! Hm-m ! " " that you had made a mistake in throwing up your means of support " x " But 'e 'as fill de place an' don' want me no mo'. Art and Commerce 165 You want a clerk ? — one what can speak, fo' lang- widge — French, Eng-lish, Spanish, an' Italienne ? Come ! I work for you in de mawnin' an' paint in de evenin' ; come ! " Joseph was taken unaware. He smiled, frowned, passed his hand across his brow, noticed, for the first time since his delivery of the picture, the naked little boy standing against the edge of a door, said, " Why ," and smiled again. " I riffer you to my cousin Honore," said Inne- rarity. " Have you any knowledge of this business ? " " I 'ave." " Can you keep shop in the forenoon or afternoon indifferentlv, as I may require ? " " Eh ? Forenoon — afternoon ? " was the reply. " Can you paint sometimes in the morning and keep shop in the evening? " " Yes, seh." Minor details were arranged on the spot. Raoul dismissed the black boy, took off his coat and fell to work decanting something, with the understand- ing that his salary, a microscopic one, should begin from date if his cousin should recommend him. " 'Sieur Frowenfel','' he called from under the counter, later in the day, " you t'ink it would be hanny disgrace to paint de pigshoe of a niggah ? " " Certainly not." "Ah, my soul ! what a pigshoe I could paint of Bras-Coupe ! " We have the afflatus in Louisiana, if nothing else. 1 66 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XX A VERY NATURAL MISTAKE Mr. Raoul Innerarity proved a treasure. The fact became patent in a few hours. To a student of the community he was a key, a lamp, a lexicon, a microscope, a tabulated statement, a book of her- aldry, a city directory, a glass of wine, a Book of Days, a pair of wings, a comic almanac, a diving bell, a Creole Veritas. Before the day had had time to cool, his continual stream of words had done more to elucidate the mysteries in which his employer had begun to be befogged than half a year of the apothecary's slow and scrupulous guess- ing. It was like showing how to carve a strange fowl. The way he dovetailed story into story and drew forward in panoramic procession Lufki- Humma and Epaminondas Fusilier, Zephyr Grandissime and the lady of the lettre de cachet, Demosthenes De Grapion and the fille a I'hopital, Georges De Grapion and the file a la cassette, Numa Grandissime, father of the two Honores, young Nancanou and old Agricola, — the way he made them " Knit hands and beat the ground In a light, fantastic round," would have shamed the skilled volubility of She- harazade. A Very Natural Mistake 167 " Look ! " said the story-teller, summing up ; " you take hanny 'istory of France an' see the hage of my familie. Pipple talk about de Boulignys, de Sauves, de Grandpres, de Lemoynes, de St. Max- ents, — bla-a-a ! De Grandissimes is as hole as de dev' ! What ? De mose of de Creole families is not so hold as plenty of my yallah kinfolks ! " The apothecary found very soon that a little salt improved M. Raoul's statements. But here he was, a perfect treasure, and Frowen- feld, fleeing before his illimitable talking power in order to digest in seclusion the ancestral episodes of the Grandissimes and De Grapions, laid pleasant plans for the immediate future. To-morrow morn- ing he would leave the shop in Raoul's care and call on M. Honore Grandissime to advise with him concerning the retention of the born artist as a drug- clerk. To-morrow evening he would pluck cour- age and force his large but bashful feet up to the door-step of Number 19 rue Bienville. And the next evening he would go and see what might be the matter with Doctor Keene, who had looked ill on last parting with the evening group that lounged in Frowenfeld's door, some three days before. The intermediate hours were to be devoted, of course, to the prescription desk and his " dead stock." And yet after this order of movement had been thus compactly planned, there all the more seemed still to be that abroad which, now on this side, and now on that, was urging him in a nervous whisper to make haste. There had escaped into the air, it i 68 The Grandissimes seemed, and was gliding about, the expectation of a crisis. Such a feeling would have been natural enough to the tenants of Number 19 rue Bienville, now spending the tenth of the eighteen days of grace allowed them in which to save their little fortress. For Palmyre's assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money to be forth- coming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was, nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps they had not been as diligent as they might have been in canvassing all possible wavs and means for meeting the pecuniary emergency so fast bearing down upon them. From a Creole standpoint, they were not bad managers. They could dress delightfully on an incredibly small outlay ; could wear a well-to-do smile over an inward sigh of stifled hunger; could tell the parents of their one or two scholars to consult their conve- nience, and then come home to a table that would make any kind soul weep ; but as to estimating the velocity of bills-payable in their orbits, such trained sagacity was not theirs. Their economy knew how to avoid what the Creole-African apothegm calls commerce Man Lizon — qui asset e pou trois picaillons et vend' pou ein escalin (bought for three picayunes and sold for two) ; but it was an economy that A Very Natural Mistake 169 made their very hound a Spartan ; for, had that economy been half as wise as it was heroic, his one meal a day would not always have been the cook's leavings of cold rice and the lickings of the gumbo plates. On the morning fixed by Joseph Frowenfeld tor calling on M. Grandissime, on the banquette of the rue Toulouse, directly in front of an old Spanish archway and opposite a blacksmith's shop, — this blacksmith's shop stood between a jeweller's store and a large, balconied and dormer-windowed wine- warehouse — Aurore Nancanou, closely veiled, had halted in a hesitating way and was inquiring of a gigantic negro cartman the whereabouts of the counting-room of M. Honore Grandissime. Before he could respond she descried the name upon a staircase within the archway, and, thanking the cartman as she would have thanked a prince, hastened to ascend. An inspiring smell of warm rusks, coming from a bakery in the paved court below, rushed through the archway and up the stair and accompanied her into the cemetery-like silence of the counting-room. There were in the depart- ment some fourteen clerks. It was a den of Gran- dissimes. More than half of them were men bevond middle life, and some were yet older. One or two were so handsome, under their noble silvery locks, that almost any woman — Clotilde, for in- stance, — would have thought, "No doubt that one, or that one, is the head of the house." Aurora approached the railing which shut in the silent 170 The Grandissimes toilers and directed her eyes to the farthest corner of the room. There sat there at a large desk a thin, sickly-looking man with very sore eyes and two pairs of spectacles, plying a quill with a privi- leged loudness. " H-h-m-m ! " said she, very softly. A young man laid down his rule and stepped to the rail with a silent bow. His face showed a jaded look. Night revelry, rather than care or years, had wrinkled it ; but his bow was high-bred. " Madame," — in an undertone. " Monsieur, it is M. Grandissime whom I wish to see," she said in French. But the young man responded in English. " You har one tenant, ent it ? " " Yes, seh." "Zen eet ees M. De Brahmin zat you 'ave to see." " No, seh ; M. Grandissime." " M. Grandissime nevva see one tenant." " I muz see M. Grandissime." Aurora lifted her veil and laid it up on her bonnet. The clerk immediately crossed the floor to the distant desk. The quill of the sore-eyed man scratched louder — scratch, scratch — as though it were trying to scratch under the door of Number 19 rue Bienville — for a moment, and then ceased. The clerk, with one hand behind him and one touching the desk, murmured a few words, to which the other, after glancing under his arm at Aurora, A Very Natural Mistake i 7 1 gave a short, low reply and resumed his pen. The clerk returned, came through a gateway in the rail- ing, led the way into a rich inner room, and turning with another courtly bow, handed her a cushioned armchair and retired. "After eighteen years," thought Aurora, as she found herself alone. It had been eighteen years since any representative of the De Grapion line had met a Grandissime face to face, so far as she knew ; even that representative was only her deceased hus- band, a mere connection by marriage. How many years it was since her grandfather, Georges De Grapion, captain of dragoons, had had his fatal meet- ing with a Mandarin de Grandissime, she did not remember. There, opposite her on the wall, was the portrait of a young man in a corslet who might have been M. Mandarin himself. She felt the blood of her race growing warmer in her veins. "Insolent tribe," she said, without speaking, " we have no more men left to fight you ; but now wait. See what a woman can do." These thoughts ran through her mind as her eye passed from one object to another. Something reminded her of Frowenfeld, and, with mingled defiance at her inherited enemies and amusement at the apothecary, she indulged in a quiet smile. The smile was still there as her glance in its grad- ual sweep reached a small mirror. She almost leaped from her seat. Not because that mirror revealed a recess which she had not previously noticed ; not because be- 172 The Grandissimes hind a costly desk therein sat a youngish man, reading a letter ; not because he might have been observing her, for it was altogether likely that, to avoid premature interruption, he had avoided look- ing up ; nor because this was evidently Honore Grandissime ; but because Honore Grandissime, if this were he, was the same person whom she had seen only with his back turned in the pharmacy — the rider whose horse ten days ago had knocked her down, the Lieutenant of Dragoons who had unmasked and to whom she had unmasked at the ball ! Fly ! But where ? How? It was too late ; she had not even time to lower her veil. M. Gran- dissime looked up at the glass, dropped the letter with a slight start of consternation and advanced quickly toward her. For an instant her embarras- rassment showed itself in a mantling blush and a distressful yearning to escape ; but the next mo- ment she rose, all a-flutter within, it is true, but with a face as nearly sedate as the inborn witchery of her eyes would allow. He spoke in Parisian French : " Please be seated, madame." She sank down. " Do you wish to see me?" " No, sir." She did not see her way out of this falsehood, but — she couldn't say yes. Silence followed. "Whom do " " I wish to see M. Honore Grandissime." A Very Natural Mistake 173 " That is my name, madame." "Ah!" — with an angelic smile; she had col- lected her wits now, and was ready for war. " You are not one of his clerks ?" M. Grandissime smiled softly, while he said to himself: " You little honey-bee, you want to sting me, eh ? " and then he answered her question. " No, madame ; I am the gentleman you are looking for." " The gentleman she was look — " her pride resented the fact. " Me ! " — thought she — "I am the lady whom, I have not a doubt, you have been longing to meet ever since the ball ;" but her look was unmoved gravity. She touched her hand- kerchief to her lips and handed him the rent notice. " I received that from your office the Monday before last." There was a slight emphasis in the announcement of the time ; it was the day of the run-over. Honore Grandissime, stopping with the rent- notice only half unfolded, saw the advisability of calling up all the resources of his sagacity and wit in order to answer wisely ; and as they answered his call a brighter nobility so overspread face and person that Aurora inwardly exclaimed at it even while she exulted in her thrust. " Monday before last?" She slightly bowed. " A serious misfortune befell me that day," said M. Grandissime. " Ah ? " replied the lady, raising her brows with 174 The Grandissimes polite distress, " but you have entirely recovered, I suppose." " It was I, madame, who that evening caused you a mortification for which I fear you will accept no apology." " On the contrary," said Aurora, with an air of generous protestation, " it is I who should apologize; I fear I injured your horse." M. Grandissime only smiled, and opening the rent-notice dropped his glance upon it while he said in a preoccupied tone : " My horse is very well, I thank you." But as he read the paper, his face assumed a seri- ous air and he seemed to take an unnecessary length of time to reach the bottom of it. " He is trying to think how he will get rid of me," thought Aurora ; " he is making up some pretext with which to dismiss me, and when the tenth of March comes we shall be put into the street." M. Grandissime extended the letter toward her, but she did not lift her hands. " I beg to assure you, madame, I could never have permitted this notice to reach you from my office ; I am not the Honore Grandissime for whom this is signed." Aurora smiled in a way to signify clearly that that was just the subterfuge she had been anticipating. Had she been at home she would have thrown her- self, face downward, upon the bed ; but she only smiled meditatively upward at the picture of an A Very Natural Mistake 175 East Indian harbor and made an unnecessary re- arrangement of her handkerchief under her folded hands. " There are, you know," — began Honore, with a smile which changed the meaning to " You know very well there are " — " two Honore Grandissimes. This one who sent you this letter is a man of color " " Oh ! " exclaimed Aurora, with a sudden mali- cious sparkle. "If you will entrust this paper to me," said Honore, quietly, " I will see him and do now engage that you shall have no further trouble about it. Of course, I do not mean that I will pay it, myself; I dare not offer to take such a liberty." Then he felt that a warm impulse had carried him a step too far. Aurora rose up with a refusal as firm as it was silent. She neither smiled nor scintillated now, but wore an expression of amiable practicality as she presently said, receiving back the rent-notice as she spoke : " I thank you, sir, but it might seem strange to him to find his notice in the hands of a person who can claim no interest in the matter. I shall have to attend to it myself." " Ah ! little enchantress," thought her grave-faced listener, as he gave attention, " this, after all — ball and all — is the mood in which you look your very, very best " — a fact which nobody knew better than the enchantress herself. 176 The Grandissimes He walked beside her toward the open door leading back into the counting-room, and the dozen or more clerks, who, each by some ingenuity of his own, managed to secure a glimpse of them, could not fail to feel that they had never before seen quite so fair a couple. But she dropped her veil, bowed M. Grandissime a polite " No farther," and passed out. M. Grandissime walked once up and down his private office, gave the door a soft push with his foot and lighted a cigar. The clerk who had before acted as usher came in and handed him a slip of paper with a name written on it. M. Grandissime folded it twice, gazed out the window, and finally nodded. The clerk disap- peared, and Joseph Frowenfeld paused an instant in the door and then advanced, with a buoyant good- morning. " Good-morning," responded M. Grandissime. He smiled and extended his hand, yet there was a mechanical and preoccupied air that was not what Joseph felt justified in expecting. " How can I serve you, Mr. Frhowenfeld ? " asked the merchant, glancing through into the counting-room. His coldness was almost all in Joseph's imagination, but to the apothecary it seemed such that he was nearly induced to walk away without answering. However, he replied : " A young man whom I have employed refers to you to recommend him." " Yes, sir ? Prhay, who is that ? " Doctor Keene recovers his Bullet 177 "Your cousin, I believe, Mr. Raoul Innerarity." M. Grandissime gave a low, short laugh, and took two steps toward his desk. " Rhaoul ? Oh yes, I rhecommend Rhaoul to you. As an assistant in yo' sto' ? — the best man you could find." "Thank you, sir," said Joseph, coldly. "Good- morning ! " he added turning to go. "Mr. Frhowenfeld," said the other, "do you evva rhide ? " " I used to ride," replied the apothecary, turning, hat in hand, and wondering what such a question could mean. " If I send a saddle-hoss to yo' do' on day aftah to-morrhow evening at fo' o'clock, will you rhide out with me for-h about a hour-h and a half — just for a little pleasu'e ? " Joseph was yet more astonished than before. He hesitated, accepted the invitation, and once more said good-morning. CHAPTER XXI DOCTOR KEENE RECOVERS HIS BULLET It early attracted the apothecary's notice, in ob- serving the civilization around him, that it kept the flimsy false bottoms in its social errors only by in- cessant reiteration. As he re-entered the shop, dis- satisfied with himself for accepting M. Grandissime's 178 The Grandissimes invitation to ride, he knew by the fervent words which he overheard from the lips of his employee that the f. m. c. had been making one of his recon- noisances, and possibly had ventured in to inquire for his tenant. " I t'ink, me, dat hanny w'ite man is a gen'le- man ; but I don't care if a man are good like a h-angel, if 'e har not pu'e w'ite 'ow can 'e be a gen'leman ? " Raoul's words were addressed to a man who, as he rose up and handed Frowenfeld a note, ratified the Creole's sentiment by a spurt of tobacco juice and an affirmative " Hm-m." The note was a lead-pencil scrawl, without date. Dear Joe : Come and see me some time this evening. I am on my back in bed. Want your help in a little matter. Yours, Keene. I have found out who " Frowenfeld pondered : " I have found out who " Ah ! Doctor Keene had found out who stabbed Agricola. Some delays occurred in the afternoon, but toward sunset the apothecary dressed and went out. From the doctor's bedside in the rue St. Louis, if not delayed beyond all expectation, he would proceed to visit the ladies at Number 19 rue Bienville. The air was growing cold and threatening bad weather. He found the Doctor prostrate, wasted, hoarse, cross and almost too weak for speech. He could only whisper, as his friend approached his pillow : Doctor Keene recovers his Bullet 179 " These vile lungs ! " " Hemorrhage ? " The invalid held up three small, freckled fingers. Joseph dared not show pity in his gaze, but it seemed savage not to express some feeling, so after standing a moment he began to say : " I am very sorry " "You need n't bother yourself!" whispered the doctor, who lay frowning upward. By and by he whispered again. Frowenfeld bent his ear, and the little man, so merry when well, repeated, in a savage hiss : " Sit down ! " It was some time before he again broke the silence. "Tell you what I want — you to do — for me." "Well, sir " " Hold on ! " gasped the invalid, shutting his eyes with impatience, — " till I get through." He lay a little while motionless, and then drew from under his pillow a wallet, and from the wallet a pistol-ball. " Took that out — a badly neglected wound — last day I saw you." Here a pause, an appalling cough, and by and by a whisper : " Knew the bullet in an instant." He smiled wearily. " Peculiar size." He made a feeble motion. Frowenfeld guessed the meaning of it and handed him a pistol rrom a small table. The ball slipped softly home. " Refused two hundred dollars — those pistols" — with a sigh and closed eyes. By and by again — 180 The Grandissimes — " Patient had smart fever — but it will be gone — time you get — there. Want you to — take care — t' I get up." " But, Doctor " The sick man turned away his face with a petu- lant frown ; but presently, with an effort at self- control, brought it back and whispered : " You mean you — not physician ? " " Yes." " No. No more are half — doc's. You can do it. Simple gun-shot wound in the shoulder/' A rest. " Pretty wound ; ranges " — he gave up the effort to describe it. " You '11 see it." Another rest. " You see — this matter has been kept quiet so far. I don't want any one — else to know — anything about it." He sighed audibly and looked as though he had gone to sleep, but whispered again, with his eyes closed — " 'specially on cul- prit's own account." Frowenfeld was silent : but the invalid was waiting for an answer, and, not getting it, stirred peevishly. " Do you wish me to go to-night ? " asked the apothecary. " To-morrow morning. Will you ? " " Certainly, Doctor." The invalid lay quite still for several minutes, looking steadily at his friend, and finally let a faint smile play about his mouth, — a wan reminder of his habitual roguery. " Good boy," he whispered. Frowenfeld rose and straightened the bedclothes, Wars within the Breast 1 8 1 took a few steps about the room, and finally returned. The Doctor's restless eye had followed him at every movement. "You'll go?" "Yes," replied the apothecary, hat in hand; " where is it ? " "Corner Bienville and Bourbon, — upper river corner, — yellow one-story house, door-steps on street. You know the house?" " I think I do." " Good-night. Here ! — I wish you would send that black girl in here — as you .go out — make me better fire — Joe !" the call was a ghostly whisper. Frowenfeld paused in the door. "You don't mind my — bad manners, Joe ? " The apothecary gave one of his infrequent smiles. " No, Doctor." He started toward Number 19 rue Bienville, but a light, cold sprinkle set in, and he turned back toward his shop. No sooner had the rain got him there than it stopped, as rain sometimes will do. CHAPTER XXII WARS WITHIN THE BREAST The next morning came in frigid and gray. The unseasonable numerals which the meteorologist re- corded in his tables might have provoked a super- I 82 The Grandissimes stitious lover of better weather to suppose that Monsieur Danny, the head imp of discord, had been among the aerial currents. The passionate southern sky, looking down and seeing some six thousand to seventy-five hundred of her favorite children disconcerted and shivering, tried in vain, for two hours, to smile upon them with a little frozen sunshine, and finally burst into tears. In thus giving way to despondency, it is sad to say, the sky was closely imitating the simultaneous behavior of Aurora Nancanou. Never was pretty lady in cheerier mood than that in which she had come home from Honore's counting-room. Hard would it be to find the material with which to build again the castles-in-air that she founded upon two or three little discoveries there made. Should she tell them to Clotilde ? Ah ! and for what ? No, Clotilde was a dear daughter — ha! few women were capable of having such a daughter as Clotilde ; but there were things about which she was entirely too scrupulous. So, when she came in from that errand profoundly satisfied that she would in future hear no more about the rent than she might choose to hear, she had been too shrewd to expose herself to her daughter's catechising. She would save her little revelations for disclosure when they might be used to advantage. As she threw her bonnet upon the bed, she exclaimed, in a tone of gentle and wearied reproach : " Why did you not remind me that M. Honore Grandissime, that precious somebody-great, has the Wars within the Breast 183 honor to rejoice in a quadroon half-brother of the same illustrious name ? Why did you not remind me, eh ? " " Ah ! and you know it as well as A, B, C," playfully retorted Clotilde. " Well, guess which one is our landlord ? " " Which one ? " " Ma foi 1 how do / know ? I had to wait a shameful long time to see Monsieur le prince^ — just because I am a De Grapion, I know. When at last I saw him, he says, ' Madame, this is the other Honore Grandissime.' There, you see we are the victims of a conspiracy; if I go to the other, he will send me back to the first. But, Clotilde, my dar- ling," cried the beautiful speaker, beamingly, " dis- miss all fear and care ; we shall have no more trouble about it." " And how, indeed, do you know that? " " Something tells it to me in my ear. I feel it ! Trust in Providence, my child. Look at me, how happy I am ; but you — you never trust in Provi- dence. That is why we have so much trouble, — because you don't trust in Providence. Oh ! I am so hungry, let us have dinner." "What sort of a person is M. Grandissime in his appearance ? " asked Clotilde, over their feeble ex- cuse for a dinner. "What sort? Do you imagine I had nothing better to do than notice whether a Grandissime is good-looking or not ? For all I know to the con- trary, he is some more rice, please, my dear." 184 The Grandissimes But this light-heartedness did not last long. It was based on an unutterable secret, all her own, about which she still had trembling doubts ; this, too, notwithstanding her consultation of the dark oracles. She was going to stop that. In the long run, these charms and spells themselves bring bad luck. Moreover, the practice, indulged in to ex- cess, was wicked, and she had promised Clotilde, — that droll little saint, — to resort to them no more. Hereafter, she should do nothing of the sort, except, to be sure, to take such ordinary precautions against misfortune as casting upon the floor a little of what- ever she might be eating or drinking to propitiate M. Assonquer. She would have liked, could she have done it without fear of detection, to pour upon the front door-sill an oblation of beer sweetened with black molasses to Papa Lebat (who keeps the invis- ible keys of all the doors that admit suitors), but she dared not ; and then, the hound would surely have licked it up. Ah me ! was she forgetting that she was a widow ? She was in poor plight to meet the all but icy gray morning ; and, to make her misery still greater, she found, on dressing, that an accident had over- taken her, which she knew to be a trustworthy sign of love grown cold. She had lost — alas! how can we communicate it in English ! — a small piece of lute-string ribbon, about so long, which she used for — not a necktie