Strange True Stories of Louisiana Part 8

"But your camayeu petticoats." She smiled.

"And they, it seems, do not tempt your vanity. You want better?"

"Ah, indeed we do!" replied Suzanne.

"Well, let us play Cinderella. The dresses of velvet, silk, and lace, the jewels, the slippers--all are in yonder chest. Listen, my dear girls. Upon the first signs of the Revolution my frightened mother left France and crossed into England. She took with her all her wardrobe, her jewels, the pictures from her bedroom, and part of her plate. She bought, before going, a quant.i.ty of silks and ribbons.... When I reached England my mother was dead, and all that she had possessed was restored to me by the authorities. My poor mother loved dress, and in that chest is all her apparel. Part of it I had altered for my own use; but she was much larger than I--taller than you. I can neither use them nor consent to sell them.

If each of you will accept a ball toilet, you will make me very happy."

And she looked at us with her eyes full of supplication, her hands clasped.

We each s.n.a.t.c.hed a hand and kissed it. Then she opened the chest, and for the first and last time in my life I saw fabrics, ornaments, and coiffures that truly seemed to have been made by the fairies. After many trials and much debate she laid aside for me a lovely dress of blue brocade glistening with large silver flowers the reflections of which seemed like rays of light. It was short in front, with a train; was very full on the sides, and was caught up with knots of ribbon. The long pointed waist was cut square and trimmed with magnificent laces that re-appeared on the half-long sleeves. The arms, to the elbow, were to be covered with white frosted gloves fastened with twelve silver b.u.t.tons. To complete my toilet she gave me a blue silk fan beautifully painted, blue satin slippers with high heels and silver buckles, white silk stockings with blue clocks, a broidered white cambric handkerchief trimmed with Brussels point lace, and, last, a lovely set of silver filigree that she a.s.sured us was of slight value, comprising the necklace, the comb, the earrings, bracelets, and a belt whose silver ta.s.sels of the same design fell down the front of the dress.

My sister's toilet was exactly like mine, save that it was rose color.

Alix had us try them on. While our eyes were ravished, she, with more expert taste, decided to take up a little in one place, lower a ribbon in another, add something here, take away there, and, above all, to iron the whole with care. We staid all day helping her; and when, about 3 o'clock, all was finished, our fairy G.o.dmother said she would now dress our hair, and that we must observe closely.

"For Suzanne will have to coiffe Francoise and Francoise coiffe Suzanne,"

she said. She took from the chest two pasteboard boxes that she said contained the headdresses belonging to our costumes, and, making me sit facing my sister, began to dress her hair. I was all eyes. I did not lose a movement of the comb. She lifted Suzanne's hair to the middle of the head in two rosettes that she called _riquettes_ and fastened them with a silver comb. Next, she made in front, or rather on the forehead, with hairpins, numberless little knots, or whorls, and placed on each side of the head a plume of white, rose-tipped feathers, and in front, opposite the riquettes, placed a rose surrounded with silver leaves. Long rose-colored, silver-frosted ribbons falling far down on the back completed the headdress, on which Alix dusted handfuls of silver powder.

Can you believe it, my daughter, that was the first time my sister and I had ever seen artificial flowers? They made very few of them, even in France, in those days.

While Suzanne admired herself in the mirror I took her place. My headdress differed from hers in the ends of my feathers being blue, and in the rose being white, surrounded by pale blue violets and a few silver leaves. And now a temptation came to all of us. Alix spoke first:

"Now put on your ball-dresses and I will send for our friends. What do you think?"

"Oh, that would be charming!" cried Suzanne. "Let us hurry!" And while we dressed, Pat, always prowling about the cottage, was sent to the flatboat to get his parents and the Carlos, and to M. Gerbeau's to ask my father and M. and Mme. Gerbeau to come at once to the cottage.... No, I cannot tell the cries of joy that greeted us. The children did not know us, and Maggie had to tell Pat over and over that these were Miss Souzie and Miss Francise. My father's eyes filled with tears as he thanked Alix for her goodness and generosity to us.

