Strange True Stories of Louisiana Part 5

"And the other: how she was punished for her plebeian tastes!"

"So, my dear Suzanne," responded Alix, "you would not marry--"

"A man not my equal--a workman? Ah! certainly not."

Madame Carpentier turned slightly pale. I looked at Suzanne with eyes full of reproach; and Suzanne remembering the gardener, at that moment in his shirt sleeves pushing one of the boat's long sweeps, bit her lip and turned to hide her tears. But Alix--the dear little creature!--rose, threw her arms about my sister's neck, kissed her, and said:

"I know very well that you had no wish to give me pain, dear Suzanne. You have only called up some dreadful things that I am trying to forget. I am the daughter of a count. My childhood and youth were pa.s.sed in chateaux and palaces, surrounded by every pleasure that an immense fortune could supply. As the wife of a viscount I have been received at court; I have been the companion of princesses. To-day all that is a dreadful dream.

Before me I have a future the most modest and humble. I am the wife of Joseph the gardener; but poor and humble as is my present lot, I would not exchange it for the brilliant past, hidden from me by a veil of blood and tears. Some day I will write and send you my history; for I want to make it plain to you, Suzanne, that t.i.tles and riches do not make happiness, but that the poorest fate illumined by the fires of love is very often radiant with pleasure."

We remained mute. I took Alix's hand in mine and silently pressed it. Even Suzanne, the inquisitive Suzanne, spoke not a word. She was content to kiss Alix and wipe away her tears.

If the day had its pleasures, it was in the evenings, when we were all reunited on deck, that the moments of gayety began. When we had brilliant moonlight the flatboat would continue its course to a late hour. Then, in those calm, cool moments, when the movement of our vessel was so slight that it seemed to slide on the water, amid the odorous breezes of evening, the instruments of music were brought upon deck and our concerts began. My father played the flute delightfully; Carlo, by ear, played the violin pleasantly; and there, on the deck of that old flatboat, before an indulgent audience, our improvised instruments waked the sleeping creatures of the centuries-old forest and called around us the wondering fishes and alligators. My father and Alix played admirable duos on flute and harp, and sometimes Carlo added the notes of his violin or played for us cotillons and Spanish dances. Finally Suzanne and I, to please papa, sang together Spanish songs, or songs of the negroes, that made our auditors nearly die a-laughing; or French ballads, in which Alix would mingle her sweet voice. Then Carlo, with gestures that always frightened Patrick, made the air resound with Italian refrains, to which almost always succeeded the Irish ballads of the Gordons.

But when it happened that the flatboat made an early stop to let our men rest, the programme was changed. Celeste and Maggie went ash.o.r.e to cook the two suppers there. Their children gathered wood and lighted the fires. Mario and Gordon, or Gordon and 'Tino, went into the forest with their guns. Sometimes my father went along, or sat down by M. Carpentier, who was the fisherman. Alix, too, generally sat near her husband, her sketch-book on her knee, and copied the surrounding scene. Often, tired of fishing, we gathered flowers and wild fruits. I generally staid near Alix and her husband, letting Suzanne run ahead with Patrick and Tom. It was a strange thing, the friendship between my sister and this little Irish boy.

Never during the journey did he address one word to me; he never answered a question from Alix; he ran away if my father or Joseph spoke to him; he turned pale and hid if Mario looked at him. But with Suzanne he talked, laughed, obeyed her every word, called her Miss Souzie, and was never so happy as when serving her. And when, twenty years afterward, she made a journey to Attakapas, the wealthy M. Patrick Gordon, hearing by chance of her presence, came with his daughter to make her his guest for a week, still calling her Miss Souzie, as of old.

VII.

ODD PARTNERS IN THE BOLERO DANCE.

Only one thing we lacked--ma.s.s and Sunday prayers. But on that day the flatboat remained moored, we put on our Sunday clothes, gathered on deck, and papa read the ma.s.s aloud surrounded by our whole party, kneeling; and in the parts where the choir is heard in church, Alix, my sister, and I, seconded by papa and Mario, sang hymns.