exactly, but And she hunted and hunted, and couldn't bear to give up the search, and sat down to breakfast and Wars within the Breast 185 ate nothing, and rose up and searched again (not that she cared for the omen), and struck the hound with the broom, and broke the broom, and hunted again, and looked out the front window, and saw the rain beginning to fall, and dropped into a chair — crying, " Oh ! Clotilde, my child, my child ! the rent collector will be here Saturday and turn us into the street ! " and so fell a-weeping. A little tear-letting lightened her unrevealable burden, and she rose, rejoicing that Clotilde had happened to be out of eye-and-ear-shot. The scanty fire in the fireplace was ample to warm the room ; the fire within her made it too insufferably hot ! Rain or no rain, she parted the window-cur- tains and lifted the sash. What a mark for Love's arrow she was, as, at the window, she stretched her two arms upward! And, "right so," who should chance to come cantering by, the big drops of rain pattering after him, but the knightliest man in that old town, and the fittest to perfect the fine old- fashioned poetry of the scene ! " Clotilde," said Aurora, turning from her mirror, whither she had hastened to see if her face showed signs of tears (Clotilde was entering the room), "we shall never be turned out of this house by Honore Grandissime ! " "Why?" asked Clotilde, stopping short in the floor, forgetting Aurora's trust in Providence, and expecting to hear that M. Grandissime had been found dead in his bed. " Because I saw him just now ; he rode by on 1 86 The Grandissimes horseback. A man with that noble face could never do such a thing I " The astonished Clotilde looked at her mother searchingly. This sort of speech about a Grandis- sime ? But Aurora was the picture of innocence. Clotilde uttered a derisive laugh. " Impertinente ! " exclaimed the other, laboring not to join in it. " Ah-h-h ! " cried Clotilde, in the same mood, " and what face had he when he wrote that letter ? " " What face ? " " Yes, what face ? " " I do not know what face you mean," said Aurora. " What face," repeated Clotilde, " had Monsieur Honore de Grandissime on the day that he wrote " " Ah, f-fah ! " cried Aurora, and turned away, " you don't know what you are talking about ! You make me wish sometimes that I were dead ! " Clotilde had gone and shut down the sash, as it began to rain hard and blow. As she was turning away, her eye was attracted by an object at a distance. " What is it ? " asked Aurora, from a seat before the fire. " Nothing," said Clotilde, weary of the sensa- tional, — "a man in the rain." It was the apothecary of the rue Royale, turning from that street toward the rue Bourbon, and bow- ing his head against the swirling norther. ng the intrude I through im where he stooti nyre Her. dress was a long, snowy morn- sround loosely about at the waist v tassel of scarlet silk ; a brig red her from the waist d and a necklace of red coral heightened to her untamable beau: An gainst Doctor Ke> 7 on fire, compre- nind an angry determination lg shape, to be neither trifled i contemned. And this again the cerned, before ne " he began, but sto P p< uncomfortable were her e She did not stir or r Then he bethought him with a took is dripping hat. er glance; it g Frowenfeld keeps his Appointment 189 " The doctor is sick, and he asked me to dress your wound." She made the slightest discernible motion of the head, remained for a moment silent, and then, still with the same eye, motioned her hand toward a chair near a comfortable fire. He sat down. It would be well to dry himself. He drew near the hearth and let his gaze fall into the fire. When he presently lifted his eyes and looked full upon the woman with a steady, candid glance, she was regarding him with apparent cold- ness, but with secret diligence and scrutiny, and a yet more inward and secret surprise and admira- tion. Hard rubbing was bringing out the grain of the apothecary. But she presently suppressed the feeling. She hated men. But Frowenfeld, even while his eyes met hers, could not resent her hostility. This monument of the shame of two races — this poisonous blossom of crime growing out of crime — this final, un- answerable white man's accuser — this would-be murderess — what ranks and companies would have to stand up in the Great Day with her and answer as accessory before the fact ! He looked again into the fire. The patient spoke : " Eh bin, Mich'e? " Her look was severe, but less aggressive. The shufHe of the old negress's feet was heard and she appeared bearing warm and cold water and fresh bandages ; after depositing them she tarried. 190 The Grandissimes " Your fever is gone," said Frowenfeld, standing by the bed. He had laid his fingers on her wrist. She brushed them off and once more turned full upon him the cold hostility of her passionate eyes. The apothecary, instead of blushing, turned pale. "You — " he was going to say, "You insult me ; " but his lips came tightly together. Two big cords appeared between his brows, and his blue eyes spoke for him. Then, as the returning blood rushed even to his forehead, he said, speaking his words one by one ; " Please understand that you must trust me." She may not have understood his English, but she comprehended, nevertheless. She looked up fixedly for a moment, then passively closed her eyes. Then she turned, and Frowenfeld put out one strong arm, helped her to a sitting posture on the side of the bed and drew the shawl about her. " Zizi," she said, and the negress, who had stood perfectly still since depositing the water and band- ages, came forward and proceeded to bare the phil- osophe's superb shoulder. As Frowenfeld again put forward his hand, she lifted her own as if to prevent him, but he kindly and firmly put it away and addressed himself with silent diligence to his task ; and by the time he had finished, his womanly touch, his commanding gentleness, his easy despatch, had inspired Palmyre not only with a sense of safety, comfort, and repose, but with a pleased wonder. This woman had stood all her life with dagger drawn, on the defensive against what certainly was Frowenfeld keeps his Appointment 191 to her an unmerciful world. With possibly one exception, the man now before her was the only one she had ever encountered whose speech and gesture were clearly keyed to that profound respect which is woman's first, foundation claim on man. And yet, by inexorable decree, she belonged to what we used to call " the happiest people under the sun." We ought to stop saying that. So far as Palmyre knew, the entire masculine wing of the mighty and exalted race, three-fourths of whose blood bequeathed her none of its pre- rogatives, regarded her as legitimate prey. The man before her did not. There lay the fundamen- tal difference that, in her sight, as soon as she dis- covered it, glorified him. Before this assurance the cold fierceness of her eyes gave way, and a friendlier light from them rewarded the apothecary's final touch. He called for more pillows, made a nest of them, and, as she let herself softly into it, directed his next consideration toward his hat and the door. It was many an hour after he had backed out into the trivial remains of the rain-storm before he could replace with more tranquillizing images the vision of the philosophe reclining among her pil- lows, in the act of making that uneasy movement of her fingers upon the collar button of her robe, which women make when they are uncertain about the perfection of their dishabille, and giving her inaudible adieu with the majesty of an empress. 192 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XXIV FROWENFELD MAKES AN ARGUMENT On the afternoon of the same day on which Frowenfeld visited the house of the philosophe, the weather, which had been so unfavorable to his late plans, changed; the rain ceased, the wind drew around to the south, and the barometer promised a clear sky. Wherefore he decided to leave his business, when he should have made his evening weather notes, to the care of M. Raoul Innerarity, and venture to test both Mademoiselle Clotilde's repellent attitude and Aurora's seeming cordiality at Number 19 rue Bienville. Why he should go was a question which the apothecary felt himself but partially prepared to answer. What necessity called him, what good was to be effected, what was to happen next, were points he would have liked to be clear upon. That he should be going merely because he was invited to come — merely for the pleasure of breathing their atmosphere — that he should be supinely gravita- ting toward them — this conclusion he positively could not allow ; no, no ; the love of books and the fear of women alike protested. True, they were a part of that book which is pronounced " the proper study of mankind," — indeed, that was probably the reason which he sought : he was going to contemplate them as a Frowenfeld makes an Argument 193 frontispiece to that unwriteable volume which he had undertaken to con. Also, there was a chari- table motive. Doctor Keene, months before, had expressed a deep concern regarding their lack of protection and even of daily provision ; he must quietly look into that. Would some unforeseen circumstance shut him off this evening again from this very proper use of time and opportunity? As he was sitting at the table in his back room, registering his sunset observations, and wondering what would become of him if Aurora should be out and that other in, he was startled by a loud, deep voice exclaiming, close behind him : " Eh, biert ! Monsieur le Professeur ! " Frowenfeld knew by the tone, before he looked behind him, that he would find M. Agricola Fusi- lier very red in the face ; and when he looked, the only qualification he could make was that the citi- zen's countenance was not so ruddy as the red handkerchief in which his arm was hanging. " What have you there ? " slowly continued the patriarch, taking his free hand off his fettered arm and laying it upon the page as Frowenfeld hurriedly rose, and endeavored to shut the book. " Some private memoranda," answered the mete- orologist, managing to get one page turned back- ward, reddening with confusion and indignation, and noticing that Agricola's spectacles were upside down. " Private ! Eh ? No such thing, sir ! Profes- sor Frowenfeld, allow me " (a classic oath) " to say to your face, sir, that you are the most brilliant and 194 The Grandissimes the most valuable man — of your years — in afflicted Louisiana! Ha!" (reading:) "'Morning obser- vation ; Cathedral clock, 7 a. m. Thermometer 70 degrees.' Ha! 'Hygrometer 15' — but this is not to-day's weather ? Ah ! no. Ha ! ' Barom- eter 30.380.' Ha! 'Sky cloudy, dark; wind, south, light.' Ha! 'River rising.' Ha! Profes- sor Frowenfeld, when will you give your splendid services to your section ? You must tell me, my son, for I ask you, my son, not from curiosity, but out of impatient interest." " I cannot say that I shall ever publish my tables," replied the " son," pulling at the book. " Then, sir, in the name of Louisiana," thundered the old man, clinging to the book, " I can ! They shall be published ! Ah ! yes, dear Frowenfeld. The book, of course, will be in French, eh ? You would not so affront the most sacred prejudices of the noble people to whom you owe everything as to publish it in English? You — ah! have we torn it ? " " I do not write French," said the apothecary, laying the torn edges together. " Professor Frowenfeld, men are born for each other. What do I behold before me ? I behold before me, in the person of my gifted young friend, a supplement to myself! Why has Nature strengthened the soul of Agricola to hold the crumbling fortress of this body until these eyes — which were once, my dear boy, as proud and piercing as the battle-steed's — have become dim ? " Frowenfeld makes an Argument 195 Joseph's insurmountable respect for gray hairs kept him standing, but he did not respond with any conjecture as to Nature's intentions, and there was a stern silence. The crumbling fortress resumed, his voice pitched low like the beginning of the long roll. He knew Nature's design. "It was in order that you, Professor Frowenfeld, might become my vicar ! Your book shall be in French ! We must give it a wide scope ! It shall contain valuable geographical, topographical, bio- graphical, and historical notes. It shall contain complete lists of all the officials in the province (I don't say territory, I say province) with their sal- aries and perquisites ; ah ! we will expose that ! And — ha! I will write some political essays for it. Raoul shall illustrate it. Honore shall give you money to publish it. Ah ! Professor Frowenfeld, the star of your fame is rising out of the waves of oblivion ! Come — I dropped in purposely to ask you — come across the street and take a glass of tafia with Agricola Fusilier." This crowning honor the apothecary was insane enough to decline, and Agricola went away with many professions of endearment, but secretly offended because Joseph had not asked about his wound. All the same the apothecary, without loss of time, departed for the yellow-washed cottage, Number 19 rue Bienville. " To-morrow, at four p. m.," he said to himself, x 96 The Grandissimes " if the weather is favorable, I ride with M. Gran- dissime." He almost saw his books and instruments look up at him reproachfully. The ladies were at home. Aurora herself opened the door, and Clotilde came forward from the bright fire-place with a cordiality never before so un- qualified. There was something about these ladies — in their simple, but noble grace, in their half- Gallic, half-classic beauty, in a jocund buoyancy mated to an amiable dignity — that made them appear to the scholar as though they had just bounded into life from the garlanded procession of some old fresco. The resemblance was not a little helped on by the costume of the late Revolution (most acceptably chastened and belated by the distance from Paris). Their black hair, somewhat heavier on Clotilde's head, where it rippled once or twice, was knotted en Grecque, and adorned only with the spoils of a nosegay given to Clotilde by a chivalric small boy in the home of her music scholar. " We was expectin' you since several days," said Clotilde, as the three sat down before the fire, Frowenfeld in a cushioned chair whose moth-holes had been carefully darned. Frowenfeld intimated, with tolerable composure, that matters beyond his control had delayed his coming, beyond his intention. "You gedd'n' ridge," said Aurora, dropping her wrists across each other. Frowenfeld makes an Argument 197 Frowenfeld, for once, laughed outright, and it seemed so odd in him to do so that both the ladies followed his example. The ambition to be rich had never entered his thought, although in an unemotional, German way, he was prospering in a little city where wealth was daily pouring in, and a man had only to keep step, so to say, to march into possessions. " You hought to 'ave a mo' larger sto' an' some clerque," pursued Aurora. The apothecary answered that he was contem- plating the enlargement of his present place or removal to a roomier, and that he had already employed an assistant. "Oo it is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " Clotilde turned toward the questioner a remons- trative glance. "His name," replied Frowenfeld, betraying a slight embarrassment, "is — Innerarity ; Mr. Raoul Innerarity; he is " " Ee pain' dad pigtu' w'at 'angin' in yo' window?" Clotilde's remonstrance rose to a slight move- ment and a murmur. Frowenfeld answered in the affirmative, and possibly betrayed the faint shadow of a smile. The response was a peal of laughter from both ladies. " He is an excellent drug clerk," said Frowenfeld defensively. Whereat Aurora laughed again, leaning over and touching Clotilde's knee with one finger. 198 The Grandissimes " An' excellen' drug cl' — ha, ha, ha ! oh ! " " You muz podden uz, M'sieu' Frowenfel','' said Clotilde, with forced gravity. Aurora sighed her participation in the apology ; and, a few moments later, the apothecary and both ladies (the one as fond of the abstract as the other two were ignorant of the concrete) were engaged in an animated, running discussion on art, society, climate, education, — all those large, secondary desiderata which seem of first importance to young ambition and secluded beauty, flying to and fro among these subjects with all the liveliness and uncertainty of a game of pussy-wants-a-corner. Frowenfeld had never before spent such an hour. At its expiration, he had so well held his own against both the others, that the three had settled down to this sort of entertainment : Aurora would make an assertion, or Clotilde would ask a question ; and Frowenfeld, moved by that frankness and ardent zeal for truth which had enlisted the early friendship of Dr. Keene, amused and attracted Honore Grandissime, won the con- fidence of the f. m. c, and tamed the fiery distrust and enmity of Palmyre, would present his opinions without the thought of a reservation either in him- self or his hearers. On their part, they would sit in deep attention, shielding their faces from the fire, and responding to enunciations directly contrary to their convictions with an occasional " yes-seh," or " ceddenly," or " of coze," or, — prettier affirmation still, — a solemn drooping of the eyelids, a slight Frowenfeld makes and Argument 199 compression of the lips, and a low, slow declination of the head. "The bane of all Creole art-effort " — (we take up the apothecary's words at a point where Clotilde was leaning forward and slightly frowning in an honest attempt to comprehend his condensed Eng- lish) — "the bane of all Creole art-effort, so far as I have seen it, is amateurism." " Amateu — " murmured Clotilde, a little be- clouded on the main word and distracted by a French difference of meaning, but planting an elbow on one knee in the genuineness of her attention, and responding with a bow. " That is to say," said Frowenfeld, apologizing for the homeliness of his further explanation by a smile, " a kind of ambitious indolence that lays very large eggs, but can neither see the necessity for building a nest beforehand, nor command the patience to hatch the eggs afterward." " Of coze," said Aurora. " It is a great pity," said the sermonizer, looking at the face of Clotilde, elongated in the brass and- iron ; and, after a pause : " Nothing on earth can take the place of hard and patient labor. But that, in this community, is not esteemed; most sorts of it are contemned ; the humbler sorts are despised, and the higher are regarded with mingled patronage and commiseration. Most of those who come to my shop with their efforts at art hasten to explain, either that they are merely seeking pastime, or else that they are driven to their course by want ; and 200 The Grandissimes if I advise them to take their work back and finish it, they take it back and never return. Industry is not only despised, but has been degraded and dis- graced, handed over into the hands of African savages." " Doze Creole' is lezzy," said Aurora. "That is a hard word to apply to those who do not consciously deserve it," said Frowenfeld ; " but if they could only wake up to the fact, — find it out themselves " " Ceddenly," said Clotilde. "'Sieur FrowenfeP," said Aurora, leaning her head on one side, " some pipple thing it is doze climade ; 'ow you lag doze climade ? " " I do not suppose," replied the visitor, " there is a more delightful climate in the world." " Ah-h-h ! " — both ladies at once, in a low, gra- cious tone of acknowledgment. " I thing Louisiana is a paradize-me ! " said Aurora. " Were you goin' fin' sudge a h-air ? " She respired a sample of it. " Were you goin' fin' sudge a so ridge groun' ? De weed' in my bag yard is twenny-five feet 'igh ! " " Ah ! maman ! " "Twenty-six!" said Aurora, correcting herself. "Were you fin' sudge a reever lag dad Mississippi ? On dit" she said, turning to Clotilde, " que ses eaux ont la propri'et'e de contribuer meme a multiplier V espece humaine — ha, ha, ha ! " Clotilde turned away an unmoved countenance to hear Frowenfeld. Frowenfeld makes an Argument 201 Frowenfeld had contracted a habit of failing into meditation whenever the French language left him out of the conversation. " Yes," he said, breaking a contemplative pause, " the climate is too comfortable and the soil too rich, — though I do not think it is entirely on their account that the people who enjoy them are so sadly in arrears to the civilized world." He blushed with the fear that his talk was bookish, and felt grateful to Clotilde for seeming to understand his speech. "Wad you fin' de rizzon is, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " she asked. " I do not wish to philosophize," he answered. " Mais, go hon." " Mais, go ahade," said both ladies, settling themselves. " It is largely owing," exclaimed Frowenfeld, with sudden fervor, " to a defective organization of society, which keeps this community, and will con- tinue to keep it for an indefinite time to come, entirely unprepared and disinclined to follow the course of modern thought." " Of coze," murmured Aurora, who had lost her bearings almost at the first word. " One great general subject of thought now is human rights, — universal human rights. The entire literature of the world is becoming tinctured with contradictions of the dogmas upon which society in this section is built. Human rights is, of all subjects, the one upon which this community is most violently determined to hear no discussion. 202 The Grandissimes It has pronounced that slavery and caste are right, and sealed up the whole subject. What, then, will they do with the world's literature ? They will coldly decline to look at it, and will become, more and more as the world moves on, a comparatively illiterate people." " Bud, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Clotilde, as Frow- enfeld paused — Aurora was stunned to silence, — "de Unitee State' goin* pud doze nigga' free, aind it?" Frowenfeld pushed his hair hard back. He was in the stream now, and might as well go through. " I have heard that charge made, even by some Americans. I do not know. But there is a slavery that no legislation can abolish, — the slavery of caste. That, like all the slaveries on earth, is a double bondage. And what a bondage it is which compels a community, in order to preserve its established tyrannies, to walk behind the rest of the intelligent world ! What a bondage is that which incites a people to adopt a system of social and civil distinctions, possessing all the enormities and none of the advantages of those systems which Europe is learning to despise ! This system, moreover, is only kept up by a flourish of weapons. We have here what you may call an armed aristocracy. The class over which these instruments of main force are held is chosen for its servility, ignorance, and cowardice; hence, indolence in the ruling class. When a man's social or civil standing is not dependent on his know- ing how to read, he is not likely to become a scholar." Frowenfeld makes an Argument 203 "Of coze," said Aurora, with a pensive respira- tion, " I thing id is doze climade," and the apothe- cary stopped, as a man should who finds himself unloading large philosophy in a little parlor. " I thing, me, dey hought to pud doze quadroon' free ? " It was Clotilde who spoke, ending with the rising inflection to indicate the tentative character of this daringly premature declaration. Frowenfeld did not answer hastily. " The quadroons," said he, " want a great deal more than mere free papers can secure them. Emancipation before the law, though it may be a right which man has no right to withhold, is to them little more than a mockery until they achieve emancipation in the minds and good will of the people — 'the people,' did I say? I mean the ruling class." He stopped again. One must inevitably feel a little silly, setting up tenpins for ladies who are too polite, even if able, to bowl them down. Aurora and the visitor began to speak simul- taneously ; both apologized, and Aurora said : " 'Sieur Frowenfel', w'en I was a 1 i 11 girl," — and Frowenfeld knew that he was going to hear the story of Palmyre. Clotilde moved, with the obvious intention to mend the fire. Aurora asked, in French, why she did not call the cook to do it, and Frowenfeld said, " Let me," — threw on some wood, and took a seat nearer Clotilde. Aurora had the floor. 204 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XXV AURORA AS A HISTORIAN Alas ! the phonograph was invented three- quarters of a century too late. If type could entrap one-half the pretty oddities of Aurora's speech, — the arch, the pathetic, the grave, the earnest, the matter-of-fact, the ecstatic tones of her voice, — nay, could it but reproduce the move- ment of her hands, the eloquence of her eyes, or the shapings of her mouth, — ah ! but type — even the phonograph — is such an inadequate thing ! Sometimes she laughed ; sometimes Clotilde, unex- pectedly to herself, joined her; and twice or thrice she provoked a similar demonstration from the ox- like apothecary, — to her own intense amusement. Sometimes she shook her head in solemn scorn ; and, when Frowenfeld, at a certain point where Palmyre's fate locked hands for a time with that of Bras-Coupe, asked a fervid question concern- ing that strange personage, tears leaped into her eyes, as she said : " Ah ! 