Rose A Charlitte Part 5

"Courage; the road will soon improve. It is the ox-teams that cut it up.

They load schooners in the Bay. Here at last is a good spot. Monsieur can mount now. Beware of the sharp stones. All the bones of the earth stick up in places. Does monsieur intend to stay long in Sleeping Water?

Was it monsieur that Rose a Charlitte expected when she drove through the pouring rain to the station, two days since? What did he say in the letter that he sent yesterday in explanation of his change of plans? Did monsieur come from Halifax, or Boston? Did he know Mrs. de la Rive, laundress, of Cambridge Street? Had he samples of candy or tobacco in that big box of his? How much did he charge a pound for his best peppermints?"

Vesper, fully occupied with keeping his wheel out of the ruts in the road, and in maintaining a safe distance from the cart, which pressed him sore if he went ahead and waited for him if he dallied behind, answered "yes" and "no" at random, until at length he had involved himself in such a maze of contradictions that Monsieur de la Rive felt himself forced to pull up his brown pony and remonstrate.

"But it is impossible, monsieur, that you should have seen Mrs. de la Rive, who has been dying for weeks, dancing at the wedding of the daughter of her step-uncle, the baker, and yet you say 'yes' when I remark that she was not there."

The stop and the remonstrance were so birdlike and so quick, that Vesper, taken aback, fell off his wheel and broke his cyclometer.

He picked himself out of the dust, swearing under his breath, and Monsieur de la Rive, being a gentleman, and seeing that this quiet young stranger was disinclined for conversation, suddenly whipped up his pony and sped madly on ahead, the tails of his red coat streaming out behind him, the tip of his pointed cap fluttering and nodding over his thick white locks of hair.

After the lapse of a few minutes, Vesper had recovered his composure, and was looking calmly about him. The road was better now, and they were nearing the Bay, that lay shimmering and shining like a great sea-serpent coiled between purple hills. He did not know what Grand Pre was like, and was therefore unaware of the extent of the Acadiens' loss in being driven from it; but this was by no means a barren country. On either side of him were fairly prosperous farms, each one with a light painted wooden house, around which cl.u.s.tered usually a group of children, presided over by a mother, who, as the mail-driver dashed by, would appear in the doorway, thrusting forth her matronly face, often partly shrouded by a black handkerchief.

These black handkerchiefs, _la cape Normande_ of old France, were almost universal on the heads of women and girls. He could see them in the fields and up and down the roads. They and the vivacious sound of the French tongue gave the foreign touch to his surroundings, which he found, but for these reminders, might once again have been those of an out-of-the-way district in some New England State.

He noticed, with regret, that the forest had all been swept away. The Acadiens, in their zeal for farming, had wielded their axes so successfully that scarcely a tree had been left between the station and the Bay. Here and there stood a lonely guardian angel, in the shape of a solitary pine, hovering over some Acadien roof-tree, and turning a melancholy face towards its brothers of the forest,--rugged giants primeval, now prostrate and forlorn, and being trailed slowly along towards the waiting schooners in the Bay.

The most of these fallen giants were loaded on rough carts drawn by pairs of sleek and well-kept oxen who were yoked by the horns. The carts were covered with mud from the bad roads of the forest, and muddy also were the boots of the stalwart Acadien drivers, who walked beside the oxen, whip in hand, and turned frankly curious faces towards the stranger who flashed by their slow-moving teams on his shining wheel.

The road was now better, and Vesper quickly attained to the top of the last hill between the station and the Bay.

Ah! now the fields did not appear bare, the houses naked, the whole country wind-swept and cold, for the wide, regal, magnificent Bay lay spread out before him. It was no longer a thread of light, a sea-serpent shining in the distance, but a great, broad, beautiful basin, on whose placid bosom all the Acadien, New England, and Nova Scotian fleets might float with never a jostle between any of their ships.

A fire of admiration kindled in his calm eyes, and he allowed himself to glide rapidly down the hill towards this brilliant blue sweep of water, along whose nearer sh.o.r.es stretched, as far as his gaze could reach, the curious dotted line of the French village.

The country had become flat, as flat as Holland, and the fields rolled down into the water in the softest, most exquisite shades of green, according to the different kinds of gra.s.s or grain flourishing along the sh.o.r.es. The houses were placed among the fields, some close together, some far apart, all, however, but a stone's throw from the water's edge, as if the Acadiens, fearful of another expulsion, held themselves always in readiness to step into the procession of boats and schooners moored almost in their dooryards.

At the point where Vesper found himself threatened with precipitation into the Bay, they struck the village line. Here, at the corner, was the general shop and post-office of Sleeping Water. The cardinal-bird fluttered his mail-bag in among the loafers at the door, saw the shopkeeper catch it, then, swelling out his vermilion breast with importance, he nimbly took the corner with one wheel in the air and pulled up before the largest, whitest house on the street, and flourished a flaming wing in the direction of a swinging sign,--"The Sleeping Water Inn."

Vesper, biting his lip to restrain a smile, rounded the corner after him, and leisurely stepped from his wheel in front of the house.

"Ring, sir, and enter," piped the bird, then, wishing him _bonne chance_ (good luck), he flew away.

Vesper pulled the bell, and, as no one answered his summons, he sauntered through the open door into the hall.

So this was an Acadien house,--and he had expected a log hut. He could command a view from where he stood of a staircase, a smoking-room, and a parlor,--all clean, cool, and comfortably furnished, and having easy chairs, muslin curtains, books, and pictures.

He smiled to himself, murmured "I wonder where the dining-room is? These flies will probably know," and followed a prosperous-looking swarm sailing through the hall to a distant doorway.