One evening--we had already been five weeks on our journey--the flatboat was floating slowly along, as if it were tired of going, between the narrow banks of a bayou marked in red ink on Carlo's map, "Bayou Sorrel."

It was about six in the afternoon. There had been a suffocating heat all day. It was with joy that we came up on deck. My father, as he made his appearance, showed us his flute. It was a signal: Carlo ran for his violin, Suzanne for Alix's guitar, and presently Carpentier appeared with his wife's harp. Ah! I see them still: Gordon and 'Tino seated on a mat; Celeste and her children; Mario with his violin; Maggie; Patrick at the feet of Suzanne; Alix seated and tuning her harp; papa at her side; and M.

Carpentier and I seated on the bench nearest the musicians.

My father and Alix had already played some pieces, when papa stopped and asked her to accompany him in a new bolero which was then the vogue in New Orleans. In those days, at all the b.a.l.l.s and parties, the boleros, fandangos, and other Spanish dances had their place with the French contra-dances and waltzes. Suzanne had made her entrance into society three years before, and danced ravishingly. Not so with me. I had attended my first ball only a few months before, and had taken nearly all my dancing-lessons from Suzanne. What was to become of me, then, when I heard my father ask me to dance the bolero which he and Alix were playing!...

Every one made room for us, crying, "_Oh, oui, Mlle. Suzanne; dancez! Oh, dancez, Mlle. Francoise!_" I did not wish to disobey my father. I did not want to disoblige my friends. Suzanne loosed her red scarf and tossed one end to me. I caught the end of the shawl that Suzanne was already waving over her head and began the first steps, but it took me only an instant to see that the task was beyond my powers. I grew confused, my head swam, and I stopped. But Alix did not stop playing; and Suzanne, wrapped in her shawl and turning upon herself, cried, "Play on!"

I understood her intention in an instant.

Harp and flute sounded on, and Suzanne, ever gliding, waltzing, leaping, her arms gracefully lifted above her head, softly waved her scarf, giving it a thousand different forms. Thus she made, twice, the circuit of the deck, and at length paused before Mario Carlo. But only for a moment. With a movement as quick as unexpected, she threw the end of her scarf to him.

It wound about his neck. The Italian with a shoulder movement loosed the scarf, caught it in his left hand, threw his violin to Celeste, and bowed low to his challenger. All this as the etiquette of the bolero inexorably demanded. Then Maestro Mario smote the deck sharply with his heels, let go a cry like an Indian's war-whoop, and made two leaps into the air, smiting his heels against each other. He came down on the points of his toes, waving the scarf from his left hand; and twining his right arm about my sister's waist, he swept her away with him. They danced for at least half an hour, running the one after the other, waltzing, tripping, turning, leaping. The children and Gordon shouted with delight, while my father, M.

Carpentier, and even Alix clapped their hands, crying, "Hurrah!"

Suzanne's want of dignity exasperated me; but when I tried to speak of it, papa and Alix were against me.

"On board a flatboat," said my father, "a breach of form is permissible."

He resumed his flute with the first measures of a minuet.

"Ah, our turn!" cried Alix; "our turn, Francoise! I will be the cavalier!"

I could dance the minuet as well as I could the bolero--that is, not at all; but Alix promised to guide me: and as, after all, I loved the dance as we love it at sixteen, I was easily persuaded, and fan in hand followed Alix, who for the emergency wore her husband's hat; and our minuet was received with as much enthusiasm as Suzanne's bolero. This ball was followed by others, and Alix gave me many lessons in the dance, that some weeks later were very valuable in the wilderness towards which we were journeying.

VIII.

A BAD STORM IN A BAD PLACE.

The flatboat continued its course, and some slight signs of civilization began to appear at long intervals. Towards the end of a beautiful day in June, six weeks after our departure from New Orleans, the flatboat stopped at the pa.s.s of Lake Chicot.[13] The sun was setting in a belt of gray clouds. Our men fastened their vessel securely and then cast their eyes about them.