'Sieur Frowenfel', iv I tra to tell de sto'y of Bras-Coupe, I goin' to cry lag a lill bebby." The account of the childhood days upon the plantation at Cannes Brulees may be passed by. It was early in Palmyre's fifteenth year that that Kentuckian, ' mutual friend ' of her master and Agricola, prevailed with M. de Grapion to send Aurora as a Historian 205 her to the paternal Grandissime mansion, — a com- plimentary gift, through Agricola, to Mademoiselle, his niece, — returnable ten years after date. The journey was made in safety ; and, by and by, Palmyre was presented to her new mistress. The occasion was notable. In a great chair in the centre sat the grandpere, a Chevalier de Grandissime, whose business had narrowed down to sitting on the front veranda and wearing his decorations, — the cross of St. Louis being one ; on his right, Colonel Numa Grandissime, with one arm dropped around Honore, then a boy of Palmyre's age, expecting to be off in sixty days for France; and on the left, with Honore's fair sister nestled against her, " Madame Numa," as the Creoles would call her, a stately woman and beautiful, a great admirer of her brother Agricola. (Aurora took pains to ex- plain that she received these minutiae from Palmyre herself in later years.) One other member of the group was a young don of some twenty years' age, not an inmate of the house, but only a cousin of Aurora on her deceased mother's side. To make the affair complete, and as a seal to this tacit Grandissime-de-Grapion treaty, this sole available representative of the " other side " was made a guest for the evening. Like the true Spaniard that he was, Don Jose Martinez fell deeply in love with Honore's sister. Then there came Agricola lead- ing in Palmyre. There were others, for the Gran- dissime mansion was always full of Grandissimes ; but this was the central group. 206 The Grandissimes In this house Palmyre grew to womanhood, retain- ing without interruption the place into which she seemed to enter by right of indisputable superiority over all competitors, — the place of favorite attend- ant to the sister of Honore. Attendant, we say, for servant she never seemed. She grew tall, arrowy, lithe, imperial, diligent, neat, thorough, silent. Her new mistress, though scarcely at all her senior, was yet distinctly her mistress ; she had that through her Fusilier blood ; experience was just then beginning to show that the Fusilier Gran- dissime was a superb variety ; she was a mistress one could wish to obey. Palmyre loved her, and through her contact ceased, for a time, at least, to be the pet leopard she had been at the Cannes Brulees. Honore went away to Paris only sixty days after Palmyre entered the house. But even that was not soon enough. " 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said Aurora, in her recital, "Palmyre, she never tole me dad, mats I am shoe, shoe dad she fall in love wid Honore Grandissime. 'Sieur Frowenfel', I thing dad Honore Grandissime is one bad man, ent it ? Whad you thing, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " " I think, as I said to you the last time, that he is one of the best, as I know that he is one of the kindest and most enlightened gentlemen in the city," said the apothecary. "Ah, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ! ha, ha!" " That is my conviction." The lady went on with her story. Aurora as a Historian 207 " Hanny'ow, I know she continue in love wid 'im all doze ten year' w'at 'e been gone. She baig Mademoiselle Grandissime to wrad dad ledder to my papa to ass to kip her two years mo'." Here Aurora carefully omitted that episode which Doctor Keene had related to Frowenfeld, — her own marriage and removal to Fausse Riviere, the visit of her husband to the city, his unfortunate and finally fatal affair with Agricola, and the surrender of all her land and slaves to that successful duellist. M. de Grapion, through all that, stood by his engagement concerning Palmyre ; and, at the end of ten years, to his own astonishment, responded favorably to a letter from Honore's sister, irresist- ible for its goodness, good sense, and eloquent pleading, asking leave to detain Palmyre two years longer; but this response came only after the old master and his pretty, stricken Aurora had wept over it until they were weak and gentle, — and was not a response either, but only a silent consent. Shortly before the return of Honore — and here it was that Aurora took up again the thread of her account — while his mother, long-widowed, reigned in the paternal mansion, with Agricola for her manager, Bras-Coupe appeared. From that advent, and the long and varied mental sufferings which its consequences brought upon her, sprang that second change in Palmyre, which made her finally untama- ble, and ended in a manumission, granted her more for fear than for conscience' sake. When Aurora attempted to tell those experiences, even 208 The Grandissimes leaving Bras-Coupe as much as might be out of the recital, she choked with tears at the very start, stopped, laughed, and said : " C'est tout — daz all. 'Sieur Frowenfel', oo you fine dad pigtu' to loog lag, yonnah, hon de wall ? " She spoke as if he might have overlooked it, though twenty times, at least, in the last hour, she had seen him glance at it. "It is a good likeness," said the apothecary, turn- ing to Clotilde, yet showing himself somewhat puzzled in the matter of the costume. The ladies laughed. " Daz ma grade-gran'-mamma," said Clotilde. " Dass one fille a la cassette" said Aurora, " my gran'-muzzah ; mais, ad de sem tam id is Clotilde." She touched her daughter under the chin with a ringed finger. " Clotilde is my gran'-mamma." Frowenfeld rose to go. "You muz come again, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," said both ladies, in a breath. What could he say ? CHAPTER XXVI A RIDE AND A RESCUE " Douane or Bienville ? " Such was the choice presented by Honore Gran- dissime to Joseph Frowenfeld, as the former on a lively brown colt and the apothecary on a nervy chestnut fell into a gentle, preliminary trot while A Ride and a Rescue 209 yet in the rue Royale, looked after by that great admirer of both, Raoul Innerarity. " Douane ? " said Frowenfeld. (It was the street we call Custom-house.) " It has mud-holes," objected Honore. " Well, then, the rue du Canal ? " "The canal — I can smell it from here. Why not rue Bienville ? " Frowenfeld said he did not know. (We give the statement for what it is worth.) Notice their route. A spirit of perversity seems to have entered into the very topography of this quarter. They turned up the rue Bienville (up is toward the river) ; reaching the levee, they took their course up the shore of the Mississippi (almost due south), and broke into a lively gallop on the Tchoupitoulas road, which in those days skirted that margin of the river nearest the sunsetting, namely, the eastern bank. Conversation moved sluggishly for a time, halt- ing upon trite topics or swinging easily from polite inquiry to mild affirmation, and back again. They were men of thought, these two, and one of them did not fully understand why he was in his present position ; hence some reticence. It was one of those afternoons in early March that make one wonder how the rest of the world avoids emi- grating to Louisiana in a body. " Is not the season early ? " asked Frowenfeld. M. Grandissime believed it was ; but then the Creole spring always seemed so, he said. 2 1 o The Grandissimes The land was an inverted firmament of flowers. The birds were an innumerable, busy, joy-compel- ling multitude, darting and fluttering hither and thither, as one might imagine the babes do in heaven. The orange-groves were in blossom ; their dark-green boughs seemed snowed upon from a cloud of incense, and a listening ear might catch an incessant, whispered trickle of falling petals, dropping " as the honey-comb." The magnolia was beginning to add to its dark and shining ever- green foliage frequent sprays of pale new leaves and long, slender, buff buds of others yet to come. The oaks, both the bare-armed and the " green- robed senators," the willows, and the plaqueminiers, were putting out their subdued florescence as if they smiled in grave participation with the laugh- ing gardens. The homes that gave perfection to this beauty were those old, large, belvidered colo- nial villas, of which you may still here and there see one standing, battered into half ruin, high and broad, among foundries, cotton- and tobacco-sheds, junk-yards, and longshoremen's hovels, like one unconquered elephant in a wreck of artillery. In Frowenfeld's day the "smell of their garments was like Lebanon." They were seen by glimpses through chance openings in lofty hedges of Chero- kee-rose or bois-d'arc, under boughs of cedar or pride-of-China, above their groves of orange or down their long, overarched avenues of oleander ; and the lemon and the pomegranate, the banana, the fig, the shaddock, and at times even the mango A Ride and a Rescue 21 1 and the guava, joined "hands around" and tossed their fragrant locks above the lilies and roses. Frowenfeld forgot to ask himself further concern- ing the probable intent of M. Grandissime's invi- tation to ride ; these beauties seemed rich enough in good reasons. He felt glad and grateful. At a certain point the two horses turned of their own impulse, as by force of habit, and with a few clambering strides mounted to the top of the levee and stood still, facing the broad, dancing, hurrying, brimming river. The Creole stole an amused glance at the elated, self- forgetful look of his immigrant friend. " Mr. Frowenfeld," he said, as the delighted apothecary turned with unwonted suddenness and saw his smile, " I believe you like this better than discussion. You find it easier to be in harmony with Louisiana than with Louisianians, eh ? " Frowenfeld colored with surprise. Something unpleasant had lately occurred in his shop. Was this to signify that M. Grandissime had heard of it? " I am a Louisianian," replied he, as if this were a point assailed. " I would not insinuate otherwise," said M. Grandissime, with a kindly gesture. "I would like you to feel so. We are citizens now of a different government from that under which we lived the morning we first met. Yet " — the Creole paused and smiled — " you are not, and I am glad you are not, what we call a Louisianian." Frowenfeld's color increased. He turned quickly 212 The Grandissimes in his saddle as if to say something very positive, but hesitated, restrained himself and asked : " Mr. Grandissime, is not your Creole 'we' a word that does much damage ?" The Creole's response was at first only a smile, followed by a thoughtful countenance ; but he pres- ently said, with some suddenness : " My-de'-seh, yes. Yet you see I am, even this moment, forgetting we are not a separate people. Yes, our Creole ' we ' does damage, and our Creole ' you ' does more. I assure you, sir, I try hard to get my people to understand that it is time to stop calling those who come and add them- selves to the community, aliens, interlopers, in- vaders. That is what I hear my cousins, 'Polyte and Sylvestre, in the heat of discussion, called you the other evening ; is it so ? " " I brought it upon myself," said Frowenfeld. " I brought it upon myself." " Ah ! " interrupted M. Grandissime, with a broad smile, " excuse me — I am fully prepared to believe it. But the charge is a false one. I told them so. My-de'-seh — I know that a citizen of the United States in the United States has a right to become, and to be called, under the laws governing the case, a Louisianian, a Vermonter, or a Virginian, as it may suit his whim ; and even if he should be found dishonest or dangerous, he has a right to be treated just exactly as we treat the knaves and ruffians who are native born ! Every discreet man must admit that." A Ride and a Rescue 2 1 3 " But if they do not enforce it, Mr. Grandis- sime," quickly responded the sore apothecary, " if they continually forget it — if one must surrender himself to the errors and crimes of the community as he finds it " The Creole uttered a low laugh. " Party differences, Mr. Frowenfeld ; they have them in all countries." " So your cousins said," said Frowenfeld. " And how did you answer them ? " " Offensively," said the apothecary, with sincere mortification. " Oh ! that was easy," replied the other, amusedly ; " but how? " " I said that, having here only such party dif- ferences as are common elsewhere, we do not be- have as they elsewhere do ; that in most civilized countries the immigrant is welcome, but here he is not. I am afraid I have not learned the art of courteous debate," said Frowenfeld, with a smile of apology. " 'T is a great art," said the Creole, quietly, strok- ing his horse's neck. " I suppose my cousins denied your statement with indignation, eh?" " Yes ; they said the honest immigrant is always welcome." " Well, do you not find that true ? " " But, Mr. Grandissime, that is requiring the immigrant to prove his innocence ! " Frowenfeld spoke from the heart. " And even the honest immigrant is welcome only when he leaves his 214 The Grandissimes peculiar opinions behind him. Is that right, sir? " The Creole smiled at Frowenfeld's heat. " My-de'-seh, my cousins complain that you advocate measures fatal to the prevailing order of society." " But," replied the unyielding Frowenfeld, turn- ing redder than ever, " that is the very thing that American liberty gives me the right — peaceably — to do ! Here is a structure of society defective, dangerous, erected on views of human relations which the world is abandoning as false ; yet the immigrant's welcome is modified with the warning not to touch these false foundations with one of his fingers." " Did you tell my cousins the foundations of society here are false ? " " I regret to say I did, very abruptly. I told them they were privately aware of the fact." " You may say," said the ever-amiable Creole, " that you allowed debate to run into controversy, eh?" Frowenfeld was silent ; he compared the gen- tleness of this Creole's rebukes with the asperity of his advocacy of right, and felt humiliated. But M. Grandissime spoke with a rallying smile. " Mr. Frowenfeld, you never make pills with eight corners eh ? " " No, sir." The apothecary smiled. " No, you make them round ; cannot you make your doctrines the same way? My-de'-seh, you A Ride and a Rescue 215 will think me impertinent ; but the reason I speak is because I wish very much that you and my cousins would not be offended with each other. To tell you the truth, my-de'-seh, I hoped to use you with them — pardon my frankness." " If Louisiana had more men like you, M. Grandissime," cried the untrained Frowenfeld, " society would be less sore to the touch." " My-de'-seh," said the Creole, laying his hand out toward his companion and turning his horse in such a way as to turn the other also, " do me one favor ; remember that it is sore to the touch." The animals picked their steps down the inner face of the levee and resumed their course up the road at a walk. " Did you see that man just turn the bend of the road, away yonder ? " the Creole asked. "Yes." " Did you recognize him ? " "It was — my landlord, was n't it ? " " Yes. Did he not have a conversation with you lately, too ? " " Yes, sir ; why do you ask ? " "It has had a bad effect on him. I wonder why he is out here on foot? " The horses quickened their paces. The two friends rode along in silence. Frowenfeld noticed his companion frequently cast an eye up along the distant sunset shadows of the road with a new anxiety. Yet, when M. Grandissime broke the silence it was only to say : 2i6 The Grandissimes " I suppose you find the blemishes in our state of society can all be attributed to one main defect, Mr. Frowenfeld ? " Frowenfeld was glad of the chance to answer : " I have not overlooked that this society has disadvantages as well as blemishes ; it is distant from enlightened centres ; it has a language and religion different from that of the great people of which it is now called to be a part. That it has also positive blemishes of organism " " Yes," interrupted the Creole, smiling at the immigrant's sudden magnanimity, " its positive blemishes ; do they all spring from one main defect ? " " I think not. The climate has its influence, the soil has its influence — dwellers in swamps cannot be mountaineers." "But after all," persisted the Creole, "the greater part of our troubles comes from " " Slavery," said Frowenfeld, " or rather caste." " Exactly," said M. Grandissime. " You surprise me, sir," said the simple apothe- cary. " I supposed you were " " My-de'-seh," exclaimed M. Grandissime, sud- denly becoming very earnest, " I am nothing, noth- ing ! There is where you have the advantage of me. I am but a dilettante, whether in politics, in philosophy, morals, or religion. I am afraid to go deeply into anything, lest it should make ruin in my name, my family, my property." He laughed unpleasantly. A Ride and a Rescue 2 1 7 The question darted into Frowenfeld's mind, whether this might not be a hint of the matter that M. Grandissime had been trying to see him about. "Mr. Grandissime," he said, "I can hardly believe you would neglect a duty either for family, property, or society." " Well, you mistake," said the Creole, so coldly that Frowenfeld colored. They galloped on. M. Grandissime brightened again, almost to the degree of vivacity. By and by they slackened to a slow trot and were silent. The gardens had been long left behind, and they were passing between continuous Cherokee-rose hedges on the right and on the left, along that bend of the Mississippi where its waters, glancing off three miles above from the old De Macarty levee (now Carrollton), at the slightest opposition in the breeze go whirling and leaping like a herd of dervishes across to the ever-crumbling shore, now marked by the little yellow depot-house of Westwego. Miles up the broad flood the sun was disappearing gor- geously. From their saddles, the two horsemen feasted on the scene without comment. But presently, M. Grandissime uttered a low ejaculation and spurred his horse toward a tree hard by, preparing, as he went, to fasten his rein to an overhanging branch. Frowenfeld, agreeable to his beckon, imitated the movement. " I fear he intends to drown himself," whispered M. Grandissime, as they hurriedly dismounted. "Who? Not " 2 1 8 The Grandissimes "Yes, your landlord, as you call him. He is on the flatboat ; I saw his hat over the levee. When we get on top the levee, we must get right into it. But do not follow him into the water in front of the flat; it is certain death; no power of man could keep you from- going under it." The words were quickly spoken ; they scrambled to the levee's crown. Just abreast of them lay a flatboat, emptied of its cargo and moored to the levee. They leaped into it. A human figure swerved from the onset of the Creole and ran toward the bow of the boat, and in an instant more would have been in the river. " Stop ! " said Frowenfeld, seizing the unresisting f. m. c. firmly by the collar. Honore Grandissime smiled, partly at the apothe- cary's brief speech, but much more at his success. " Let him go, Mr. Frowenfeld," he said, as he came near. The silent man turned away his face with a gesture of shame. M. Grandissime, in a gentle voice, exchanged a few words with him, and he turned and walked away, gained the shore, descended the levee, and took a foot-path which soon hid him behind a hedge. " He gives his pledge not to try again," said the Creole, as the two companions proceeded to resume the saddle. " Do not look after him." (Joseph had cast a searching look over the hedge.) They turned homeward. A Ride and a Rescue 219 "Ah! Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, sud- denly, " if the immigrant has cause of complaint, how much more has that man ! True, it is only love for which he would have just now drowned himself; yet what an accusation, my-de'-seh, is his whole life against that 'caste' which shuts him up within its narrow and almost solitary limits ! And yet, Mr. Frowenfeld, this people esteem this very same crime of caste the holiest and most precious of their virtues. My-de'-seh, it never occurs to us that in this matter we are interested, and therefore disqualified, witnesses. We say we are not under- stood ; that the jury (the civilized world) renders its decision without viewing the body ; that we are judged from a distance. We forget that we our- selves are too close to see distinctly, and so continue, a spectacle to civilization, sitting in a horrible dark- ness, my-de'-seh ! " He frowned. " The shadow of the Ethiopian," said the grave apothecary. M. Grandissime's quick gesture implied that Frowenfeld had said the very word. " Ah ! my-de'-seh, when I try sometimes to stand outside and look at it, I am ama-aze at the length, the blackness of that shadow!" (He was so deeply in earnest that he took no care of his English.) " It is the Nemesis w'ich, instead of coming afteh, glides along by the side of this morhal, political, commercial, social mistake ! It blanches, my-de'- seh, ow whole civilization ! It drhags us a centurhy behind the rhes' of the world ! It rhetahds and 220 The Grandissimes poisons everhy industrhy we got! — mos' of all our-h immense agrhicultu'e ! It brheeds a thousan' cusses that nevva leave home but jus' flutter-h up an' rhoost, my-de'-seh, on ow heads ; an' we nevva know it ! — yes, sometimes some of us know it." He changed the subject. They had repassed the ruins of Fort St. Louis, and were well within the precincts of the little city, when, as they pulled up from a final gallop, mention was made of Doctor Keene. He was improving ; Honore had seen him that morning; so, at another hour, had Frowenfeld. Doctor Keene had told Honore about Palmyre's wound. "You was at her house again this morning?" asked the Creole. " Yes," said Frowenfeld. M. Grandissime shook his head warningly. "'Tis a dangerous business. You are almost sure to become the object of slander. You ought to tell Doctor Keene to make some other arrange- ment, or presently you, too, will be under the — " he lowered his voice, for Frowenfeld was dismount- ing at the shop door, and three or four acquaint- ances stood around — " under the ' shadow of the Ethiopian.' " The Fete de Grandpere 221 CHAPTER XXVII THE FETE DE GRANDPERE Sojourners in New Orleans who take their after- noon drive down Esplanade street will notice, across on the right, between it and that sorry streak once fondly known as Champs Elysees, two or three large, old houses, rising above the general surround- ings and displaying architectural features which identify them with an irrevocable past — a past when the faithful and true Creole could, without fear of contradiction, express his religious belief that the antipathy he felt for the Americain invader was an inborn horror laid lengthwise in his ante-natal bones by a discriminating and appreciative Provi- dence. There is, for instance, or was until lately, one house which some hundred and fifteen years ago was the suburban residence of the old sea-captain governor, Kerlerec. It stands up among the oranges as silent and gray as a pelican, and, so far as we know, has never had one cypress plank added or subtracted since its master was called to France and thrown into the Bastile. Another has two dormer windows looking out westward, and, when the setting sun strikes the panes, reminds one of a man with spectacles standing up in an audience, searching for a friend who is not there and will never come back. These houses are the last re- maining — if, indeed, they were not pulled down 222 The Grandissimes yesterday — of a group that once marked from afar the direction of the old highway between the city's walls and the suburb St. Jean. Here clustered the earlier aristocracy of the colony ; all that pretty crew of counts, chevaliers, marquises, colonels, dons, etc., who loved their kings, and especially their kings' moneys, with an abandon which affected the accuracy of nearly all their accounts. Among these stood the great mother-mansion of the Grandissimes. Do not look for it now ; it is quite gone. The round, white-plastered brick pil- lars which held the house fifteen feet up from the reeking ground and rose on loftily to sustain the great overspreading roof, or clustered in the cool, paved basement ; the lofty halls, with their multitu- dinous glitter of gilded brass and twinkle of sweet- smelling wax-candles ; the immense encircling veranda, where twenty Creole girls might walk abreast ; the great front stairs, descending from the veranda to the garden, with a lofty palm on either side, on whose broad steps forty Grandissimes could gather on a birthday afternoon ; and the belvidere, whence you could see the cathedral, the Ursulines', the governor's mansion, and the river, far away, shining between the villas of Tchoupitoulas Coast — all have disappeared as entirely beyond recall as the flowers that bloomed in the gardens on the day of this/?