Alas! the happiest days, like the saddest, have an end. On the morrow the people in the flatboat came to say good-bye. Mario cried like a child.

Celeste carried alix's hands to her lips and said in the midst of her tears:

"O Madame! I had got so used to you--I hoped never to leave you."

"I will come to see you, Celeste," replied Alix to the young mulattress, "I promise you."

Maggie herself seemed moved, and in taking leave of Alix put two vigorous kisses on her cheeks. As to our father, and us, too, the adieus were not final, we having promised Mario and Gordon to stop [on their journey up the sh.o.r.e of the bayou] as soon as we saw the flatboat.

"And we hope, my dear Carlo, to find you established in your princ.i.p.ality."

"Amen!" responded the Italian.

Alix added to her gifts two pairs of chamois-skin gloves and a box of lovely artificial flowers. Two days after the flatboat had gone, we having spent the night with Alix, came M. Gerbeau's carriage to take us once more upon our journey. Ah! that was a terrible moment. Even Alix could scarce hold back the tears. We refused to get into the carriage, and walked, all of us together, to M. Gerbeau's, and then parted amid tears, kisses, and promises.

XII.

LITTLE PARIS.

[So the carriage rolled along the margin of Bayou Teche, with two big trunks besides Monsieur's on back and top, and a smaller one, lent by Alix, lashed underneath; but shawls, mats, and baskets were all left behind with the Carpentiers. The first stop was at the plantation and residence of Captain Patterson, who "offered his hand in the English way, saying only, 'Welcomed, young ladies.'" In 1795, the narrator stops to say, one might see in and about New Orleans some two-story houses; but along the banks of Bayou Teche, as well as on the Mississippi, they were all of one sort,--like their own; like Captain Patterson's,--a single ground floor with three rooms facing front and three back. Yet the very next stop was at a little cottage covered with roses and with its front yard full of ducks and geese,--"'A genuine German cottage,' said papa,"--where a German girl, to call her father, put a great ox's horn to her lips and blew a loud blast. Almost every one was English or German till they came to where was just beginning to be the town of Franklin. One Harlman, a German, offered to exchange all his land for the silver watch that it best suited Monsieur to travel with. The exchange was made, the acts were all signed and sealed, and--when Suzanne, twenty years after, made a visit to Attakapas there was Harlman and his numerous family still in peaceful possession of the place.... "And I greatly fear that when some day our grandchildren awaken from that apathy with which I have always reproached the Creoles, I fear, my daughter, they will have trouble to prove their t.i.tles."

But they journeyed on, Francoise ever looking out the carriage window for the flatboat, and Suzanne crying:

"Annie, my sister Annie, do you see nothing coming?" And about two miles from where Franklin was to be they came upon it, greeted with joyous laughter and cries of "Miss Souzie! O Miss Souzie!" from the women and the children, and from Mario: "I have it, Signor! I have it! My prinic.i.p.ality, Miss Souzie! It is mine, Signorina Francoise!" while he danced, laughed, and brandished his arms. "He had taken up enough land," says Francoise, "for five princ.i.p.alities, and was already knocking the flatboat to pieces."

She mentioned meeting Jacques and Charles Picot, St. Domingan refugees, whose story of adventures she says was very wonderful, but with good artistic judgement omits them. The travelers found, of course, a _charmante cordialite_ at the home of M. Agricole Fuselier[16], and saw a little girl of five who afterward became a great beauty--Uranie Fuselier.

They pa.s.sed another Indian village, where Francoise persuaded them not to stop. Its inhabitants were Chetimachas, more civilized than those of the village near Plaquemine, and their sworn enemies, living in constant fear of an attack from them. At New Iberia, a town founded by Spaniards, the voyagers saw "several houses, some drinking-shops and other buildings,"

and spent with "the pretty little Madame Dubuclet ... two of the pleasantest days of their lives."]

At length, one beautiful evening in July, under a sky resplendent with stars, amid the perfume of gardens and caressed by the cool night breeze, we made our entry into the village of St. Martinville--the Little Paris, the oasis in the desert.