"Ah!" cried Mario, "I do not like this place; it is inhabited." He pointed to a wretched hut half hidden by the forest. Except two or three little cabins seen in the distance, this was the first habitation that had met our eyes since leaving the Mississippi.[14]

A woman showed herself at the door. She was scarcely dressed at all. Her feet were naked, and her tousled hair escaped from a wretched handkerchief that she had thrown upon her head. Hidden in the bushes and behind the trees half a dozen half-nude children gazed at us, ready to fly at the slightest sound. Suddenly two men with guns came out of the woods, but at the sight of the flatboat stood petrified. Mario shook his head.

"If it were not so late I would take the boat farther on."

[Yet he went hunting with 'Tino and Gordon along the sh.o.r.e, leaving the father of Francoise and Suzanne lying on the deck with sick headache, Joseph fishing in the flatboat's little skiff, and the women and children on the bank, gazed at from a little distance by the sitting figures of the two strange men and the woman. Then the hunters returned, supper was prepared, and both messes ate on sh.o.r.e. Gordon and Mario joining freely in the conversation of the more cultivated group, and making altogether a strange Babel of English, French, Spanish, and Italian.]

After supper Joseph and Alix, followed by my sister and me, plunged into the denser part of the woods.

"Take care, comrade," we heard Mario say; "don't go far."

The last rays of the sun were in the treetops. There were flowers everywhere. Alix ran here and there, all enthusiasm. Presently Suzanne uttered a cry and recoiled with affright from a thicket of blackberries.

In an instant Joseph was at her side; but she laughed aloud, returned to the a.s.sault, and drew by force from the bushes a little girl of three or four years. The child fought and cried; but Suzanne held on, drew her to the trunk of a tree, sat down, and held her on her lap by force. The poor little thing was horribly dirty, but under its rags there were pretty features and a sweetness that inspired pity. Alix sat down by my sister and stroked the child's hair, and, like Suzanne, spite of the dirt, kissed her several times; but the little creature still fought, and yelled [in English]:

"Let me alone! I want to go home! I want to go home!"

Joseph advised my sister to let the child go, and Suzanne was about to do so when she remembered having at supper filled her pocket with pecans. She quickly filled the child's hands with them and the Rubicon was pa.s.sed....

She said that her name was Annie; that her father, mother, and brothers lived in the hut. That was all she could say. She did not know her parents' name. When Suzanne put her down she ran with all her legs towards the cabin to show Alix's gift, her pretty ribbon.

Before the sun went down the wind rose. Great clouds covered the horizon; large rain-drops began to fall. Joseph covered the head of his young wife with her mantle, and we hastened back to the camp.

"Do you fear a storm, Joseph?" asked Alix.

"I do not know too much," he replied; "but when you are near, all dangers seem great."

We found the camp deserted; all our companions were on board the flatboat.

The wind rose to fury, and now the rain fell in torrents. We descended to our rooms. Papa was asleep. We did not disturb him, though we were greatly frightened.... Joseph and Gordon went below to sleep. Mario and his son loosed the three bull-dogs, but first removed the planks that joined the boat to the sh.o.r.e. Then he hoisted a great lantern upon a mast in the bow, lighted his pipe, and sat down to keep his son awake with stories of voyages and hunts.

The storm seemed to increase in violence every minute. The rain redoubled its fury. Frightful thunders echoed each other's roars. The flatboat, tossed by the wind and waves, seemed to writhe in agony, while now and then the trunks of uprooted trees, lifted by the waves, smote it as they pa.s.sed. Without a thought of the people in the hut, I made every effort to keep awake in the face of these menaces of Nature. Suzanne held my hand tightly in hers, and several times spoke to me in a low voice, fearing to wake papa, whom we could hear breathing regularly, sleeping without a suspicion of the surrounding dangers. Yet an hour had not pa.s.sed ere I was sleeping profoundly. A knock on the part.i.tion awoke us and made us run to the door. Mario was waiting there.

"Quick, monsieur! Get the young ladies ready. The flatboat has probably but ten minutes to live. We must take the women and children ash.o.r.e. And please, signorina,"--to my sister,--"call M. and Mme. Carpentier." But Joseph had heard all, and showed himself at the door of our room.

"Ash.o.r.e? At such a time?"

"We have no choice. We must go or perish."

"But where?"