/^ de grandpere. Odd to say, it was not the grandpere's birthday that had passed. For weeks the happy children of the many Grandissime branches — the Mandarins, The Fete de Grandpere 223 the St. Blancards, the Brahmins — had been stand- ing with their uplifted arms apart, awaiting the signal to clap hands and jump, and still, from week, to week, the appointed day had been made to fall back, and fall back before — what think you ? — an inabil- ity to understand Honore. It was a sad paradox in the history of this majes- tic old house that her best child gave her the most annoyance ; but it had long been so. Even in Honore's early youth, a scant two years after she had watched him, over the tops of her green myrtles and white and crimson oleanders, go away, a lad of fifteen, supposing he would of course come back a Grandissime of the Grandissimes — an inflexible of the inflexibles — he was found "inciting" (so the stately dames and officials who graced her front veranda called it) a Grandissime-De Grapion recon- ciliation by means of transatlantic letters, and re- ducing the flames of the old feud, rekindled by the Fusilier-Nancanou duel, to a little foul smoke. The main difficulty seemed to be that Honore could net be satisfied with a clean conscience as to his own deeds and the peace and fellowships of single households; his longing was, and had ever been — he had inherited it from his father — to see one unbroken and harmonious Grandissime family gath- ering yearly under this venerated roof without re- proach before all persons, classes, and races with whom they had ever had to do. It was not hard for the old mansion to forgive him once or twice ; but she had had to do it often. It seems no over- 224 The Grandissimes stretch of fancy to say she sometimes gazed down upon his erring ways with a look of patient sadness in her large and beautiful windows. And how had that forbearance been rewarded ? Take one short instance : when, seven years before this present fete de grandpere, he came back from Europe, and she (this old home which we cannot help but personify), though in trouble then — a trouble that sent up the old feud flames again — opened her halls to rejoice in him with the joy of all her gathered families, he presently said such strange things in favor of indiscriminate human freedom that for very shame's sake she hushed them up, in the fond hope that he would outgrow such heresies. But he? On top of all the rest, he declined a military commission and engaged in commerce — " shop-keeping, parbleu ! " However, therein was developed a grain of con- solation. Honore became — as he chose to call it — more prudent. With much tact, Agricola was amiably crowded off the dictator's chair, to become, instead, a sort of seneschal. For a time the family peace was perfect, and Honore, by a touch here to-day and a word there to-morrow, was ever lift- ing the name, and all who bore it, a little and a little higher; when suddenly, as in his father's day — that dear Numa who knew how to sacrifice his very soul, as a sort of Iphigenia for the propitiation of the family gods — as in Numa's day came the cession to Spain, so now fell this other cession, like an unexpected tornado, threatening the wreck of The Fete de Grandpere 225 her children's slave-schooners and the prostration alike of their slave-made crops and their Spanish liberties ; and just in the fateful moment where Numa would have stood by her, Honore had let go. Ah, it was bitter ! " See what foreign education does ! " cried a Mandarin de Grandissime of the Baton Rouge Coast. "I am sorry now" — derisively — "that I never sent my boy to France, am I not ? No ! No-0-0 ! I would rather my son should never know how to read, than that he should come back from Paris repudiating the sentiments and preju- dices of his own father. Is education better than family peace ? Ah, bah ! My son make friends with Americains and tell me they — that call a negro ' monsieur ' — are as good as his father ? But that is what we get for letting Honore be- come a merchant. Ha ! the degradation ! Shak- ing hands with men who do not believe in the slave trade ! Shake hands ? Yes ; associate — fraternize ! with apothecaries and negrophiles. And now we are invited to meet at the fete de grand- fere, in the house where he is really the chief — the cacique ! " No ! The family would not come together on the first appointment ; no, nor on the second ; no, not if the grandpapa did express his wish ; no, nor on the third — nor on the fourth. " Non, Messieurs ! " cried both youth and reckless age ; and, sometimes, also, the stronger heads of the family, the men of means, of force and of in- '5 226 The Grandissimes fluence, urged on from behind by their proud and beautiful wives and daughters. Arms, generally, rather than heads, ruled there in those days. Sentiments (which are the real laws) took shape in accordance with the poetry, rather than the reason, of things, and the commu- nity recognized the supreme domination of " the gentleman " in questions of right and of " the ladies" in matters of sentiment. Under such con- ditions strength establishes over weakness a showy protection which is the subtlest of tyrannies, yet which, in the very moment of extending its arm over woman, confers upon her a power which a truer freedom would only diminish ; constitutes her in a large degree an autocrat of public senti- ment and thus accepts her narrowest prejudices and most belated errors as veriest need-be's of social life. The clans classified easily into three groups ; there were those who boiled, those who stewed, and those who merely steamed under a close cover. The men in the first two groups were, for the most part, those who were holding office under old Spanish commissions, and were daily expecting themselves to be displaced and Louisiana thereby ruined. The steaming ones were a goodly fraction of the family — the timid, the apathetic, the " con- servative." The conservatives found ease better than exactitude, the trouble of thinking great, the agony of deciding harrowing, and the alternative of smiling cynically and being liberal so much easier The Fete de Grandpere 227 — and the warm weather coming on with a rapidity wearying to contemplate. " The Yankee was an inferior animal." " Certainly." " But Honore had a right to his convictions." " Yes, that was so, too." "It looked very traitorous, however." " Yes, so it did." " Nevertheless, it might turn out that Honore was advancing the true interests of his people." " Very likely." "It would not do to accept office under the Yankee government." " Of course not." " Yet it would never do to let the Yankees get the offices, either." " That was true ; nobody could deny that." "If Spain or France got the country back, they would certainly remember and reward those who had held out faithfully." " Certainly ! That was an old habit with France and Spain." " But if they did not get the country back " "Yes, that is so; Honore is a very good fellow, and " And, one after another, under the mild coolness of Honore's amiable disregard, their indignation trickled back from steam to water, and they went on drawing their stipends, some in Honore's count- ing-room, where they held positions, some from the provisional government, which had as yet made 228 The Grandissimes but few changes, and some, secretly, from the cun- ning Casa-Calvo ; for, blow the wind east or blow the wind west, the affinity of the average Grandis- sime for a salary abideth forever. Then, at the right moment, Honore made a single happy stroke, and even the hot Grandis- simes, they of the interior parishes and they of Agricola's squadron, slaked and crumbled when he wrote each a letter saying that the governor was about to send them appointments, and that it would be well, if they wished to evade them, to write the governor at once, surrendering their present com- missions. Well ! Evade ? They would evade nothing ! Do you think they would so belittle themselves as to write to the usurper? They would submit to keep the positions first. But the next move was Honore's making the whole town aware of his apostasy. The great mansion, with the old grandpere sitting out in front, shivered. As we have seen, he had ridden through the Place d'Armes with the arch-usurper himself. Yet, after all, a Grandissime would be a Gran- dissime still ; whatever he did he did openly. And was n't that glorious — never to be ashamed of anything, no matter how bad ? It was not every- one who could ride with the governor. And blood was so much thicker than vinegar that the familv, that would not meet either in January or February, met in the first week of March, every constituent one of them. The feast has been eaten. The garden now is The Fete de Grandpere 229 joyous with children and the veranda resplendent with ladies. From among the latter the eye quickly selects one. She is perceptibly taller than the others ; she sits in their midst near the great hall entrance ; and as you look at her there is no claim of ancestry the Grandissimes can make which you would not allow. Her hair, once black, now lifted up into a glistening snow-drift, augments the majesty of a still beautiful face, while her full stat- ure and stately bearing suggest the finer parts of Agricola, her brother. It is Madame Grandissime, the mother of Honore. One who sits at her left, and is very small, is a favorite cousin. On her right is her daughter, the widowed senora of Jose Martinez ; she has won- derful black hair and a white brow as wonderful. The commanding carriage of the mother is tem- pered in her to a gentle dignity and calm, contrast- ing pointedly with the animated manners of the courtly matrons among whom she sits, and whose continuous conversation takes this direction or that, at the pleasure of Madame Grandissime. But if you can command your powers of atten- tion, despite those children who are shouting Creole French and sliding down the rails of the front stair, turn the eye to the laughing squadron of beautiful girls, which every few minutes, at an end of the veranda, appears, wheels and disappears, and you note, as it were by flashes, the characteristics ot face and figure that mark the Louisianaises in the perfection of the new-blown flower. You see that 2 3 The Grandissimes blondes are not impossible ; there, indeed, are two sisters who might be undistinguishable twins but that one has blue eyes and golden hair. You note the exquisite pencilling of their eyebrows, here and there some heavier and more velvety, where a less vivacious expression betrays a share of Spanish blood. As Grandissimes, you mark their tendency to exceed the medium Creole stature, an appear- ance heightened by the fashion of their robes. There is scarcely a rose in all their cheeks, and a full red-ripeness of the lips would hardly be in keeping; but there is plenty of life in their eyes, which glance out between the curtains of their long lashes with a merry dancing that keeps time to the prattle of tongues. You are not able to get a straight look into them, and if you could you would see only your own image cast back in piti- ful miniature ; but you turn away and feel, as you fortify yourself with an inward smile, that they know you, you man, through and through, like a little song. And in turning, your sight is glad to rest again on the face of Honore's mother. You see, this time, that she is his mother, by a charm you had overlooked, a candid, serene and lovable smile. It is the wonder of those who see that smile that she can ever be harsh. The playful, mock-martial tread of the delicate Creole feet is all at once swallowed up by the sound of many heavier steps in the hall, and the fathers, grandfathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews of the great family come out, not a man of them The Fete de Grandpere 231 that cannot, with a little care, keep on his feet. Their descendants of the present day sip from shallower glasses and with less marked results. The matrons, rising, offer the chief seat to the first comer, the great-grandsire — the oldest living Grandissime — Alcibiade, a shaken but unfallen monument of early colonial days, a browned and corrugated souvenir of De Vaudreuil's pomps, of O'Reilly's iron rule, of Galvez' brilliant wars — a man who had seen Bienville and Zephyr Grandis- sime. With what splendor of manner Madame Fusilier de Grandissime offers, and he accepts, the place of honor ! Before he sits down he pauses a moment to hear out the companion on whose arm he had been leaning. But Theophile, a dark, graceful youth of eighteen, though he is recounting something with all the oblivious ardor of his kind, becomes instantly silent, bows with grave deference to the ladies, hands the aged forefather gracefully to his seat, and turning, recommences the recital before one who hears all with the same perfect courtesy — his beloved cousin Honore. Meanwhile, the gentlemen throng out. Gallant crew ! These are they who have been pausing proudly week after week in an endeavor (?) to un- derstand the opaque motives of Numa's son. In the middle of the veranda pauses a tall, mus- cular man of fifty, with the usual smooth face and an iron-gray queue. That is Colonel Agamemnon Brahmin de Grandissime, purveyor to the family's military pride, conservator of its military glory, 232 The Grandissimes and, after Honore, the most admired of the name. Achille Grandissime, he who took Agricola away from Frowenfeld's shop in the carriage, essays to engage Agamemnon in conversation, and the colonel, with a glance at his kinsman's nether limbs and another at his own, and with that placid facil- ity with which the graver sort of Creoles take up the trivial topics of the lighter, grapples the sub- ject of boots. A tall, bronzed, slender young man, who prefixes to Grandissime the maternal St. Blan- card, asks where his wife is, is answered from a distance, throws her a kiss and sits down on a step, with Jean Baptiste de Grandissime, a piratical-look- ing black-beard, above him, and Alphonse Mandarin, an olive-skinned boy, below. Valentine Grandis- sime, of Tchoupitoulas, goes quite down to the bottom of the steps and leans against the balus- trade. He is a large, broad-shouldered, well-built man, and, as he stands smoking a cigar, with his black-stockinged legs crossed, he glances at the sky with the eye of a hunter — or, it may be, of a sailor. " Valentine will not marry," says one of two ladies who lean over the rail of the veranda above. " I wonder why." The other fixes on her a meaning look, and she twitches her shoulders and pouts, seeing she has asked a foolish question, the answer to which would only put Valentine in a numerous class and do him no credit. Such were the choice spirits of the family. Agric- The Fete de Grandpere 233 ola had retired. Raoul was there ; his pretty auburn head might have been seen about half- way up the steps, close to one well sprinkled with premature gray. " No such thing ! " exclaimed his companion. (The conversation was entirely in Creole French.) " I give you my sacred word of honor ! " cried Raoul. " That Honore is having all his business carried on in English ? " asked the incredulous Sylvestre. (Such was his name.) "I swear — "replied Raoul, resorting to his favorite pledge — "on a stack of Bibles that high!" "Ah-h-h-h, pf-f-f-f-f!" This polite expression of unbelief was further emphasized by a spasmodic flirt of one hand, with the thumb pointed outward. " Ask him ! ask him ! " cried Raoul. " Honore ! " called Sylvestre, rising up. Two or three persons passed the call around the corner of the veranda. Honore came with a chain of six girls on either arm. By the time he arrived, there was a Babel of discussion. " Raoul says you have ordered all your books and accounts to be written in English," said Syl- vestre. " Well ? " " It is not true, is it? " " Yes." The entire veranda of ladies raised one long- 234 The Grandissimes drawn, deprecatory " Ah ! " except Honore's mother. She turned upon him a look of silent but intense and indignant disappointment. " Honore ! " cried Sylvestre, desirous of repairing his defeat, " Honore ! " But Honore was receiving the clamorous abuse of the two half dozens of girls. " Honore ! " cried Sylvestre again, holding up a torn scrap of writing-paper which bore the marks of the counting-room floor and of a boot-heel, " how do you spell ' la-dee ? ' ' There was a moment's hush to hear the answer. " Ask Valentine," said Honore. Everybody laughed aloud. That taciturn man's only retort was to survey the company above him with an unmoved countenance, and to push the ashes slowly from his cigar with his little finger. M. Valentine Grandissime, of Tchoupitoulas, could not read. " Show it to Agricola," cried two or three, as that great man came out upon the veranda, heavy- eyed, and with tumbled hair. Sylvestre, spying Agricola's head beyond the ladies, put the question. " How is it spelled on that paper? " retorted the king of beasts. « L-a-y " " Ignoramus ! " growled the old man. " I did not spell it," cried Raoul, and attempted to seize the paper. But Sylvestre throwing his hand behind him, a lady snatched the paper, two The Fete de Grandpere 235 or three cried " Give it to Agricola ! " and a pretty boy, whom the laughter and excitement had lured from the garden, scampered up the steps and handed it to the old man. " Honore! " cried Raoul, "it must not be read. It is one of your private matters." But Raoul 's insinuation that anybody would entrust him with a private matter brought another laugh. Honore nodded to his uncle to read it out, and those who could not understand English, as well as those who could, listened. It was a paper Svlvestre had picked out of a waste-basket on the day of Aurore's visit to the counting-room. Agric- ola read : " What is that layde want in thare with Honore ? " " Honore is goin giv her bac that proprety — that is Aurore De Grapion what Agricola kill the husband." That was the whole writing, but Agricola never finished. He was reading aloud — " that is Aurore De Grap " At that moment he dropped the paper and blackened with wrath ; a sharp flash of astonish- ment ran through the company ; an instant of silence followed and Agricola's thundering voice rolled down upon Sylvestre in a succession of terrible imprecations. It was painful to see the voung man's face as, speechless, he received this abuse. He stood pale and frightened, with a smile playing about his 236 The Grandissimes mouth, half of distress and half of defiance, that said as plain as a smile could say, " Uncle Agricola, you will have to pay for this mistake." As the old man ceased, Sylvestre turned and cast a look downward to Valentine Grandissime, then walked up the steps, and passing with a courteous bow through the group that surrounded Agricola, went into the house. Valentine looked at the zenith, then at his shoe-buckles, tossed his cigar quietly into the grass and passed around a corner of the house to meet Sylvestre in the rear. Honore had already nodded to his uncle to come aside with him, and Agricola had done so. The rest of the company, save a few male figures down in the garden, after some feeble efforts to keep up their spirits on the veranda, remarked the growing coolness or the waning daylight, and singly or in pairs withdrew. It was not long before Raoul, who had come up upon the veranda, was left alone. He seemed to wait for something, as, leaning over the rail while the stars came out, he sang to himself, in a soft undertone, a snatch of a Creole song : " La pluie — la pluie tombait, Crapaud criait, Moustique chantait " The moon shone so brightly that the children in the garden did not break off their hide-and-seek, and now and then Raoul suspended the murmur of his song, absorbed in the fate of some little elf gliding from one black shadow to crouch in another. The Fete de Grandpere 237 He was himself in the deep shade of a magnolia, over whose outer boughs the moonlight was trick- ling, as if the whole tree had been dipped in quicksilver. In the broad walk running down to the garden gate some six or seven dark forms sat in chairs, not too far away for the light of their cigars to be occasionally seen and their voices to reach his ear; but he did not listen. In a little while there came a light footstep, and a soft, mock-starded " Who is that ? " and one of that same sparkling group of girls that had lately hung upon Honore came so close to Raoul, in her attempt to discern his linea- ments, that their lips accidentally met. They had but a moment of hand-in-hand converse before they were hustled forth by a feminine scouting party and thrust along into one of the great rooms of the house, where the youth and beauty of the Grandissimes were gathered in an expansive semi- circle around a languishing fire, waiting to hear a story, or a song, or both, or half a dozen of each, from that master of narrative and melody, Raoul Innerarity. " But mark," they cried unitedly, " you have got to wind up with the story of Bras-Coupe ! " " A song ! A song ! " " Une chanson Creole ! Une chanson des negres ! " " Sing c ye tole dance la doung y doung doung ! ' " cried a black-eyed girl. Raoul explained that it had too many objec- tionable phrases. 238 The Grandissimes " Oh, just hum the objectionable phrases and go right on." But instead he sang them this : "La premier' fois mo te ' oir li, Li te pose au bord so lit ; Mo di' , Bouzon, be! n'amourese ! L'aut' fois li te si' so la saise Comme vie Madam dans so fauteil, Quand li viv'e cote soleil. So gi'es ye te plis noir passe la nouitte, So d'e la lev' plis doux passe la quitte ! Tou' mo la vie, zamein mo oir Ein n'amourese zoli comme ca! Mo' bli'e manze — mo' bli'e boir' — Mo' bli'e tout dipi f' temps-la — Mo' bli'e parle — mo' bli'e dormi, Quand mo pense apr'es zamil " " And you have heard Bras-Coupe sing that, yourself? " " Once upon a time," said Raoul, warming with his subject, " we were coming down from Pointe Macarty in three pirogues. We had been three days fishing and hunting in Lake Salvador. Bras- Coupe had one pirogue with six paddles " " Oh, yes ! " cried a youth named Baltazar; " sing that, Raoul ! " And he sang that. " But oh, Raoul, sing that song the negroes sing when they go out in the bayous at night, stealing pigs and chickens ! " The Fete de Grandpere 239 " That boat song, do you mean, which they sing as a signal to those on shore ? " He hummed. fmrrrw^-t-f-t& ^m 1 it r. r r—+ „ 0jf--^— * — * fo 1/ 1/ v 1 _g l\\ I E^£ t=t ^f=e=M^^f c r ^Jtrtrn "De zabs, de zabs, de counou ouaie ouaie, De zabs, de zabs, de counou ouaie ouaie, Counou ouaie ouaie ouaie ouaie, Counou ouaie ouaie ouaie ouaie, Counou ouaie, ouaie ouaie, momza ; Momza, momza, momza, momza, Roza, roza, roza-et — momza." This was followed by another and still another, until the hour began to grow late. And then they gathered closer around him and heard the promised story. At the same hour Honore Grandissime, wrapping himself in a greatcoat and giving himself up to sad and somewhat bitter reflections, had wandered from the paternal house, and by and by from the grounds, not knowing why or whither, but after a time soliciting, at Frowenfeld's closing door, the favor of his company. He had been feel- ing a kind of suffocation. This it was that made 240 The Grandissimes him seek and prize the presence and hand-grasp of the inexperienced apothecary. He led him out to the edge of the river. Here they sat down, and with a laborious attempt at a hard and jesting mood, Honore told the same dark story. CHAPTER XXVIII THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPE "A very little more than eight years ago," began Honore — but not only Honore, but Raoul also; and not only they, but another, earlier on the same day, — Honore, the f. m. c. But we shall not exactly follow the words of any one of these. Bras-Coupe, they said, had been, in Africa and under another name, a prince among his people. In a certain war of conquest, to which he had been driven by ennui, he was captured, stripped of his royalty, marched down upon the beach of the Atlantic, and, attired as a true son of Adam, with two goodly arms intact, became a commodity. Passing out of first hands in barter for a looking- glass, he was shipped in good order and condition on board the good schooner Egalite, whereof Blank was master, to be delivered without delay at the port of Nouvelle Orleans (the dangers of fire and navigation excepted), unto Blank Blank. In wit- ness whereof, He that made men's skins of different colors, but all blood of one, hath entered the same The Story of" Bras-Coupe 241 upon His book, and sealed it to the day of judg- ment. Of the voyage little is recorded — here below ; the less the better. Part of the living merchandise failed to keep ; the weather was rough, the cargo large, the vessel small. However, the captain dis- covered there was room over the side, and there — all flesh is grass — from time to time during the voyage he jettisoned the unmerchantable. Yet, when the reopened hatches let in the sweet smell of the land, Bras-Coupe had come to the upper — the favored — the buttered side of the world; the anchor slid with a rumble of relief down through the muddy fathoms of the Mississippi, and the prince could hear through the schooner's side the savage current of the river, leaping and licking about the bows, and whimpering low welcomes home. A splendid picture to the eyes of the royal captive, as his head came up out of the hatchway, was the little Franco-Spanish-American city that lay on the low, brimming bank. There were little forts that showed their whitewashed teeth ; there was a green parade-ground, and yellow barracks, and cabildo, and hospital, and cavalry stables, and custom-house, and a most inviting jail, convenient to the cathedral — all of dazzling white and yellow, with a black stripe marking the track of the confla- gration of 1794, and here and there among the low roofs a lofty one with round-topped dormer windows and a breezy belvidere looking out upon the plant- ations of coffee and indigo beyond the town. 242 The Grandissimes When Bras-Coupe staggered ashore, he stood but a moment among a drove of " likely boys," before Agricola Fusilier, managing the business adventures of the Grandissime estate, as well as the residents thereon, and struck with admiration for the physical beauties of the chieftain (a man may even fancy a negro — as a negro), bought the lot, and, loth to resell him with the rest to some unappreciative 'Cadian, induced Don Jose Martinez' overseer to become his purchaser. Down in the rich parish of St. Bernard (whose boundary line now touches that of the distended city) lay the plantation, known before Bras-Coupe passed away as La Renaissance. Here it was that he entered at once upon a chapter of agreeable sur- prises. He was humanely met, presented with a clean garment, lifted into a cart drawn by oxen, taken to a whitewashed cabin of logs, finer than his palace at home, and made to comprehend that it was a free gift. He was also given some clean food, whereupon he fell sick. At home it would have been the part of piety for the magnate next the throne to launch him heavenward at once ; but now, healing doses were administered, and to his amaze- ment he recovered. It reminded him that he was no longer king. His name, he replied to an inquiry touching that subject, was , something in the Jaloff" tongue, which he by and by condescended to render into Congo: Mioko-Koanga; in French Bras-Coupe ; the Arm Cut Off". Truly it would have been easy The Story of Bras-Coupe 243 to admit, had this been his meaning, that his tribe, in losing him, had lost its strong right arm close off at the shoulder; not so easy for his high-paying purchaser to allow, if this other was his intent : that the arm which might no longer shake the spear or swing the wooden sword was no better than a useless stump never to be lifted for aught else. But whether easy to allow or not, that was his meaning. He made himself a type of all Slavery, turning into flesh and blood the truth that all Slavery is maiming. He beheld more luxury in a week than all his subjects had seen in a century. Here Congo girls were dressed in cottons and flannels worth, where he came from, an elephant's tusk apiece. Every- body wore clothes — children and lads alone ex- cepted. Not a lion had invaded the settlement since his immigration. The serpents were as nothing ; an occasional one coming up through the floor — that was all. True, there was more emaciation than unassisted conjecture could ex- plain — a profusion of enlarged joints and dimin- ished muscles, which, thank God, was even then confined to a narrow section and disappeared with Spanish rule. He had no experimental knowledge of it; nay, regular meals, on the contrary, gave him anxious concern, yet had the effect — spite of his apprehension that he was being fattened for a purpose — of restoring the herculean puissance which formerly in Africa had made him the terror of the battle. 