A table, covered by a snowy cloth and set ready for a meal, stood before him. He walked around it, rapped on a door, behind which he heard a murmur of voices, and was immediately favored with a sight of an Acadien kitchen.

This one happened to be large, lofty, and of a grateful irregularity in shape. The ceiling was as white as snow, and a delicate blue and cream paper adorned the walls. The floor was of hard wood and partly covered with brightly colored mats, made by the skilful fingers of Acadien women. There were several windows and doors, and two pantries, but no fireplace. An enormous Boston cooking range took its place. Every cover on it glistened with blacking, every bit of nickel plating was polished to the last degree, and, as if to show that this model stove could not possibly be malevolent enough to throw out impurities in the way of soot and ashes, there stood beside it a tall clothes-horse full of white ironed clothes hung up to air.

But the most remarkable thing in this exquisitely clean kitchen was the mistress of the inn,--tall, willowy Mrs. Rose a Charlitte, who stood confronting the newcomer with a dish-cover in one hand and a clean napkin in the other, her pretty oval face flushed from some sacrifice she had been offering up on her huge Moloch of a stove.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ROSE A CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER."]

"Can you give me some lunch?" asked Vesper, and he wondered whether he should find a descendant of the Fiery Frenchman in this placid beauty, whose limpid blue eyes, girlish, innocent gaze, and thick braid of hair, with the little confusion of curls on the forehead, reminded him rather of a Gretchen or a Marguerite of the stage.

"But yes," said Mrs. Rose a Charlitte, in uncertain yet pretty English, and her gentle and demure glance scrutinized him with some shrewdness and accurate guessing as to his attainments and station in life.

"Can you give it to me soon?" he asked.

"I can give it soon," she replied, and as she spoke she made an almost imperceptible motion of her head in the direction of the neat maid-servant behind her, who at once flew out to the garden for fresh vegetables, while, with her foot, which was almost as slender as her hand, Mrs. Rose a Charlitte pulled out a damper in the stove that at once caused a still more urgent draft to animate the glowing wood inside.

"Can you let me have a room?" pursued Vesper.

"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Rose, and she turned to the third occupant of the kitchen, a pale child with a flowerlike face and large, serious eyes, who sat with folded hands in a little chair. "Narcisse," she said, in French, "wilt thou go and show the judge's room?"

The child, without taking his fascinated gaze from Vesper, responded, in a sweet, drawling voice, "_Ou-a-a-y, ma ma-r-re_" (yes, my mother).

Then, rising, he trotted slowly through the dining-room and up the staircase to a hall above, where he gravely threw open the door of a good-sized chamber, whose chief ornament was a huge white bed.

"Why do you call this the judge's room?" asked Vesper, in French.

The child answered him in unintelligible childish speech, that made the young man observe him intently. "I believe you look like me, you black lily," he said, at last.

There was, indeed, a resemblance between their two heads. Both had pale, inscrutable faces, dark eyes, and curls like midnight cl.u.s.tering over their white foreheads. Both were serious, grave, and reserved in expression. The child stared up at Vesper, then, seizing one of his hands, he patted it gently with his tiny fingers. They were friends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THEY WERE FRIENDS."]

Vesper allowed the child to hold his hand until he plunged his head into a basin of cold water. Then, with water dripping from his face, he paused to examine a towel before he would press it against his sensitive skin. It was fine and perfectly clean, and, with a satisfied air, he murmured: "So far, Doctor a.r.s.eneau has not led me astray."

The child waited patiently until the stranger had smoothed down his black curls, then, stretching out a hand, he mutely invited him to descend to the parlor.

Upon arriving there, he modestly withdrew to a corner, after pointing out a collection of photographs on the table. Vesper made a pretence of examining them until the entrance of his landlady with the announcement that his lunch was served.

She shyly set before him a plate of soup, and a dish which she called a little _ragot_, "not as good as the _ragots_ of Boston, and yet eatable."

"How do you know that I am from Boston?" asked Vesper.

"I do not know," she murmured, with a quick blush. "Monsieur is from Halifax, I thought. He seems English. I speak of Boston because it was there that I learned to cook."

Vesper said nothing, but his silence seemed to invite a further explanation, and she went on, modestly: "When I received news that my husband had died of yellow fever in the West Indies, neighbors said, 'What will you do?' My stepmother said, 'Come home;' but I answered, 'No; a child that has left its father's roof does not return. I will keep hotel. My house is of size. I will go to Boston and learn to cook better than I know.' So I went, and stayed one week."

"That was a short time to learn cooking," observed Vesper, politely.

"I did not study. I bought _cuisine_ books. I went to grand hotels and regarded the tables and tasted the dishes. If I now had more money, I would do similar," and she anxiously surveyed her modest table and the aristocratic young man seated at it; "but not many people come, and the money lacks. However, our Lord knows that I wish to educate my child.

Strangers will come when he is older.

"And," she went on, after a time, with mingled reluctance and honesty, "I must not hide from you that I have already in the bank two hundred dollars. It is not much; not so much as the Gautreaus, who have six hundred, and Agapit, who has four, yet it is a starting."

Vesper slightly wrinkled his forehead, and Mrs. Rose, fearful that her cooking displeased him, for he had scarcely tasted the _ragot_ and had put aside a roast chicken, hastened to exclaim, "That pudding is but overheated, and I did wrong to place it before you. Despise it if you care, and it will please the hens."

"It is a very good pudding," said Vesper, composedly, and he proceeded to finish it.

"Here is a custard which is quite fresh," said his landlady, feverishly, "and bananas, and oranges, and some coffee."

"Thank you. No cream--may I ask why you call that room you put me in the judge's room?"