My father ordered Julien [the coachman] to stop at the best inn. He turned two or three corners and stopped near the bayou [Teche] just beside the bridge, before a house of the strangest aspect possible. There seemed first to have been built a _rez-de-chaussee_ house of ordinary size, to which had been hastily added here a room, there a cabinet, a balcony, until the "White Pelican"--I seem to see it now--was like a house of cards, likely to tumble before the first breath of wind. The host's name was Morphy. He came forward, hat in hand, a pure-blooded American, but speaking French almost like a Frenchman. In the house all was comfortable and shining with cleanness. Madame Morphy took us to our room, adjoining papa's ["tou ta cote de selle de papa"], the two looking out, across the veranda, upon the waters of the Teche.

After supper my father proposed a walk. Madame Morphy showed us, by its lights, in the distance, a theater!

"They are playing, this evening, 'The Barber of Seville.'"

We started on our walk, moving slowly, scanning the houses and listening to the strains of music that reached us from the distance. It seemed but a dream that at any moment might vanish. On our return to the inn, papa threw his letters upon the table and began to examine their addresses.

"To whom will you carry the first letter, papa?" I asked.

"To the Baron du Clozel," he replied. "I have already met him in New Orleans, and even had the pleasure to render him a slight service."

Mechanically Suzanne and I examined the addresses and amused ourselves reading the pompous t.i.tle's.

"'Le chevalier Louis de Blanc!'" began my sister; "'L'honorable A.

Declouet'; 'Le comte Louis le Pelletrier de la Houssaye'! Ah!" she cried, throwing the packet upon the table, "the aristocrats! I am frightened, poor little plebeian that I am."

"Yes, my daughter," responded my father, "these names represent true aristocrats, as n.o.ble in virtues as in blood. My father has often told me of two uncles of the Count de la Houssaye: the first, Claude de la Pelletrier de la Houssaye, was prime minister to King Louis XV.; and the second, Barthelemy, was employed by the Minister of Finance. The count, he to whom I bear this letter, married Madelaine Victoire de Livilier. These are n.o.ble names."

Then Alix was not mistaken; it was really her friend, the Countess Madelaine, whom I was about to meet.

FOOTNOTES: [16] When I used the name of Agricole Fuselier (or Agricola Fusilier, as I have it in my novel "The Grandissimes") I fully believed it was my own careful coinage; but on publishing it I quickly found that my supposed invention was but an unconscious reminiscence. The name still survives, I am told, on the Teche.--TRANSLATOR.

XIII.

THE COUNTESS MADELAINE.

Early the next day I saw, through the partly open door, my father finishing his toilet.

He had already fastened over his black satin breeches his garters secured with large buckles of chased silver. Similar buckles were on his shoes.

His silver-b.u.t.toned vest of white pique reached low down, and his black satin coat faced with white silk had large lappets cut square. Such dress seemed to me very warm for summer; but the fashion and etiquette allowed only silk and velvet for visits of ceremony, and though you smothered you had to obey those tyrants. At the moment when I saw him out of the corner of my eye he was sticking a cl.u.s.ter diamond pin into his shirt-frill and another diamond into his lace cravat. It was the first time I ever saw papa so fine, so dressed! Presently we heard him call us to arrange his queue, and although it was impossible for us to work up a club and pigeon wings like those I saw on the two young Du Clozels and on M. Neville Declouet, we arranged a very fine queue wrapped with a black ribbon, and after smiling at himself in the gla.s.s and declaring that he thought the whole dress was in very good taste he kissed us, took his three-cornered hat and his gold-headed cane and went out. With what impatience we awaited his return!

About two hours afterward we saw papa coming back accompanied by a gentleman of a certain age, handsome, n.o.ble, elegant in his severe suit of black velvet. He had the finest black eyes in the world, and his face beamed with wit and amiability. You have guessed it was the Baron du Clozel. The baron bowed to us profoundly. He certainly knew who we were, but etiquette required him to wait until my father had presented us; but immediately then he asked papa's permission to kiss us, and you may suppose your grandfather did not refuse.

M. du Clozel had been sent by the baroness to oppose our sojourn at the inn, and to bring us back with him.