244 The Grandissimes When one day he had come to be quite himself, he was invited out into the sunshine, and escorted by the driver (a sort of foreman to the overseer), went forth dimly wondering. They reached a field where some men and women were hoeing. He had seen men and women — subjects of his — labor — a little — in Africa. The driver handed him a hoe ; he examined it with silent interest — until by signs he was requested to join the pastime. " What ? " He spoke, not with his lips, but with the recoil of his splendid frame and the ferocious expansion of his eyes. This invitation was a cataract of light- ning leaping down an ink-black sky. In one in- stant of all-pervading clearness he read his sentence — Work. Bras-Coupe was six feet five. With a sweep as quick as instinct the back of the hoe smote the driver full in the head. Next, the prince lifted the nearest Congo crosswise, brought thirty-two teeth together in his wildly kicking leg and cast him away as a bad morsel ; then, throwing another into the branches of a willow, and a woman over his head into a draining-ditch, he made one bound for free- dom, and fell to his knees, rocking from side to side under the effect of a pistol-ball from the over- seer. It had struck him in the forehead, and run- ning around the skull in search of a penetrable spot, tradition — which sometimes jests — says came out despairingly, exactly where it had entered. It so happened that, except the overseer, the The Story of Bras-Coupe 245 whole company were black. Why should the trivial scandal be blabbed ? A plaster or two made everything even in a short time, except in the driver's case — for the driver died. The woman whom Bras-Coupe had thrown over his head lived to sell calas to Joseph Frowenfeld. Don Jose, young and austere, knew nothing about agriculture and cared as much about human nature. The overseer often thought this, but never said it ; he would not trust even himself with the dangerous criticism. When he ventured to reveal the foregoing incidents to the senor he laid all the blame possible upon the man whom death had removed beyond the reach of correction, and brought his account to a climax by hazarding the asserting that Bras-Coupe was an animal that could not be whipped. " Caramba ! " exclaimed the master, with gentle emphasis, " how so ? " " Perhaps senor had better ride down to the quarters," replied the overseer. It was a great sacrifice of dignity, but the master made it. " Bring him out." They brought him out — chains on his feet, chains on his wrists, an iron yoke on his neck. The Spanish Creole master had often seen the bull, with his long, keen horns and blazing eye, standing in the arena ; but this was as though he had come face to face with a rhinoceros. " This man is not a Congo," he said. 246 The Grandissimes " He is a Jaloff," replied the encouraged over- seer. "See his fine, straight nose; moreover, he is a candio — a prince. If I whip him he will die." The dauntless captive and fearless master stood looking into each other's eyes until each recognized in the other his peer in physical courage, and each was struck with an admiration for the other which no after difference was sufficient entirely to destroy. Had Bras-Coupe's eye quailed but once — just for one little instant — he would have got the lash ; but, as it was " Get an interpreter," said Don Jose; then, more privately, " and come to an understanding. I shall require it of you." Where might one find an interpreter — one not merely able to render a Jaloff 's meaning into Creole French, or Spanish, but with such a turn for dip- lomatic correspondence as would bring about an "understanding" with this African buffalo? The overseer was left standing and thinking, and Cle- mence, who had not forgotten who threw her into the draining-ditch, cunningly passed by. "Ah, Clemence " " Mo pas capabe ! Mo pas capabe ! (I cannot, I cannot!) Ta, ya, ya ! 'oir Mich'e Agricol' Fusi- lier! ouala yune bon monture, oui ! " — which was to signify that Agricola could interpret the very Papa Lebat. "Agricola Fusilier! The last man on earth to make peace." But there seemed to be no choice, and to Agric- The Story of Bras- Coupe 247 ola the overseer went. It was but a little ride to the Grandissime place. " I, Agricola Fusilier, stand as an interpreter to a negro ? H-sir ! " " But I thought you might know of some per- son," said the weakening applicant, rubbing his ear with his hand. " Ah ! " replied Agricola, addressing the sur- rounding scenery, "if I did not — who would? You may take Palmyre." The overseer softly smote his hands together at the happy thought. " Yes," said Agricola, " take Palmyre ; she has picked up as many negro dialects as I know Euro- pean languages." And she went to the don's plantation as inter- preter, followed by Agricola's prayer to Fate that she might in some way be overtaken by disaster. The two hated each other with all the strength they had. He knew not only her pride, but her pas- sion for the absent Honore. He hated her, also, for her intelligence, for the high favor in which she stood with her mistress, and for her invincible spirit, which was more offensively patent to him than to others, since he was himself the chief object of her silent detestation. It was Palmyre's habit to do nothing without painstaking. " When Mademoiselle comes to be Sefiora," thought she — she knew that her mistress and the don were affianced — "it will be well to have a Sefior's esteem. I shall endeavor to sue- 248 The Grandissimes ceed." It was from this motive, then, that with the aid of her mistress she attired herself in a resplendence of scarlet and beads and feathers that could not fail the double purpose of connecting her with the children of Ethiopia and commanding the captive's instant admiration. Alas for those who succeed too well ! No sooner did the African turn his tiger glance upon her than the fire of his eyes died out; and when she spoke to him in the dear accents of his native tongue, the matter of strife vanished from his mind. He loved. He sat down tamely in his irons and listened to Palmyre's argument as a wrecked mariner would listen to ghostly church-bells. He would give a short assent, feast his eyes, again assent, and feast his ears ; but when at length she made bold to approach the actual issue, and finally uttered the loathed word, Work, he rose up, six feet five, a statue of indignation in black marble. And then Palmyre, too, rose up, glorying in him, and went to explain to master and overseer. Bras-Coupe understood, she said, that he was a slave — it was the fortune of war, and he was a war- rior ; but, according to a generally recognized prin- ciple in African international law, he could not reasonably be expected to work. " As Senor will remember I told him," remarked the overseer ; " how can a man expect to plow with a zebra ? " Here he recalled a fact in his earlier experience. The Story of Bras-Coupe 249 An African of this stripe had been found to answer admirably as a " driver " to make others work. A second and third parley, extending through two or three days, were held with the prince, looking to his appointment to the vacant office of driver ; yet what was the master's amazement to learn at length that his Highness declined the proffered honor. " Stop ! " spoke the overseer again, detecting a look of alarm in Palmyre's face as she turned away, " he does n't do any such thing. If Senor will let me take the man to Agricola " " No ! " cried Palmyre, with an agonized look, " I will tell. He will take the place and fill it if you will give me to him for his own — but oh, messieurs, for the love of God — I do not want to be his wife ! " The overseer looked at the Senor, ready to approve whatever he should decide. Bras-Coupe's intrepid audacity took the Spaniard's heart by irre- sistible assault. " I leave it entirely with Senor Fusilier," he said. " But he is not my master; he has no right " " Silence ! " And she was silent; and so, sometimes, is fire in the wall. Agricola's consent was given with malicious promptness, and as Bras-Coupe's fetters fell off it was decreed that, should he fill his office effi- ciently, there should be a wedding on the rear veranda of the Grandissime mansion simultaneously with the one already appointed to take place in the 250 The Grandissimes grand hall of the same house six months from that present day. In the meanwhile Palmyre should remain with Mademoiselle, who had promptly but quietly made up her mind that Palmyre should not be wed unless she wished to be. Bras-Coupe made no objection, was royally worthless for a time, but learned fast, mastered the "gumbo" dialect in a few weeks, and in six months was the most valuable man ever bought for gourde dollars. Nevertheless, there were but three persons within as many square miles who were not most vividly afraid of him. The first was Palmyre. His bearing in her pres- ence was ever one of solemn, exalted respect, which, whether from pure magnanimity in himself, or by reason of her magnetic eye, was something worth being there to see. " It was royal ! " said the over- seer. The second was not that official. When Bras- Coupe said — as, at stated intervals, he did say — " Mo courri c'ez Agricole Fusilier pou 'oir 'namour- ouse (I go to Agricola Fusilier to see my be- trothed,)" the overseer would sooner have intercepted a score of painted Chickasaws than that one lover. He would look after him and shake a prophetic head. " Trouble coming ; better not deceive that fellow ; " yet that was the very thing Palmyre dared do. Her admiration for Bras-Coupe was almost boundless. She rejoiced in his stature ; she rev- elled in the contemplation of his untamable spirit ; he seemed to her the gigantic embodiment of her own dark, fierce will, the expanded realization of The Story of Bras-Coupe 251 her lifetime longing for terrible strength. But the single deficiency in all this impassioned regard was — what so many fairer loves have found impossible to explain to so many gentler lovers — an entire absence of preference ; her heart she could not give him — she did not have it. Yet after her first prayer to the Spaniard and his overseer for deliv- erance, to the secret surprise and chagrin of her young mistress, she simulated content. It was artifice ; she knew Agricola's power, and to seem to consent was her one chance with him. He might thus be beguiled into withdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle's promise to come to the rescue, which she could use at the last moment ; and that failing, there was a dirk in her bosom, for which a certain hard breast was not too hard. Another element of safety, of which she knew nothing, was a letter from the Cannes Brulee. The word had reached there that love had conquered — that, despite all hard words, and rancor, and positive injury, the Grandissime hand — the fairest of Grandissime hands — was about to be laid into that of one who without much stretch might be called a De Grapion ; that there was, moreover, positive effort being made to induce a restitution of old gaming-table spoils. Honore and Mademoiselle, his sister, one on each side of the Atlantic, were striving for this end. Don Jose sent this intelligence to his kinsman as glad tidings (a lover never imagines there are two sides to that which makes him happy), and, to add a touch of 252 The Grandissimes humor, told how Palmyre, also, was given to the chieftain. The letter that came back to the young Spaniard did not blame him so much : he was igno- rant of all the facts ; but a very formal one to Agric- ola begged to notify him that if Palmyre's union with Bras-Coupe should be completed, as sure as there was a God in heaven, the writer would have the life of the man who knowingly had thus endeav- ored to dishonor one who shared the blood of the De Grapions. Thereupon Agricola, contrary to his general character, began to drop hints to Don Jose that the engagement of Bras-Coupe and Palmyre need not be considered irreversible ; but the don was not desirous of disappointing his terrible pet. Palmyre, unluckily, played her game a little too deeply. She thought the moment had come for herself to insist on the match, and thus provoke Agricola to forbid it. To her incalculable dismay she saw him a second time reconsider and become silent. The second person who did not fear Bras-Coupe was Mademoiselle. On one of the giant's earliest visits to see Palmyre he obeyed the summons which she brought him, to appear before the lady. A more artificial man might have objected on the score of dress, his attire being a single gaudy gar- ment tightly enveloping the waist and thighs. As his eyes fell upon the beautiful white lady he pros- trated himself upon the ground, his arms out- stretched before him. He would not move till she was gone. Then he arose like a hermit who has The Story of Bras-Coupe 253 seen a vision. " Bras-Coupe n pas oul'e oir zombis (Bras-Coupe dares not look upon a spirit)." From that hour he worshipped. He saw her often ; every time, after one glance at her countenance, he would prostrate his gigantic length with his face in the dust. The third person who did not fear him was — Agricola? Nay, it was the Spaniard — a man whose capability to fear anything in nature or be- yond had never been discovered. Long before the end of his probation Bras-Coupe would have slipped the entanglements of bondage, though as yet he felt them only as one feels a spider's web across the face, had not the master, according to a little affectation of the times, pro- moted him to be his game-keeper. Many a day did these two living magazines of wrath spend together in the dismal swamps and on the meagre intersecting ridges, making war upon deer and bear and wildcat ; or on the Mississippi after wild goose and pelican ; when even a word misplaced would have made either the slayer of the other. Yet the months ran smoothly round and the wedding night drew nigh. 1 A goodly company had assembled. All things were ready. The bride was dressed, the bridegroom had come. On the great back piazza, 1 An over-zealous Franciscan once complained bitterly to the bishop of Havana, that people were being married in Louisiana in their own houses after dark and thinking nothing of it. It is not certain that he had reference to the Grandissime mansion ; at any rate he was tittered down by the whole community. 254 The Grandissimes which had been inclosed with sail-cloth and lighted with lanterns, was Palmyre, full of a new and deep design and playing her deceit to the last, robed in costly garments to whose beauty was added the charm of their having been worn once, and once only, by her beloved Mademoiselle. But where was Bras-Coupe ? The question was asked of Palmyre by Agricola with a gaze that meant in English, " No tricks, girl ! " Among the servants who huddled at the windows and door to see the inner magnificence a frightened whisper was already going round. " We have made a sad discovery, Miche Fusilier," said the overseer. " Bras-Coupe is here ; we have him in a room just yonder. But — the truth is, sir, Bras-Coupe is a voudou." "Well, and suppose he is; what of it? Only hush ; do not let his master know it. It is noth- ing ; all the blacks are voudous, more or less." " But he declines to dress himself — has painted himself all rings and stripes, antelope fashion." " Tell him Agricola Fusilier says, ' dress immedi- ately ! ' " " Oh, Miche, we have said that five times already, and his answer — you will pardon me — his answer is — spitting on the ground — that you are a con- temptible dotchian (white trash)." There is nothing to do but privily to call the very bride — the lady herself. She comes forth in all her glory, small, but oh, so beautiful ! Slam ! Bras-Coupe is upon his face, his finger-tips touching The Story of Bras-Coupe 255 the tips of her snowy slippers. She gently bids him go and dress, and at once he goes. Ah ! now the question may be answered without whispering. There is Bras-Coupe, towering above all heads, in ridiculous red and blue regimentals, but with a look of savage dignity upon him that keeps every one from laughing. The murmur of admiration that passed along the thronged gallery leaped up into a shout in the bosom of Palmyre. Oh, Bras-Coupe — heroic soul! She would not falter. She would let the silly priest say his say — then her cunning should help her not to be his wife, yet to show his mighty arm how and when to strike. " He is looking for Palmyre," said some, and at that moment he saw her. " H 0-0-0-0-0 ! " Agricola's best roar was a penny trumpet to Bras- Coupe's note of joy. The whole masculine half of the indoor company flocked out to see what the matter was. Bras-Coupe was taking her hand in one of his and laying his other upon her head ; and as some one made an unnecessary gesture for silence, he sang, beating slow and solemn time with his naked foot and with the hand that dropped hers to smite his breast : " ' En haut la montagne, zami, Mo pe coupe canne, zami, Pou" fe I'a'zen' zami, Pou' mo bailie Palmyre. Ab ! Palmyre, Palmare mo e'ere, MoP aime 'ou' — mo I 'aime 'ou'.' " 256 The Grandissimes "Montague?" asked one slave of another, " qui est ca, montagne ? gnia pas quic 'ose comme (a dans la Louisiana ? (What 's a mountain ? We have n't such things in Louisiana.)" " Mein ye gagnein plein montagnes dans FAfrique, listen ! " " 'Ah! Palmyre, Palmyre, mo' piti zozo, Mo I'aime 'ou' — mo I'aime, I'aime 'on'.' " " Bravissimo ! — " but just then a counter-attrac- tion drew the white company back into the house. An old French priest with sandalled feet and a dirty face had arrived. There was a moment of hand- shaking with the good father, then a moment of palpitation and holding of the breath, and then — you would have known it by the turning away of two or three feminine heads in tears — the lily hand became the don's, to have and to hold, by authority of the Church and the Spanish king. And all was merry, save that outside there was coming up as villanous a night as ever cast black looks in through snug windows. It was just as the newly-wed Spaniard, with Agricola and all the guests, were concluding the by- play of marrying the darker couple, that the hurri- cane struck the dwelling. The holy and jovial father had made faint pretence of kissing this second bride; the ladies, colonels, dons, etc., — though the joke struck them as a trifle coarse — were beginning to laugh and clap hands again and the gowned jester to bow to right and left, when Bras-Coupe, tardily The Story of Bras-Coupe 257 realizing the consummation of his hopes, stepped forward to embrace his wife. " Bras-Coupe ! " The voice was that of Palmyre's mistress. She had not been able to comprehend her maid's be- havior, but now Palmyre had darted upon her an appealing look. The warrior stopped as if a javelin had flashed over his head and stuck in the wall. " Bras-Coupe must wait till I give him his wife." He sank, with hidden face, slowly to the floor. " Bras-Coupe hears the voice of zombis ; the voice is sweet, but the words are very strong ; from the same sugar-cane comes strop and tafia ; Bras- Coupe says to zombis, ' Bras-Coupe will wait ; but if the dotchians deceive Bras-Coupe — " he rose to his feet with his eyes closed and his great black fist lifted over his head — " Bras-Coupe will call Voudou- Magnan ! " The crowd retreated and the storm fell like a burst of infernal applause. A whiff" like fifty witches flouted up the canvas curtain of the gallery and a fierce black cloud, drawing the moon under its cloak, belched forth a stream of fire that seemed to flood the ground ; a peal of thunder followed as if the sky had fallen in, the house quivered, the great oaks groaned, and every lesser thing bowed down before the awful blast. Every lip held its breath for a minute — or an hour, no one knew — there was a sudden lull of the wind, and the floods came down. Have you heard it thunder and rain in those Lcu- 17 258 The Grandissimes isiana lowlands ? Every clap seems to crack the world. It has rained a moment; you peer through the black pane — your house is an island, all the land is sea. However, the supper was spread in the hall and in due time the guests were filled. Then a supper was spread in the big hall in the basement, below stairs, the sons and daughters of Ham came down like the fowls of the air upon a rice-field, and Bras- Coupe, throwing his heels about with the joyous carelessness of a smutted Mercury, for the first time in his life tasted the blood of the grape. A second, a fifth, a tenth time he tasted it, drinking more deeply each time, and would have taken it ten times more had not his bride cunningly concealed it. It was like stealing a tiger's kittens. The moment quickly came when he wanted his eleventh bumper. As he presented his request a silent shiver of consternation ran through the dark company; and when, in what the prince meant as a remonstrative tone, he repeated the petition — split- ting the table with his fist by way of punctuation — there ensued a hustling up staircases and a cramming into dim corners that left him alone at the banquet. Leaving the table, he strode upstairs and into the chirruping and dancing of the grand salon. There was a halt in the cotillion and a hush of amazement like the shutting off of steam. Bras-Coupe strode straight to his master, laid his paw upon his fellow- bridegroom's shoulder and in a thunder-tone de- manded : The Story of Bras-Coupe 259 " More ! " The master swore a Spanish oath, lifted his hand and — fell, beneath the terrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabra. Dolorous stroke ! — for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him — poor, tipsy savage — in self-defence, pun- ishable, in a white ofFender, by a small fine or a few days' imprisonment, it assured Bras-Coupe the death of a felon ; such was the old Code Noir. (We have a Code Noir now, but the new one is a mental reser- vation, not an enactment.) The guests stood for an instant as if frozen, smitten stiff with the instant expectation of insur- rection, conflagration and rapine (just as we do to- day whenever some poor swaggering Pompey rolls up his fist and gets a ball through his body), while, single-handed and naked-fisted in a room full of swords, the giant stood over his master, making strange signs and passes and rolling out in wrathful words of his mother tongue what it needed no inter- preter to tell his swarming enemies was a voudou malediction. "Nous sommes grigis/" screamed two or three ladies, " we are bewitched ! " " Look to your wives and daughters ! " shouted a Brahmin-Mandarin. " Shoot the black devils without mercy ! " cried a Mandarin-Fusilier, unconsciously putting into a single outflash of words the whole Creole treatment of race troubles. With a single bound Bras-Coupe reached the 260 The Grandissimes drawing-room door ; his gaudy regimentals made a red and blue streak down the hall ; there was a rush of frilled and powdered gentlemen to the rear ve- randa, an avalanche of lightning with Bras-Coupe in the midst making for the swamp, and then all with- out was blackness of darkness and all within was a wild commingled chatter of Creole, French, and Spanish tongues, — in the midst of which the reluc- tant Agricola returned his dresssword to its scab- bard. While the wet lanterns swung on crazily in the trees along the way by which the bridegroom was to have borne his bride ; while Madame Grandis- sime prepared an impromptu bridalchamber ; while the Spaniard bathed his eye and the blue gash on his cheek-bone ; while Palmyre paced her room in a fever and wild tremor of conflicting emotions through- out the night, and the guests splashed home after the storm as best they could, Bras-Coupe was prac- tically declaring his independence on a slight rise of ground hardly sixty feet in circumference and lifted scarce above the water in the inmost depths of the swamp. And amid what surroundings ! Endless colonnades of cypresses ; long, motionless drapings of gray moss ; broad sheets of noisome waters, pitchy black, resting on bottomless ooze ; cypress knees studding the surface ; patches of floating green, gleaming brilliantly here and there ; yonder where the sun- beams wedge themselves in, constellations of water- lilies, the many-hued iris, and a multitude of flowers The Story of Bras-Coupe 26 1 that no man had named; here, too, serpents great and small, of wonderful colorings, and the dull and loathsome moccasin sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmer recesses the cow alligator, with her nest hard by ; turtles a century old ; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creatures of like vileness ; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit in deadly clusters ; maddening mosqui- toes, parasitic insects, gorgeous dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards : the blue heron, the snowy crane, the red-bird, the moss-bird, the night-hawk and the chuckwill's-widow ; a solemn stillness and stifled air only now and then disturbed by the call or whir of the summer duck, the dismal ventril- oquous note of the rain-crow, or the splash of a dead branch falling into the clear but lifeless bayou. The pack of Cuban hounds that howl from Don Jose's kennels cannot snuff the trail of the stolen canoe that glides through the sombre blue vapors of the African's fastnesses. His arrows send no telltale reverberations to the distant clearing. Many a wretch in his native wilderness has Bras- Coupe himself, in palmier days, driven to just such an existence, to escape the chains and horrors of the barracoons ; therefore not a whit broods he over man's inhumanity, but, taking the affair as a matter of course, casts about him for a future. 262 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XXIX THE STORY OF BRAS-COUPE, CONTINUED Bras-Coupe let the autumn pass, and wintered in his den. Don Jose, in a majestic way, endeavored to be happy. He took his senora to his hall, and un- der her rule it took on for a while a look and feeling which turned it from a hunting-lodge in- to a home. Wherever the lady's steps turned — or it is as correct to say wherever the proud tread of Palmyre turned — the features of bachelor' s-hall disappeared ; guns, dogs, oars, saddles, nets, went their way into proper banishment, and the broad halls and lofty chambers — the floors now muffled with mats of palmetto-leaf — no longer re-echoed the tread of a lonely master, but breathed a redo- lence of flowers and a rippling murmur of well-con- tented song. But the song was not from the throat of Bras- Coupe's " piti zozo." Silent and severe by day, she moaned away whole nights heaping reproaches upon herself for the impulse — now to her, because it had failed, inexplicable in its folly — which had permitted her hand to lie in Bras-Coupe's and the priest to bind them together. For in the audacity of her pride, or, as Agricola would have said, in the immensity of her impudence, she had held herself consecrate to a hopeless love. The Story of Bras-Coupe 263 But now she was a black man's wife ! and even he unable to sit at her feet and learn the lesson she had hoped to teach him. She had heard of San Domingo ; for months the fierce heart within her silent bosom had been leaping and shouting and seeing visions of fire and blood, and when she brooded over the nearness of Agricola and the remoteness of Honore these visions got from her a sort of mad consent. The lesson she would have taught the giant was Insurrection. But it was too late. Letting her dagger sleep in her bosom, and with an undefined belief in imaginary resources, she had consented to join hands with her giant hero before the priest ; and when the wedding had come and gone like a white sail, she was seized with a lasting, fierce despair. A wild aggressiveness that had formerly characterized her glance in moments of anger — moments which had grown more and more infrequent under the softening influence of her Mademoiselle's nature — now came back inten- sified, and blazed in her eye perpetually. Whatever her secret love may have been in kind, its sinking beyond hope below the horizon had left her fifty times the mutineer she had been before — the mutineer who has nothing to lose. " She loves her candio" said the negroes. "Simple creatures !" said the overseer, who prided himself on his discernment, "she loves nothing; she hates Agricola ; it 's a case of hate at first sight — the strongest kind." Both were partly right; her feelings were won- 264 The Grandissimes derfully knit to the African ; and she now dedicated herself to Agricola's ruin. The sefior, it has been said, endeavored to be happy ; but now his heart conceived and brought forth its first-born fear, sired by superstition — the fear that he was bewitched. The negroes said that Bras-Coupe had cursed the land. Morning after morning the master looked out with apprehension toward the fields, until one night the worm came upon the indigo, and between sunset and sunrise every green leaf had been eaten up and there was nothing left for either insect or apprehension to feed upon. And then he said — and the echo came back from the Cannes Brulees — that the very bottom culpa- bility of this thing rested on the Grandissimes, and specifically on their fugleman Agricola, through his putting the hellish African upon him. Moreover, fever and death, to a degree unknown before, fell upon his slaves. Those to whom life was spared — but to whom strength did not return — wandered about the place like scarecrows, looking for shelter, and made the very air dismal with the reiteration, " No' ouanga (we are bewitched), Bras-Coupe f'e moi des grigis (the voudou's spells are on me)." The ripple of song was hushed and the flowers fell upon the floor. " I have heard an English maxim," wrote Colonel De Grapion to his kinsman, " which I would rec- ommend you to put into practice — 'Fight the devil with fire.' " The Story of Bras-Coupe 265 No, he would not recognize devils as belligerents. But if Rome commissioned exorcists, could not he employ one ? No, he would not! If his hounds could not catch Bras-Coupe, why, let him go. The overseer tried the hounds once more and came home with the best one across his saddle-bow, an arrow run half through its side. Once the blacks attempted by certain familiar rum-pourings and nocturnal charm-singing to lift the curse ; but the moment the master heard the wild monotone of their infernal worship, he stopped it with a word. Early in February came the spring, and with it some resurrection of hope and courage. It may have been — it certainly was, in part — because young Honore Grandissime had returned. He was like the sun's warmth wherever he went; and the other Honore was like his shadow. The fairer one quickly saw the meaning of these things, hastened to cheer the young don with hopes of a better future, and to effect, if he could, the restora- tion of Bras-Coupe to his master's favor. But this latter effort was an idle one. He had long sittings with his uncle Agricola to the same end, but they always ended fruitless and often angrily. His dark half-brother had seen Palmyre and loved her. Honore would gladly have solved one or two riddles by effecting their honorable union in marriage. The previous ceremony on the Grandissime back piazza need be no impediment; 266 The Grandissimes all slave-owners understood those things. Follow- ing Honore's advice, the f. m. c, who had come into possession of his paternal portion, sent to Cannes Brulees a written offer, to buy Palmyre at any price that her master might name, stating his intention to free her and make her his wife. Colonel De Grapion could hardly hope to settle Palmyre's fate more satisfactorily, yet he could not forego an opportunity to indulge his pride by following up the threat he had hung over Agricola to kill whosoever should give Palmyre to a black man. He referred the subject and the would-be purchaser to him. It would open up to the old braggart a line of retreat, thought the planter of the Cannes Brulees. But the idea of retreat had left Citizen Fusilier. " She is already married," said he to M. Honore Grandissime, f. m. c. " She is the lawful wife of Bras-Coupe ; and what God has joined together let no man put asunder. You know it, sirrah. You did this for impudence, to make a show of your wealth. You intended it as an insinuation of equality. I overlook the impertinence for the sake of the man whose white blood you carry ; but h-mark you, if ever you bring your Parisian airs and self-sufficient face on a level with mine again, h-I will slap it." The quadroon, three nights after, was so indis- creet as to give him the opportunity, and he did it — at that quadroon ball to which Dr. Keene alluded in talking to Frowenfeld. The Story of Bras-Coupe 267 But Don Jose, we say, plucked up new spirit. " Last year's disasters were but fortune's freaks," he said. " See, others' crops have failed all about us." The overseer shook his head. " C'est ce maudit cocodri la has (It is that accursed alligator, Bras-Coupe, down yonder in the swamp)." And by and by the master was again smitten with the same belief. He and his neighbors put in their crops afresh. The spring waned, summer passed, the fevers returned, the year wore round, but no harvest smiled. " Alas ! " cried the planters, "we are all poor men!" The worst among the worst were the fields of Bras-Coupe's master — parched and shrivelled. " He does not understand planting," said his neighbors ; " neither does his overseer. Maybe, too, it is true as he says, that he is voudoued." One day at high noon the master was taken sick with fever. The third noon after — the sad wife sitting by the bedside — suddenly, right in the centre of the room, with the door open behind him, stood the magnificent, half-nude form of Bras-Coupe. He did not fall down as the mistress's eyes met his, though all his flesh quivered. The master was lying with his eyes closed. The fever had done a fearful three days' work. " Mioko-Koanga oul'e so femme (Bras-Coupe wants his wife)." The master started wildly and stared upon his slave. 268 The Grandissimes "Bras-Coupe oule so femme ! " repeated the black. " Seize him ! " cried the sick man, trying to rise. But, though several servants had ventured in with frightened faces, none dared molest the giant. The master turned his entreating eyes upon his wife, but she seemed stunned, and only covered her face with her hands and sat as if paralyzed by a foreknowledge of what was coming. Bras-Coupe lifted his great black palm and commenced : " Mo c'e voudrai que la maison ci la, et tout ca qui pas femme ici, s'raient encore maudits ! (May this house, and all in it who are not women, be ac- cursed)." The master fell back upon his pillow with a groan of helpless wrath. The African pointed his finger through the open window. " May its fields not know the plough nor nourish the herds that overrun it." The domestics, who had thus far stood their ground, suddenly rushed from the room like stampeded cattle, and at that moment appeared Palmyre. "Speak to him," faintly cried the panting invalid. She went firmly up to her husband and lifted her hand. With an easy motion, but quick as lightning, as a lion sets foot on a dog, he caught her by the arm. " Bras-Coupe oule so" femme" he said, and just then Palmyre would have gone with him to the equator. The Story of Bras-Coupe 269 "You shall not have her! " gasped the master. The African seemed to rise in height, and still holding his wife at arm's length, resumed his male- diction : " May weeds cover the ground until the air is full of their odor and the wild beasts of the forest come and lie down under their cover." With a frantic effort the master lifted himself upon his elbow and extended his clenched fist in speechless defiance ; but his brain reeled, his sight went out, and when again he saw, Palmyre and her mistress were bending over him, the overseer stood awkwardly by, and Bras-Coupe was gone. The plantation became an invalid camp. The words of the voudou found fulfilment on every side. The plough went not out ; the herds wan- dered through broken hedges from field to field and came up with staring bones and shrunken sides ; a frenzied mob of weeds and thorns wrestled and throttled each other in a struggle for standing- room — rag-weed, smart-weed, sneeze-weed, bind- weed, iron-weed — until the burning skies of mid- summer checked their growth and crowned their unshorn tops with rank and dingy flowers. " Why in the name of — St. Francis," asked the priest of the overseer, " did n't the sefiora use her power over the black scoundrel when he stood and cursed, that day ? " " Why, to tell you the truth, father," said the overseer, in a discreet whisper, " I can only suppose she thought Bras-Coupe had half a right to do it." 270 The Grandissimes "Ah, ah, I see; like her brother Honore — — looks at both sides of a question — a miserable practice ; but why couldn 't Palmyre use her eyes ? They would have stopped him." " Palmyre ? Why Palmyre has become the best monture (Plutonian medium) in the parish. Agric- ola Fusilier himself is afraid of her. Sir, I think sometimes Bras-Coupe is dead and his spirit has gone into Palmyre. She would rather add to his curse than take from it." " Ah ! " said the jovial divine, with a fat smile, " castigation would help her case ; the whip is a great sanctifier. I fancy it would even make a Christian of the inexpugnable Bras-Coupe." But Bras-Coupe kept beyond the reach alike of the lash and of the Latin Bible. By and by came a man with a rumor, whom the overseer brought to the master's sick-room, to tell that an enterprising Frenchman was attempting to produce a new staple in Louisiana, one that worms would not annihilate. It was that year of history when the despairing planters saw ruin hovering so close over them that they cried to heaven for succor. Providence raised up Etienne de Bore. " And if Etienne is successful," cried the news-bearer, " and gets the juice of the sugar-cane to crystallize, so shall all of us, after him, and shall yet save our lands and homes. Oh, Sefior, it will make you strong again to see these fields all cane and the long rows of negroes and negresses cutting it, while they sing their song of those droll African numerals, The Story of Bras-Coupe 271 counting the canes they cut," and the bearer ot good tidings sang them for very joy : | Q j , IS f>, — , N — N » — * — ,— N. — fc_ 1£ Au-mon-de, Au-tap-o-te, Au-pe - to- te, Au-que-re-que, Bo. " And Honore Grandissime is going to introduce it on his lands," said Don Jose. " That is true," said Agricola Fusilier, coming in. Honore, the indefatigable peacemaker, had brought his uncle and his brother-in-law for the moment not only to speaking, but to friendly, terms. The seiior smiled. " I have some good tidings, too," he said ; " my beloved lady has borne me a son." "Another scion of the house of Grand 1 mean Martinez ! " exclaimed Agricola. ' And now, Don Jose, let me say that / have an item of rare intelligence ! " The don lifted his feeble head and opened his in- quiring eyes with a sudden, savage light in them. " No," said Agricola, " he is not exactly taken yet, but they are on his track." "Who?" " The police. We may say he is virtually in our grasp." It was on a Sabbath afternoon that a band of Choctaws having just played a game of racquette 272 The Grandissimes behind the city and a similar game being about to end between the white champions of two rival fau- bourgs, the beating of tom-toms, rattling of mules' jawbones and sounding of wooden horns drew the populace across the fields to a spot whose present name of Congo Square still preserves a reminder of its old barbaric pastimes. On a grassy plain under the ramparts, the performers of these hideous dis- cords sat upon the ground facing each other, and in their midst the dancers danced. They gyrated in couples, a few at a time, throwing their bodies into the most startling attitudes and the wildest contor- tions, while the whole company of black lookers-on, incited by the tones of the weird music and the vio- lent posturing of the dancers, swayed and writhed in passionate sympathy, beating their breasts, palms and thighs in time with the bones and drums, and at frequent intervals lifting, in that wild African unison no more to be described than forgotten, the unutterable songs of the Babouille and Counjaille dances, with their ejaculatory burdens of " Aie ! Aie ! Voudou Magnan !" and " Aie Calinda! Dance Calinda ! " The volume of sound rose and fell with the augmentation or diminution of the dancers' extravagances. Now a fresh man, young and supple, bounding into the ring, revived the flagging rattlers, drummers and trumpeters; now a wearied dancer, finding his strength going, gathered all his force at the cry of " Dance zisqu'a mort ! " rallied to a grand finale and with one magnificent antic fell, foaming at the mouth. The Story of Bras-Coupe 273 The amusement had reached its height. Many participants had been lugged out by the neck to avoid their being danced on, and the enthusiasm had risen to a frenzy, when there bounded into the ring the blackest of black men, an athlete of superb figure, in breeches of "Indienne" — the stuff used for slave women's best dresses — jingling with bells, his feet in moccasins, his tight, crisp hair decked out with feathers, a necklace of alligator's teeth rattling on his breast and a living serpent twined about his neck. It chanced that but one couple was dancing. Whether they had been sent there by advice of Agricola is not certain. Snatching a tambourine from a bystander as he entered, the stranger thrust the male dancer aside, faced the woman and began a series of saturnalian antics, compared with which all that had gone before was tame and sluggish ; and as he finally leaped, with tinkling heels, clean over his bewildered partner's head, the multitude howled with rapture. Ill-starred Bras-Coupe. He was in that extra- hazardous and irresponsible condition of mind and body known in the undignified present as " drunk again." By the strangest fortune, if not, as we have just hinted, by some design, the man whom he had once deposited in the willow bushes, and the woman Clemence, were the very two dancers, and no other, whom he had interrupted. The man first stupidly regarded, next admiringly gazed upon, and then 274 The Grandissimes distinctly recognized, his whilom driver. Five minutes later the Spanish police were putting their heads together to devise a quick and permanent capture ; and in the midst of the sixth minute, as the wonderful fellow was rising in a yet more astounding leap than his last, a lasso fell about his neck and brought him, crashing like a burnt tree, face upward upon the turf. " The runaway slave," said the old French code, continued in force by the Spaniards, " the runaway slave who shall continue to be so for one month from the day of his being denounced to the officers of justice shall have his ears cut off and shall be branded with the flower de luce on the shoulder ; and on a second offence of the same nature, per- sisted in during one month of his being denounced, he shall be hamstrung, and be marked with the flower de luce on the other shoulder. On the third offence he shall die." Bras-Coupe had run away only twice. " But," said Agricola, " these ' bossals ' must be taught their place. Besides, there is Article 27 of the same code : ' The slave who, having struck his master, shall have produced a bruise, shall suffer capital punishment ' — a very necessary law ! " He concluded with a scowl upon Palmyre, who shot back a glance which he never forgot. The Spaniard showed himself very merciful — for a Spaniard ; he spared the captive's life. He might have been more merciful still; but Honore Grandissime said some indignant things in the African's favor, and as much to teach the Gran- The Story of Bras-Coupe 275 dissimes a lesson as to punish the runaway, he would have repented his clemency, as he repented the momentary truce with Agricola, but for the tearful pleading of the seiiora and the hot, dry eyes of her maid. Because of these he overlooked the offence against his person and estate, and de- livered Bras-Coupe to the law to suffer only the penalties of the crime he had committed against society by attempting to be a free man. We repeat it for the credit of Palmyre, that she pleaded for Bras-Coupe. But what it cost her to make that intercession, knowing that his death would leave her free, and that if he lived she must be his wife, let us not attempt to say. In the midst of the ancient town, in a part which is now crumbling away, stood the Calaboza, with its humid vaults and grated cells, its iron cages and its whips ; and there, soon enough, they strapped Bras- Coupe face downward and laid on the lash. And yet not a sound came from the mutilated but un- conquered African to annoy the ear of the sleeping city. (" And you suffered this thing to take place ? " asked Joseph Frowenfeld of Honore Grandissime. " My-de'-seh ! " exclaimed the Creole, " they lied to me — said they would not harm him ! ") He was brought at sunrise to the plantation. The air was sweet with the smell of the weed-grown fields. The long-horned oxen that drew him and the naked boy that drove the team stopped before his cabin. 276 The Grandissimes "You cannot put that creature in there," said the thoughtful overseer. " He would suffocate under a roof — he has been too long out-of-doors for that. Put him on my cottage porch." There, at last, Palmyre burst into tears and sank down, while before her, on a soft bed of dry grass, rested the helpless form of the captive giant, a cloth thrown over his galled back, his ears shorn from his head, and the tendons behind his knees severed. His eyes were dry, but there was in them that unspeakable despair that fills the eye of the charger when, fallen in battle, he gazes with sidewise- bended neck on the ruin wrought upon him. His eye turned sometimes slowly to his wife. He need not demand her now — she was always by him. There was much talk over him — much idle talk. He merely lay still under it with a fixed frown ; but once some incautious tongue dropped the name of Agricola. The black man's eyes came so quickly round to Palmyre that she thought he would speak ; but no; his words were all in his eyes. She answered their gleam with a fierce affirmative glance, whereupon he slowly bent his head and spat upon the floor. There was yet one more trial of his wild nature. The mandate came from his master's sick-bed that he must lift the curse. Bras-Coupe merely smiled. God keep thy enemy from such a smile ! The overseer, with a policy less Spanish than his master's, endeavored to use persuasion. But the The Story of Bras-Coupe 277 fallen prince would not so much as turn one glance from his parted hamstrings. Palmyre was then besought to intercede. She made one poor attempt, but her husband was nearer doing her an unkind- ness than ever he had been before ; he made a slow sign for silence — with his fist ; and every mouth was stopped. At midnight following, there came, on the breeze that blew from the mansion, a sound of running here and there, of wailing and sobbing — another Bridegroom was coming, and the Spaniard, with much such a lamp in hand as most of us shall be found with, neither burning brighdy nor wholly gone out, went forth to meet Him. "Bras-Coupe," said Palmyre, next evening, speaking low in his mangled ear, " the master is dead ; he is just buried. As he was dying, Bras- Coupe, he asked that you would forgive him." The maimed man looked steadfastly at his wife. He had not spoken since the lash struck him, and he spoke not now ; but in those large, clear eyes, where his remaining strength seemed to have taken refuge as in a citadel, the old fierceness flared up for a moment, and then, like an expiring beacon, went out. " Is your mistress well enough by this time to venture here ? " whispered the overseer to Palmyre. " Let her come. Tell her not to fear, but to bring the babe — in her own arms, tell her — quickly ! " The lady came, her infant boy in her arms, knelt down beside the bed of sweet grass and set the child within the hollow of the African's arm. Bras- 278 The Grandissimes Coupe turned his gaze upon it ; it smiled, its mother's smile, and put its hand upon the runa- way's face, and the first tears of Bras-Coupe's life, the dying testimony of his humanity, gushed from his eyes and rolled down his cheek upon the in- fant's hand. He laid his own tenderly upon the babe's forehead, then removing it, waved it abroad, inaudibly moved his lips, dropped his arm, and closed his eyes. The curse was lifted. " Le pauv dgiab' ! " said the overseer, wiping his eyes and looking fieldward. " Palmyre, you must get the priest." The priest came, in the identical gown in which he had appeared the night of the two weddings. To the good father's many tender questions Bras- Coupe turned a failing eye that gave no answers ; until, at length : "Do you know where you are going?" asked the holy man. " Yes," answered his eyes, brightening. " Where ? " He did not reply ; he was lost in contemplation, and seemed looking far away. So the question was repeated. " Do you know where you are going? " And again the answer of the eyes. He knew. " Where ? " The overseer at the edge of the porch, the widow with her babe, and Palmyre and the priest bending over the dying bed, turned an eager ear to catch the answer. The Story of Bras-Coupe 279 "To — " the voice failed a moment; the depart- ing hero essayed again ; again it failed ; he tried once more, lifted his hand, and with an ecstatic, up- ward smile, whispered, " To — Africa " — and was gone. PARALYSIS S we have said, the story of Bras-Coupe was told that day three times : to the Grandissime beauties once, to Frowenfeld twice. The fair Grandissimes all agreed, at the close, that it was pitiful. Specially, that it was a great pity to have hamstrung Bras-Coupe, a man who even in his cursing had made an exception in favor of the ladies. True, they could suggest no alternative; it was undeniable that he had de- served his fate ; still, it seemed a pity. They dis- persed, retired and went to sleep confirmed in this sentiment. In Frowenfeld the story stirred deeper feelings. On this same day, while it was still early morn- ing, Honore Grandissime, f. m. c, with more than even his wonted slowness of step and propriety of rich attire, had reappeared in the shop of the rue 282 The Grandissimes Royale. He did not need to say he desired another private interview. Frowenfeld ushered him silently and at once into his rear room, offered him a chair (which he accepted), and sat down before him. In his labored way the quadroon stated his knowledge that Frowenfeld had been three times to the dwelling of Palmyre Philosophe. Why, he further intimated, he knew not, nor would he ask ; but he — when he had applied for admission — had been refused. He had laid open his heart to the apothecary's eyes — "It may have been un- wisely " Frowenfeld interrupted him ; Palmyre had been ill for several days; Doctor Keene — who, Mr. Grandissime probably knew, was her physician The landlord bowed, and Frowenfeld went on to explain that Doctor Keene, while attending her, had also fallen sick and had asked him to take the care of this one case until he could himself resume it. So there, in a word, was the reason why Joseph had, and others had not, been admitted to her presence. As obviously to the apothecary's eyes as any- thing intangible could be, a load of suffering was lifted from the quadroon's mind, as this explanation was concluded. Yet he only sat in meditation before his tenant, who regarded him long and sadly. Then, seized with one of his energetic impulses, he suddenly said : " Mr. Grandissime, you are a man of intelligence, accomplishments, leisure and wealth; why" (clench- Paralysis 283 ings his fists and frowning), " why do you not give yourself — your time — wealth — attainments — energies — everything — to the cause of the down- trodden race with which this community's scorn unjustly compels you to rank yourself?" The quadroon did not meet Frowenfeld's kindled eyes for a moment, and when he did, it was slowly and dejectedly. " He canno' be," he said, and then, seeing his words were not understood, he added : " He 'ave no Cause. Dad peop' 'ave no Cause." He went on from this with many pauses and gropings after words and idiom, to tell, with a plaintiveness that seemed to Frowenfeld almost unmanly, the reasons why the people, a little of whose blood had been enough to blast his life, would never be free by the force of their own arm. Reduced to the meanings which he vainly tried to convey in words, his state- ment was this : that that people was not a people. Their cause — was in Africa. They upheld it there — they lost it there — and to those that are here the struggle was over ; they were, one and all, pris- oners of war. "You speak of them in the third person," said Frowenfeld. "Ah ham nod a slev." " Are you certain of that ? " asked the tenant. His landlord looked at him. "It seems to me," said Frowenfeld, "that you — your class — the free quadroons — are the saddest 284 The Grandissimes slaves of all. Your men, for a little property, and your women, for a little amorous attention, let themselves be shorn even of the virtue of discon- tent, and for a paltry bait of sham freedom have consented to endure a tyrannous contumely which flattens them into the dirt like grass under a slab. I would rather be a runaway in the swamps than content myself with such a freedom. As your class stands before the world to-day — free in form but slaves in spirit — you are — I do not know but I was almost ready to say — a warning to philan- thropists ! " The free man of color slowly arose. " I trust you know," said Frowenfeld, " that I say nothing in offence." " Havery word is tru'," replied the sad man. " Mr. Grandissime," said the apothecary, as his landlord sank back again into his seat, " I know you are a broken-hearted man." The quadroon laid his fist upon his heart and looked up. " And being broken-hearted, you are thus spe- cially fitted for a work of patient and sustained self- sacrifice. You have only those things to lose which grief has taught you to despise — ease, money, display. Give yourself to your people — to those, I mean, who groan, or should groan, under the de- graded lot which is theirs and yours in common." The quadroon shook his head, and after a moment's silence, answered : "Ah cannod be one Toussaint l'Ouverture. Ah Paralysis 285 cannod trah to be. Hiv I trah, I h-only s'all soog- ceed to be one Bras-Coupe." "You entirely misunderstand me," said Frowen- feld in quick response. " I have no stronger dis- belief than my disbelief in insurrection. I believe that to every desirable end there are two roads, the way of strife and the way of peace. I can imagine a man in your place, going about among his people, stirring up their minds to a noble discontent, laying out his means, sparingly here and bountifully there, as in each case might seem wisest, for their enlight- enment, their moral elevation, their training in skilled work ; going, too, among the men of the prouder caste, among such as have a spirit of fair- ness, and seeking to prevail with them for a public recognition of the rights of all; using all his cunning to show them the double damage of all oppression, both great and petty " The quadroon motioned " enough." There was a heat in his eyes which Frowenfeld had never seen before. " M'sieu'," he said, " waid till Agricola Fusilier ees keel." " Do you mean ' dies ' ? " " No," insisted the quadroon ; " listen." And with slow, painstaking phrase this man of strong feeling and feeble will (the trait of his caste) told — as Frowenfeld felt he would do the moment he said " listen " — such part of the story of Bras- Coupe as showed how he came by his deadly hatred of Agricola. 286 The Grandissimes " Tale me," said the landlord, as he concluded the recital, " w'y deen Bras Coupe mague dad curze on Agricola Fusilier ? Becoze Agricola ees one sorcier ! Elz 'e bin dade sinz long tamm." The speaker's gestures seemed to imply that his own hand, if need be, would have brought the event to pass. As he rose to say adieu, Frowenfeld, without previous intention, laid a hand upon his visitor's arm. " Is there no one who can make peace between you ? " The landlord shook his head. " 'T is impossib'. We don' wand." " I mean," insisted Frowenfeld, " Is there no man who can stand between you and those who wrong you, and effect a peaceful reparation ? " The landlord slowly moved away, neither he nor his tenant speaking, but each knowing that the one man in the minds of both, as a possible peace- maker, was Honore Grandissime. " Should the opportunity offer," continued Joseph, "may I speak a word for you myself?" The quadroon paused a moment, smiled politely though bitterly, and departed repeating again : " 'Tis impossib'. We don' wand." " Palsied," murmured Frowenfeld, looking after him, regretfully, — " like all of them." Frowenfeld's thoughts were still on the same theme when, the day having passed, the hour was approaching wherein Innerarity was exhorted to tell Paralysis 287 his good-night story in the merry circle at the distant Grandissime mansion. As the apothecary was closing his last door for the night, the fairer Honore called him out into the moonlight. " Withered," the student was saying audibly to himself, " not in the shadow of the Ethiopian, but in the glare of the white man." " Who is withered ? " pleasantly demanded Honore. The apothecary started slightly. "Did I speak? How do you do, sir? I meant the free quadroons." " Including the gentleman from whom you rent your store ? " " Yes, him especially ; he told me this morning the story of Bras-Coupe." M. Grandissime laughed. Joseph did not see why, nor did the laugh sound entirely genuine. " Do not open the door, Mr Frowenfeld," said the Creole, " Get your great-coat and cane and come take a walk with me ; I will tell you the same story." It was two hours before they approached this door again on their return. Just before they reached it, Honore stopped under the huge street- lamp, whose light had gone out, where a large stone lay before him on the ground in the narrow, moonlit street. There was a tall, unfinished build- ing at his back. " Mr Frowenfeld," — he struck the stone with his cane, — "this stone is Bras-Coupe — we cast it aside because it turns the edge of our tools." 288 The Grandissimes He laughed. He had laughed to-night more than was comfortable to a man of Frowenfeld's quiet mind. As the apothecary thrust his shopkey into the lock and so paused to hear his companion, who had begun again to speak, he wondered what it could be — for M. Grandissime had not disclosed it — that induced such a man as he to roam aimlessly, as it seemed, in deserted streets at such chill and dangerous hours. " What does he want with me ? " The thought was so natural that it was no miracle the Creole read it. " Well," said he, smiling and taking an attitude, " you are a great man for causes, Mr. Frowenfeld ; but me, I am for results, ha, ha ! You may ponder the philosophy of Bras-Coupe in your study, but / have got to get rid of his results, me. You know them." " You tell me it revived a war where you had made a peace," said Frowenfeld. " Yes — yes — that is his results ; but good night, Mr. Frowenfeld." " Good night, sir." CHAPTER XXXI ANOTHER WOUND IN A NEW PLACE Each day found Doctor Keene's strength increas- ing, and on the morning following the incidents last recorded he was imprudently projecting an out- Another Wound in a New Place 289 door promenade. An announcement from Honore Grandissime, who had paid an early call, had, to that gentleman's no small surprise, produced a sudden and violent effect on the little man's temper. He was sitting alone by his window, looking out upon the levee, when the apothecary entered the apartment. " Frowenfeld," he instantly began, with evident displeasure most unaccountable to Joseph, " I hear you have been visiting the Nancanous." " Yes, I have been there." " Well, you had no business to go ! " Doctor Keene smote the arm of his chair with his fist. Frowenfeld reddened with indignation, but sup- pressed his retort. He stood still in the middle of the floor, and Doctor Keene looked out of the window. " Doctor Keene," said the visitor, when his atti- tude was no longer tolerable, " have you anything more to say to me before I leave you ? " " No, sir." " It is necessary for me, then, to say that in ful- filment of my promise, I am going from here to the house of Palmyre, and that she will need no further attention after to-day. As to your present manner toward me, I shall endeavor to suspend judgment until T have some knowledge of its cause." The doctor made no reply, but went on looking 19 290 The Grandissimes out of the window, and Frowenfeld turned and left him. As he arrived in the philosophe's sick-chamber — where he found her sitting in a chair set well back from a small fire — she half-whispered "Miche" with a fine, greeting smile, as if to a brother after a week's absence. To a person forced to lie abed, shut away from occupation and events, a day is ten, three are a month : not merely in the wear and tear upon the patience, but also in the amount of thinking and recollecting done. It was to be expected, then, that on this, the apothecary's fourth visit, Palmyre would have learned to take pleasure in his coming. But the smile was followed by a faint, momentary frown, as if Frowenfeld had hardly returned it in kind. Likely enough, he had not. He was not distinctively a man of smiles ; and as he engaged in his appointed task she presently thought of this. " This wound is doing so well," said Joseph, still engaged with the bandages, "that I shall not need to come again." He was not looking at her as he spoke, but he felt her give a sudden start. " What is this ? " he thought, but presently said very quietly : " With the assistance of your slave woman, you can now attend to it yourself." She made no answer. When, with a bow, he would have bade her good morning, she held out her hand for his. After a barely perceptible hesitation, he gave it, where- upon she held it fast, in a way to indicate that there Another Wound in a New Place 291 was something to be said which he must stay and hear. She looked up into his face. She may have been merely framing in her mind the word or two of English she was about to utter ; but an excitement shone through her eyes and reddened her lips, and something sent out from her countenance a look of wild distress. " You goin' tell 'im? " she asked. "Who? Agricola?" " Non ! " He spoke the next name more softly. " Honore ? " Her eyes looked deeply into his for a moment, then dropped, and she made a sign of assent. He was about to say that Honore knew already, but saw no necessity for doing so, and changed his answer. " I will never tell any one." " You know ? " she asked, lifting her eyes for an instant. She meant to ask if he knew the motive that had prompted her murderous intent. " I know your whole sad history." She looked at him for a moment, fixedly ; then, still holding his hand with one of hers, she threw the other to her face and turned away her head. He thought she moaned. Thus she remained for a few moments, then sud- denly she turned, clasped both hands about his, her face flamed up and she opened her lips to speak, but speech failed. An expression of pain and sup- 292 The Grandissimes plication came upon her countenance, and the cry burst from her : " Meg 'im to love me ! " He tried to withdraw his hand, but she held it fast, and, looking up imploringly with her wide, electric eyes, cried : " Vous pouvez le /aire, vous pouvez le /aire (You can do it, you can do it) ; vous ites sorcier, mo conne bien vous etes sorcier (you are a sorcerer, I know)." However harmless or healthful Joseph's touch might be to the philosophe, he felt now that hers, to him, was poisonous. He dared encounter her eyes, her touch, her voice, no longer. The better man in him was suffocating. He scarce had power left to liberate his right hand with his left, to seize his hat and go. Instantly she rose from her chair, threw herself on her knees in his path, and found command of his language sufficient to cry as she lifted her arms, bared of their drapery : " Oh, my God ! don' rif-used me — don' rif-used me ! " There was no time to know whether Frowenfeld wavered or not. The thought flashed into his mind that in all probability all the care and skill he had spent upon the wound was being brought to naught in this moment of wild posturing and excitement ; but before it could have effect upon his movements, a stunning blow fell upon the back of his head, and Palmyre's slave woman, the Congo Interrupted Preliminaries 293 dwarf, under the impression that it was the most timely ofstrok.es, stood brandishing a billet of pine and preparing to repeat the blow. He hurled her, snarling and gnashing like an ape, against the farther wall, cast the bar from the street door and plunged out, hatless, bleeding and stunned. CHAPTER XXXII INTERRUPTED PRELIMINARIES About the same time of day, three gentlemen (we use the term gentlemen in its petrified state) were walking down the rue Royale from the direc- tion of the Faubourg Ste. Marie. They were coming down toward Palmyre's corner. The middle one, tall and shapely, might have been mistaken at first glance for Honore Grandissime, but was taller and broader, and wore a cocked hat, which Honore did not. It was Valentine. The short, black-bearded man in buckskin breeches on his right was Jean-Baptiste Grandissime, and the slight one on the left, who, with the prettiest and most graceful gestures and balancings, was leading the conversation, was Hippolyte Brahmin-Man- darin, a cousin and counterpart of that sturdy- hearted challenger of Agricola, Sylvestre. " But after all," he was saying in Louisiana French, " there is no spot comparable, for com- fortable seclusion, to the old orange grove under 294 The Grandissimes the levee on the Point ; twenty minutes in a skiff, five minutes for preliminaries — you would not want more, the ground has been measured off five hun- dred times — ' are you ready ? ' " " Ah, bah ! " said Valentine, tossing his head, " the Yankees would be down on us before you could count one." " Well, then, behind the Jesuits' warehouses, if you insist. I don't care. Perdition take such a government ! I am almost sorry I went to the governor's reception." "It was quiet, I hear; a sort of quiet ball, all promenading and no contra-dances. One quadroon ball is worth five of such." This was the opinion of Jean-Baptiste. " No, it was fine, anyhow. There was a contra- dance. The music was — tarata joonc, tara, tara — tarata joonc, tararata joonc, tara — oh! it was the finest thing — and composed here. They compose as fine things here as they do anywhere in the look there ! That man came out of Palmyre's house ; see how he staggered just then ! " " Drunk," said Jean-Baptiste. " No, he seems to be hurt. He has been struck on the head. Oho, I tell you, gentlemen, that same Palmyre is a wonderful animal ! Do you see ? She not only defends herself and ejects the wretch, but she puts her mark upon him ; she identifies him, ha, ha, ha ! Look at the high art of the thing ; she keeps his hat as a small souvenir and gives him a receipt for it on the back of his head. Interrupted Preliminaries 295 Ah ! but has n't she taught him a lesson ? Why, gentlemen, — it is — if it isn't that sorcerer of an apothecary ! " " What ? " exclaimed the other two ; " well, well, but this is too good ! Caught at last, ha, ha, ha, the saintly villain ! Ah, ha, ha ! Will not Honore be proud of him now ? Ah! voila un joli "Joseph ! What did I tell you ? Did n't I always tell you so ?" " But the beauty of it is, he is caught so cleverly. No escape — no possible explanation. There he is, gentlemen, as plain as a rat in a barrel, and with as plain a case. Ha, ha, ha ! Is n't it just glorious ? " And all three laughed in such an ecstasy of glee that Frowenfeld looked back, saw them, and knew forthwith that his good name was gone. The three gentlemen, with tears of merriment still in their eyes, reached a corner and disappeared. " Mister," said a child, trotting along under Frowenfeld's elbow, — the odd English of the New Orleans street-urchin was at that day just beginning to be heard — " Mister, dey got some blood on de back of you' hade ! " But Frowenfeld hurried on groaning with mental anguish. 296 The Grandissimes CHAPTER XXXIII UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL It was the year 1804. The world was trembling under the tread of the dread Corsican. It was but now that he had tossed away the whole Valley of the Mississippi, dropping it overboard as a little sand from a balloon, and Christendom in a pale agony of suspense was watching the turn of his eye ; yet when a gibbering black fool here on the edge of civilization merely swings a pine-knot, the swinging of that pine-knot becomes to Joseph Frowenfeld, student of man, a matter of greater moment than the destination of the Boulogne Flo- tilla. For it now became for the moment the fore- most necessity of his life to show, to that minute fraction of the earth's population which our terror misnames " the world," that a man may leap forth hatless and bleeding from the house of a New Orleans quadroon into the open street and yet be pure white within. Would it answer to tell the truth ? Parts of that truth he was pledged not to tell ; and even if he could tell it all it was incredible — bore all the features of a flimsy lie. " Mister," repeated the same child who had spoken before, reinforced by another under the other elbow, " dey got some blood on de back of you' hade." And the other added the suggestion : Unkindest Cut of All 297 " Dey got one drug-sto', yondah." Frowenfeld groaned again. The knock had been a hard one, the ground and sky went round not a little, but he retained withal a white-hot process of thought that kept before him his hopeless inability to explain. He was coffined alive. The world (so-called) would bury him in utter loathing, and write on his headstone the one word — hypocrite. And he should lie there and helplessly contemplate Honore pushing forward those purposes which he had begun to hope he was to have had the honor of furthering. But instead of so doing he would now be the by-word of the street. " Mister," interposed the child once more, spokesman this time for a dozen blacks and whites of all sizes trailing along before and behind, " dey got some blood on de back of you' hade." That same morning Clotilde had given a music- scholar her appointed lesson, and at its conclusion had borrowed of her patroness (how pleasant it must have been to have such things to lend !) a little yellow maid, in order that, with more pro- priety, she might make a business call. It was that matter of the rent — one that had of late occasioned her great secret distress. " It is plain," she had begun to say to herself, unable to comprehend Aurora's peculiar trust in Providence, " that if the money is to be got I must get it." A possibility had flashed upon her mind ; she had nurtured it into a project, had submitted it to her father-con- 298 The Grandissimes fessor in the cathedral, and received his unqualified approval of it, and was ready this morning to put it into execution. A great merit of the plan was its simplicity. It was merely to find for her heaviest bracelet a purchaser in time, and a price sufficient, to pay to-morrow's " maturities." See there again ! — to her, her little secret was of greater import than the collision of almost any pine-knot with almost any head. It must not be accepted as evidence either of her unwillingness to sell or of the amount of gold in the bracelet, that it took the total of Clotilde's moral and physical strength to carry it to the shop where she hoped — against hope — to dispose of it. 'Sieur Frowenfeld, M. Innerarity said, was out, but would certainly be in in a few minutes, and she was persuaded to take a chair against the half- hidden door at the bottom of the shop with the little borrowed maid crouched at her feet. She had twice or thrice felt a regret that she had undertaken to wait, and was about to rise and go, when suddenly she saw before her Joseph Frowen- feld, wiping the sweat of anguish from his brow and smeared with blood from his forehead down. She rose quickly and silently, turned sick and blind, and laid her hand upon the back of the chair for support. Frowenfeld stood an instant before her, groaned, and disappeared through the door. The little maid, retreating backward against her from the direction of the street-door, drew to her atten- Clotilde as a Surgeon 299 tion a crowd of sight-seers which had rushed up to the doors and against which Raoul was hurriedly closing the shop. CHAPTER XXXIV CLOTILDE AS A SURGEON Was it worse to stay, or to fly ? The decision must be instantaneous. But Raoul made it easy by crying in their common tongue, as he slammed a massive shutter and shot its bolt: " Go to him ! he is down — I heard him fall. Go to him ! " At this rallying cry she seized her shield — that is to say, the little yellow attendant — and hurried into the room. Joseph lay just beyond the middle of the apartment, face downward. She found water and a basin, wet her own handkerchief, and dropped to her knees beside his head ; but the moment he felt the small feminine hands he stood up. She took him by the arm. " Asseyez-vous, Monsieu — pliz to give you'sev de pens to seet down, 'Sieu' Frowenfel'. " She spoke with a nervous tenderness in contrast with her alarmed and entreating expression of face, and gently pushed him into a chair. The child ran behind the bed and burst into frightened sobs, but ceased when Clotilde turned for an instant and glared at her. " Mague yo' 'ead back," said Clotilde, and with 3°° The Grandissimes tremulous tenderness she softly pressed back his brow and began wiping off the blood. " Were you is 'urted ? " But while she was asking her question she had found the gash and was growing alarmed at its ugliness, when Raoul, having made everything fast, came in with : " Wat's de mattah, 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? w'at 's de mattah wid you ? Oo done dat, 'Sieur Frowen feP ? " Joseph lifted his head and drew away from it the small hand and wet handkerchief, and without letting go the hand, looked again into Clotilde's eyes, and said : " Go home ; oh, go home ! " " Oh ! no," protested Raoul, whereupon Clotilde turned upon him with a perfectly amiable, nurse's grimace for silence. " I goin' rad now," she said. Raoul's silence was only momentary. "Were you lef you' hat, 'Sieur Frowenfel'?" he asked, and stole an artist's glance at Clotilde, while Joseph straightened up, and nerving himself to a tolerable calmness of speech, said : " I have been struck with a stick of wood by a half-witted person under a misunderstanding of my intentions; but the circumstances are such as to blacken my character hopelessly ; but I am inno- cent ! " he cried, stretching forward both arms and quite losing his momentary self-control. " 'Sieu' Frowenfel' ! " cried Clotilde, tears leaping to her eves, " I am shoe of it ! " Clotilde as a Surgeon 301 " I believe you ! I believe you, 'Sieur Frowen- fel' ! " exclaimed Raoul with sincerity. " You will not believe me," said Joseph. " You will not; it will be impossible." " Mais" cried Clotilde, " id shall nod be impos- sib' ! " But the apothecary shook his head. " All I can be suspected of will seem probable ; the truth only is incredible." His head began to sink and a pallor to over- spread his face. " Allez, Monsieur, allez" cried Clotilde to Raoul, a picture of beautiful terror which he tried afterward to paint from memory, " appelez Doctah Kin ! " Raoul made a dash for his hat, and the next moment she heard, with unpleasant distinctness, his impetuous hand slam the shop door and lock her in. " Bailie ma do I'eau" she called to the little mulat- tress, who responded by searching wildly for a cup and presently bringing a measuring-glass full of water. Clotilde gave it to the wounded man, and he rose at once and stood on his feet. " Raoul." " 'E gone at Doctah Kin." " I do not need Doctor Keene ; I am not badlv hurt. Raoul should not have left vou here in this manner. You must not stay." " Bud, 'Sieur FrowenfeF, I am afred to paz dad gangue ! " 302 The Grandissimes A new distress seized Joseph in view of this additional complication. But, unmindful of this suggestion, the fair Creole suddenly exclaimed : " 'Sieu' Frowenfel', you har a hinnocen' man ! Go, hopen yo' do's an' stan juz as you har ub bifFo dad crowd and sesso ! My God ! 'Sieu' Frowen- fel', iv you cannod stan' ub by you'sev " She ceased suddenly with a wild look, as if another word would have broken the levees of her eyes, and in that instant Frowenfeld recovered the full stature of a man. "God bless you!" he cried. "I will do it!" He started, then turned again toward her, dumb for an instant, and said: "And God reward you ! You believe in me, and you do not even know me." Her eyes became wilder still as she looked up into his face with the words : " Mais, I does know you — betteh 'n you know annyt'in' boud it ! " and turned away, blushing vio- lently. Frowenfeld gave a start. She had given him too much light. He recognized her, and she knew it. For another instant he gazed at her averted face, and then with forced quietness said : " Please go into the shop." The whole time that had elapsed since the shut- ting of the doors had not exceeded five minutes ; a sixth sufficed for Clotilde and her attendant to re- sume their original position in the nook by the private door and for Frowenfeld to wash his face Clotilde as a Surgeon 303 and hands. Then the alert and numerous ears without heard a drawing of bolts at the door next to that which Raoul had issued, its leaves opened outward, and first the pale hands and then the white, weakened face and still bloody hair and apparel of the apothecary made their appearance. He opened a window and another door. The one locked by Raoul, when unbolted, yielded without a key, and the shop stood open. " My friends," said the trembling proprietor, "if any of you wishes to buy anything, I am ready to serve him. The rest will please move away." The invitation, though probably understood, was responded to by only a few at the banquette's edge, where a respectable face or two wore scrutinizing frowns. The remainder persisted in silently stand- ing and gazing in at the bloody man. Frowenfeld bore the gaze. There was one ele- ment of emphatic satisfaction in it — it drew their observation from Clotilde at the other end of the shop. He stole a glance backward ; she was not there. She had watched her chance, safely escaped through the side door, and was gone. Raoul returned. " 'Sieur Frowenfel', Doctor Keene is took worse ag'in. 'E is in bed; but 'e say to tell you in dat lill troubl' of dis mawnin' it is himseffw'at is inti'lie wrong, an' 'e hass you poddon. 'E says sen' fo' Doctor Conrotte, but I din go fo' him ; dat ole scoun'rel — he believe in puttin' de niggas fre'." Frowenfeld said he would not consult professional 304 The Grandissimes advisers ; with a little assistance from Raoul, he could give the cut the slight attention it needed. He went back into his room, while Raoul turned back to the door and addressed the public. " Pray, Messieurs, come in and be seated." He spoke in the Creole French of the gutters. " Come in. M. Frowenfeld is dressing, and desires that you will have a little patience. Come in. Take chairs. You will not come in ? No ? Nor you, Monsieur? No? I will set some chairs outside, eh ? No ? " They moved by twos and threes away, and Raoul, retiring, gave his employer such momentary aid as was required. When Joseph, in changed dress, once more appeared, only a child or two lingered to see him, and he had nothing to do but sit down and, as far as he felt at liberty to do so, answer his assistant's questions. During the recital, Raoul was obliged to exercise the severest self-restraint to avoid laughing, — a feeling which was modified by the desire to assure his employer that he understood this sort of thing perfectly, had run the same risks himself, and thought no less of a man, providing be was a gentle- man, because of an unlucky retributive knock on the head. But he feared laughter would overclimb speech ; and, indeed, with all expression of sym- pathy stifled, he did not succeed so completely in hiding the conflicting emotion but that Joseph did once turn his pale, grave face surprisedly, hearing a snuffling sound, suddenly stifled in a drawer of corks. Clotilde as a Surgeon 305 Said Raoul, with an unsteady utterance, as he slammed the drawer: " H-h-dat makes me dat I can't 'elp to laugh w'en I t'ink of dat fool yesse'dy w'at want to buy my pigshoe for honly one 'undred dolla' — ha, ha ha, ha ! " He laughed almost indecorously. " Raoul," said Frowenfeld, rising and closing his eyes, " I am going back for my hat. It would make matters worse for that person to send it to me, and it would be something like a vindication for me to go back to the house and get it." Mr. Innerarity was about to make strenuous ob- jection, when there came in one whom he recognized as an attache of his cousin Honore's counting-room, and handed the apothecary a note. It contained Honore's request that if Frowenfeld was in his shop he would have the goodness to wait there until the writer could call and see him. " I will wait," was the reply. XXXV " FO' WAD YOU CRYNE?" Clotilde, a step or two from home, dismissed her attendant, and as Aurora, with anxious haste, opened to her familiar knock, appeared before her pale and trembling. " Ah, ma file " 306 The Grandissimes The overwrought girl dropped her head and wept without restraint upon her mother's neck. She let herself be guided to a chair, and there, while Aurora nestled close to her side, yielded a few moments to reverie before she was called upon to speak. Then Aurora first quietly took possession of her hands, and after another tender pause asked in English, which was equivalent to whispering : " Were you was, ch'erie ? " " 'Sieur Frowenfel' " Aurora straightened up with angry astonishment and drew in her breath for an emphatic speech, but Clotilde, liberating her own hands, took Aurora's, and hurriedly said, turning still paler as she spoke : "'E godd his 'ead strigue ! 'Tis all knog in be'ine ! 'E come in blidding " "In w'ere ? " cried Aurora. " In 'is shob." " You was in dad shob of 'Sieur Frowenfel' ? " " I wend ad 'is shob to pay doze rend." " How — you wend ad 'is shob to pay " Clotilde produced the bracelet. The two looked at each other in silence for a moment, while Aurora took in without further explanation Clotilde's proj- ect and its failure. "An' 'Sieur Frowenfel' — dey kill 'im ? Ah! Ma ckere, fo' wad you mague me to hass all dose question ? " Clotilde gave a brief account of the matter, omit- ting only her conversation with Frowenfeld. " Fo' Wad You Cryne ? " 307 " Mais, 00 strigue 'im ? " demanded Aurora, im- patiently. " Addunno ! " replied the other. " Bud I does know 'e is hinnocen' ! " A small scouting-party of tears reappeared on the edge of her eyes. " Innocen' from wad ? " Aurora betrayed a twinkle of amusement. " Hev'ryt'in', iv you pliz ! " exclaimed Clotilde, with most uncalled-for warmth. " An* you crah bic-ause 'e is nod guiltie ? " " Ah ! foolish ! " " Ah, non, my chile, I know fo' wad you cryne : 'tis h-only de sighd of de blood." "Oh, sighd of blood!" Clotilde let a little nervous laugh escape through her dejection. "Well, then," — Aurora's eyes twinkled like stars, — " id muz be bic-ause 'Sieur Frowenfel' bump 'is 'ead — ha, ha, ha ! " " 'T is nod tru' ! " cried Clotilde ; but, instead of laughing, as Aurora had supposed she would, she sent a double flash of light from her eves, crimsoned, and retorted, as the tears again sprang from their lurking-place, "You wand to mague ligue you don't kyah ! But I know ! I know verrie well ! You kyah fifty rime' as mudge as me! I know you! I know you! I bin wadge you ! " Aurora was quite dumb for a moment, and gazed at Clotilde, wondering what could have made her 3°< The Grandissimes so unlike herself. Then she half rose up, and, as she reached forward an arm, and laid it tenderly about her daughter's neck, said : " Ma lill dotter, wad dad meggin you cry ? Iv you will tell me wad dad mague you cry, I will tell you — on ma second word of honor" — she rolled up her fist — "juz wad I thing about dad 'Sieur Frowenfel' ! " " I don't kyah wad de whole worl' thing aboud 'im ! " " Mais, anny'ow, tell me fo' wad you cryne 1 " Clotilde gazed aside for a moment and then con- fronted her questioner consentingly. " I tole 'im I knowed 'e was h-innocen'." " Eh, bien, dad was h-only de poli-i-idenez. Wad 'e said ? " " E said I din knowed 'im 'tall." " An' you," exclaimed Aurora, " it is nod poz- zyble dad you " " I tole 'im I know 'im bette'n 'e know annyt'in* 'boud id ! " The speaker dropped her face into her mother's lap. " Ha, ha ! " laughed Aurora, " an' wad of dad ? I would say dad, me, fo' time' a day. I gi'e you my word 'e don godd dad sens' to know wad dad mean." " Ah ! don godd sens' ! " cried Clotilde, lifting her head up suddenly with a face of agony. " 'E reg — 'e reggo-ni-i-ize me!" Aurora caught her daughter's cheeks between her hands and laughed all over them. " Fo' Wad You Cryne ? " 309 " Mais, don you see 'ow dad was luggy ? Now, you know? — 'e goin' fall in love wid you an' you goin' 'ave dad sadizfagzion to rif-use de biggis' hand in Noo-'leans. An' you will be h-even, ha, ha ! Bud me — you wand to know wad I thing aboud 'im ? I thing 'e is one — egcellen' drug-cl — ah, ha, ha! " Clotilde replied with a smile of grieved incredulity. " De bez in de ciddy ! " insisted the other. She crossed the forefinger of one hand upon that of the other and kissed them, reversed the cross and kissed them again. " Mais, ad de sem tarn," she added, giving her daughter time to smile, " I thing 'e is one noble gerileman. Nod to sood me, of coze, mats, fa fait rien — daz nott'n ; me, I am now a h'ole woman, you know, eh ? Noboddie can' nevva sood me no mo', nod ivven dad Govenno' Cleb-orne." She tried to look old and jaded. " Ah, Govenno' Cleb-orne ! " exclaimed Clotilde. " Yass ! — Ah, you! — you thing iv a man is nod a Creole 'e bown to be no 'coun' ! I assu' you dey don' godd no boddy wad I fine a so nize gen- 'leman lag Govenno' Cleb-orne ! Ah ! Clotilde, you godd no lib'ral'ty ! " The speaker rose, cast a discouraged parting look upon her narrow-minded companion and went to investigate the slumbrous silence of the kitchen. 2 i o The Grandissimes CHAPTER XXXVI aurora's last picayune Not often in Aurora's life had joy and trem- bling so been mingled in one cup as on this day. Clotilde wept ; and certainly the mother's heart could but respond ; yet Clotilde's tears filled her with a secret pleasure which fought its way up into the beams of her eyes and asserted itself in the fre- quency and heartiness of her laugh despite her sincere participation in her companion's distresses and a fearful looking forward to to-morrow. Why these flashes of gladness ? If we do not know, it is because we have overlooked one of her sources of trouble. From the night of the bal masque she had — we dare say no more than that she had been haunted ; she certainly would not at first have admitted even so much to herself. Yet the fact was not thereby altered, and first the fact and later the feeling had given her much distress of mind. Who he was whose image would not down, for a long time she did not know. This, alone, was torture ; not merely because it was mystery, but because it helped to force upon her consciousness that her affections, spite of her, were ready and waiting for him and he did not come after them. That he loved her, she knew ; she had achieved at the ball an overwhelming victory, to her certain knowledge, or, depend upon it, she never would have unmasked — never. Aurora's Last Picayune 3 1 1 But with this torture was mingled not only the ecstasy of loving, but the fear of her daughter. This is a world that allows nothing without its obverse and reverse. Strange differences are often seen between the two sides ; and one of the strangest and most inharmonious in this world of human relations is that coinage which a mother sometimes finds herself offering to a daughter, and which reads on one side, Bridegroom, and on the other, Step- father. Then, all this torture to be hidden under smiles ! Worse still, when by and by Messieurs Agoussou, Assonquer, Danny and others had been appealed to and a Providence boundless in tender compas- sion had answered in their stead, she and her lover had simultaneously discovered each other's identity only to find that he was a Montague to her Capu- let. And the source of her agony must be hidden, and falsely attributed to the rent deficiency and their unprotected lives. Its true nature must be concealed even from Clotilde. What a secret — for what a spirit — to keep from what a companion! — a secret yielding honey to her, but, it might be, gall to Clotilde. She felt like one locked in the Garden of Eden all alone — alone with all the rav- ishing flowers, alone with all the lions and tigers. She wished she had told the secret when it was small and had let it increase by gradual accretions in Clotilde's knowledge day by day. At first it had been but a garland, then it had become a chain, now it was a ball and chain; and it was oh! and 3 1 The Grandissimes oh! if Clotilde would only fall in love herself! How that would simplify matters ! More than twice or thrice she had tried to reveal her over- strained heart in broken sections ; but on her approach to the very outer confines of the matter, Clotilde had always behaved so strangely, so ner- vously, in short, so beyond Aurora's compre- hension, that she invariably failed to make any revelation. And now, here in the very central darkness of this cloud of troubles, comes in Clotilde, throws herself upon the defiant little bosom so full of hidden suffering, and weeps tears of innocent con- fession that in a moment lay the dust of half of Aurora's perplexities. Strange world ! The tears of the orphan making the widow weep for joy, if she only dared. The pair sat down opposite each other at their little dinner-table. They had a fixed hour for dinner. It is well to have a fixed hour; it is in the direction of system. Even if you have not the dinner, there is the hour. Alphonsina was not in perfect harmony with this fixed-hour idea. It was Aurora's belief, often expressed in hungry moments with the laugh of a vexed Creole lady (a laugh worthy of study), that on the day when dinner should really be served at the appointed hour, the cook would drop dead of apoplexy and she of fright. She said it to-day, shutting her arms down to her side, closing her eyes with her eye- brows raised, and dropping into her chair at the Aurora's Last Picayune 3 1 3 table like a dead bird from its perch. Not that she felt particularly hungry ; but there is a certain desultoriness allowable at table more than elsewhere, and which suited the hither-thither movement of her conflicting feelings. This is why she had wished for dinner. Boiled shrimps, rice, claret-and-water, bread — they were dining well the day before execution. Dining is hardly correct, either, for Clotilde, at least, did not eat ; they only sat. Clotilde had, too, if not her unknown, at least her unconfessed emotions. Aurora's were tossed by the waves, hers were sunken beneath them. Aurora had a faith that the rent would be paid — a faith which was only a vapor, but a vapor gilded by the sun — that is, by Apollo, or, to be still more explicit, by Honore Grandissime. Clotilde, deprived of this confidence, had tried to raise means wherewith to meet the dread obligation, or, rather, had tried to try and had failed. To-day was the ninth, to- morrow, the street. Joseph Frowenfeld was hurt; her dependence upon his good offices was gone. When she thought of him suffering under public contumely, it seemed to her as if she could feel the big drops of blood dropping from her heart ; and when she recalled her own actions, speeches, and demonstrations in his presence, exaggerated by the groundless fear that he had guessed into the deep- est springs of her feelings, then she felt those drops of blood congeal. Even if the apothecary had been duller of discernment than she supposed, here was 3H The Grandissimes Aurora on the opposite side of the table, reading every thought of her inmost soul. But worst of all was 'Sieur Frowenfel's indifference. It is true that, as he had directed upon her that gaze of recognition, there was a look of mighty gladness, if she dared believe her eyes. But no, she dared not ; there was nothing there for her, she thought, — probably (when this anguish of public disgrace should by any means be lifted) a benevolent smile at her and her betrayal of interest. Clotilde felt as though she had been laid entire upon a slide of his microscope. Aurora at length broke her reverie. "Clotilde," — she spoke in French — "the mat- ter with you is that you have no heart. You never did have any. Really and truly, you do not care whether 'Sieur Frowenfel' lives or dies. You do not care how he is or where he is this minute. I wish you had some of my too large heart. I not only have the heart, as I tell you, to think kindly of our enemies, those Grandissime, for example" — she waved her hand with the air of selecting at ran- dom — "but I am burning up to know what is the condition of that poor, sick, noble 'Sieur Frowenfel', and I am going to do it ! " The heart which Clotilde was accused of not having gave a stir of deep gratitude. Dear, pretty little mother ! Not only knowing full well the existence of this swelling heart and the significance, to-day, of its every warm pulsation, but kindly covering up the discovery with make-believe re- Aurora's Last Picayune 3 1 5 proaches. The tears started in her eyes ; that was her reply. " Oh, now ! it is the rent again, I suppose," cried Aurora, "always the rent. It is not the rent that worries me, it is 'Sieur Frowenfel', poor man. But very well, Mademoiselle Silence, I will match you for making me do all the talking." She was really beginning to sink under the labor of carrying all the sprightliness for both. " Come," she said, savagely, " propose something." " Would vou think well to go and inquire ? " "Ah, listen! Go and what? No, Mademoi- selle, I think not." "Well, send Alphonsina." " What ? And let him know that I am anxious about him ? Let me tell you, my little girl, I shall not drag upon myself the responsibility of increas- ing the self-conceit of any of that sex." "Well, then, send to buy a picayune's worth of something." " Ah, ha, ha ! An emetic, for instance. Tell him we are poisoned on mushrooms, ha, ha, ha ! " Clotilde laughed too. " Ah, no," she said. " Send for something he does not sell." Aurora was laughing while Clotilde spoke ; but as she caught these words she stopped with open- mouthed astonishment, and, as Clotilde blushed, laughed again. " Oh, Clotilde, Clotilde, Clotilde ! " — she leaned forward over the table, her face beaming with love 2 1 6 The Grandissimes and laughter — "you rowdy! you rascal! You are just as bad as your mother, whom you think so wicked ! I accept your advice. Alphonsina ! " " Momselle ! " The answer came from the kitchen. "Come go — or, rather, — vim 'ci courri dans boutique de I'apothecaire. Clotilde," she continued, in better French, holding up the coin to view, "look!" " What ? " " The last picayune we have in the world — ha, ha, ha ! " CHAPTER XXXVII HONORE MAKES SOME CONFESSIONS " Comment ca va, Raoul ? " said Honore Grandis- sime ; he had come to the shop according to the proposal contained in his note. "Where is Mr. Frowenfeld ? " He found the apothecary in the rear room, dressed, but just rising from the bed at sound of his voice. He closed the door after him ; they shook hands and took chairs. " You have fever," said the merchant. " I have been troubled that way myself, some, lately." He rubbed his face all over, hard, with one hand, and looked at the ceiling. " Loss of sleep, I suppose, in both of us ; in your case voluntary — in pursuit of study, most likely ; in my case — effect of Honore makes some Confessions 3 1 7 anxiety." He smiled a moment and then suddenly sobered as after a pause he said: " But I hear you are in trouble ; may I ask " Frowenfeld had interrupted him with almost the same words : " May I venture to ask, Mr. Grandissime, what " And both were silent for a moment. " Oh," said Honore, with a gesture. " My trouble — I did not mean to mention it; 'tis an old matter — in part. You know, Mr. Frowenfeld, there is a kind of tree not dreamed of in botany, that lets fall its fruit every day in the year — you know? We call it — with reverence — 'our dead father's mistakes.' I have had to eat much of that fruit ; a man who has to do that must expect to have now and then a little fever." " I have heard," replied Frowenfeld, " that some of the titles under which your relatives hold their lands are found to be of the kind which the State's authorities are pronouncing worthless. I hope this is not the case." " I wish they had never been put into my custody," said M. Grandissime. Some new thought moved him to draw his chair closer. " Mr. Frowenfeld, those two ladies whom you went to see the other evening " His listener started a little : " Yes." " Did they ever tell you their history ? " 3 1 8 The Grandissimes "No, sir; but I have heard it." " And you think they have been deeply wronged, eh ? Come, Mr. Frowenfeld, take right hold of the acacia-bush." M. Grandissime did not smile. Frowenfeld winced. " I think they have." "And you think restitution should be made them, no doubt, eh ? " " I do." " At any cost ? " The questioner showed a faint, unpleasant smile, that stirred something like opposition in the breast of the apothecary. " Yes," he answered. The next question had a tincture even of fierce- ness : " You think it right to sink fifty or a hundred people into poverty to lift one or two out ? " " Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld, slowly, "you bade me study this community." " I adv — yes ; what is it you find ? " "I find — it may be the same with other com- munities, I suppose it is, more or less — that just upon the culmination of the moral issue it turns and asks the question which is behind it, instead of the question which is before it." " And what is the question before me ? " " I know it only in the abstract." " Well ? " The apothecary looked distressed. " You should not make me say it," he objected. Honore makes some Confessions 319 " Nevertheless," said the Creole, " I take that liberty." " Well, then," said Frowenfeld, " the question behind is Expediency and the question in front, Divine Justice. You are asking yourself " He checked himself. " Which I ought to regard," said M. Grandis- sime, quickly. " Expediency, of course, and be like the rest of mankind." He put on a look of bitter humor. " It is all easy enough for you, Mr. Frowenfeld, my-de'-seh ; you have the easy part — the theorizing." He saw the ungenerousness of his speech as soon as it was uttered, yet he did not modify it. "True, Mr. Grandissime," said Frowenfeld; and after a pause — " but you have the noble part — the doing." " Ah, my-de'-seh ! " exclaimed Honore ; " the noble part ! There is the bitterness of the draught ! The opportunity to act is pushed upon me, but the opportunity to act nobly has passed by." He again drew his chair closer, glanced behind him and spoke low : " Because for years I have had a kind of custody of all my kinsmen's property interests, Agricola's among them, it is supposed that he has always kept the plantation of Aurore Nancanou (or rather of Clotilde — who, you know, by our laws is the real heir). That is a mistake. Explain it as you please, call it remorse, pride, love — what you like — while I was in France and he was managing 320 The Grandissimes my mother's business, unknown to me he gave me that plantation. When I succeeded him I found it and all its revenues kept distinct — as was but proper — from all other accounts, and belonging to me. 'T was a fine, extensive place, had a good overseer on it and — I kept it. Why ? Because I was a coward. I did not want it or its revenues ; but, like my father, I would not offend my people. Peace first and justice afterwards — that was the principle on which I quietly made myself the trustee of a plantation and income which you would have given back to their owners, eh?" Frowenfeld was silent. " My-de'-seh, recollect that to us the Grandissime name is a treasure. And what has preserved it so long? Cherishing the unity of our family; that has done it ; that is how my father did it. Just or unjust, good or bad, needful or not, done elsewhere or not, I do not say ; but it is a Creole trait. See, even now " (the speaker smiled on one side of his mouth) " in a certain section of the territory certain men, Creoles " (he whispered, gravely), "some Gran- dissimes among them, evading the United States revenue laws and even beating and killing some of the officials : well ! Do the people at large repudiate those men ? My-de'-seh, in no wise, seh ! No ; if they were Am'ericains — but a Lou- isianian — is a Louisianian ; touch him not; when you touch him you touch all Louisiana ! So with us Grandissimes ; we are legion, but we are one. Honore makes some Confessions 321 Now, my-de'-seh, the thing you ask me to do is to cast overboard that old traditional principle which is the secret of our existence." " / ask you ? " " Ah, bah ! you know you expect it. Ah ! but you do not know the uproar such an action would make. And no ' noble part ' in it, my-de'-seh, either. A few months ago — when we met by those graves — if I had acted then, my action would have been one of pure — even violent — j^-sacrifice. Do you remember — on the levee, by the Place d'Armes — me asking you to send Agricola to me ? I tried then to speak of it. He would not let me. Then, my people felt safe in their land-titles and public offices ; this restitution would have hurt nothing but pride. Now, titles in doubt, government appointments uncertain, no ready capital in reach for any purpose, except that which would have to be handed over with the plan- tation (for to tell you the fact, my-de'-seh, no other account on my books has prospered), with matters changed in this way, I become the destroyer of my own flesh and blood ! Yes, seh ! and lest I might still find some room to boast, another change moves me into a position where it suits me, my-de'-seh, to make the restitution so fatal to those of my name. When you and I first met, those ladies were as much strangers to me as to you — as far as I knew. Then, if I had done this thing but now — now, mv-de'-seh, I find myself in love with one of them ! " 322 The Grandissimes M. Grandissime looked his friend straight in the eye with the frowning energy of one who asserts an ugly fact. Frowenfeld, regarding the speaker with a gaze of respectful attention, did not falter ; but his fevered blood, with an impulse that started him half from his seat, surged up into his head and face ; and then M. Grandissime blushed. In the few silent seconds that followed, the glances of the two friends continued to pass into each other's eyes, while about Honore's mouth hovered the smile of one who candidly surrenders his innermost secret, and the lips of the apothecary set themselves together as though he were whisper- ing to himself behind them, " Steady." " Mr. Frowenfeld," said the Creole, taking a sudden breath and waving a hand, " I came to ask about your trouble; but if you think you have any reason to withhold your confidence " " No, sir; no ! But can I be no help to you in this matter ? " The Creole leaned back smilingly in his chair and knit his fingers. " No, I did not intend to say all this ; I came to offer my help to you ; but my mind is full — what do you expect? My-de'-seh, the foam must come first out of the bottle. You see " — he leaned for- ward again, laid two fingers in his palm and deepened his tone — "I will tell you : this tree — ' our dead father's mistakes ' — is about to drop Honore makes some Confessions 3 2 3 another rotten apple. I spoke just now of the uproar this restitution would make ; why, my-de'- seh, just the mention of the lady's name at my house, when we lately held the/?/