CHAPTER IX.
OLIVE
She was just passing seventeen--that beautiful year when the heart ofthe maiden still beats quickly with the surprise of her new dominion,while with gentle dignity her brow accepts the holy coronation ofwomanhood. The forehead and temples beneath her loosely bound hair werefair without paleness, and meek without languor. She had the soft,lack-lustre beauty of the South; no ruddiness of coral, no waxen white,no pink of shell; no heavenly blue in the glance; but a face thatseemed, in all its other beauties, only a tender accompaniment for thelarge, brown, melting eyes, where the openness of child-nature mingleddreamily with the sweet mysteries of maiden thought. We say no color ofshell on face or throat; but this was no deficiency, that which took itsplace being the warm, transparent tint of sculptured ivory.
This side doorway which led from Madame Delphine's house into her gardenwas over-arched partly by an old remnant of vine-covered lattice, andpartly by a crape-myrtle, against whose small, polished trunk leaned arustic seat. Here Madame Delphine and Olive loved to sit when thetwilights were balmy or the moon was bright.
"_Cherie_," said Madame Delphine on one of those evenings, "why do youdream so much?"
She spoke in the _patois_ most natural to her, and which her daughterhad easily learned.
The girl turned her face to her mother, and smiled, then dropped herglance to the hands in her own lap; which were listlessly handling theend of a ribbon. The mother looked at her with fond solicitude. Herdress was white again; this was but one night since that in whichMonsieur Vignevielle had seen her at the bush of night-jasmine. He hadnot been discovered, but had gone away, shutting the gate, and leavingit as he had found it.
Her head was uncovered. Its plaited masses, quite black in themoonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chastedrapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion wasagain laying aside to re-assume the medaeval bondage of the staylace;for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphineand her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue,of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside herhands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentleadmiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden.
Olive glanced up. Madame Delphine was not prepared for the movement, andon that account repeated her question:
"What are you thinking about?"
The dreamer took the hand that was laid upon hers between her own palms,bowed her head, and gave them a soft kiss.
The mother submitted. Wherefore, in the silence which followed, adaughter's conscience felt the burden of having withheld an answer, andOlive presently said, as the pair sat looking up into the sky:
"I was thinking of Pere Jerome's sermon."
Madame Delphine had feared so. Olive had lived on it ever since the dayit was preached. The poor mother was almost ready to repent having everafforded her the opportunity of hearing it. Meat and drink had become ofsecondary value to her daughter; she fed upon the sermon.
Olive felt her mother's thought and knew that her mother knew her own;but now that she had confessed, she would ask a question:
"Do you think, _maman_, that Pere Jerome knows it was I who gave thatmissal?"
"No," said Madame Delphine, "I am sure he does not."
Another question came more timidly:
"Do--do you think he knows _him_?"
"Yes, I do. He said in his sermon he did."
Both remained for a long time very still, watching the moon gliding inand through among the small dark-and-white clouds. At last the daughterspoke again.
"I wish I was Pere--I wish I was as good as Pere Jerome."
"My child," said Madame Delphine, her tone betraying a painful summoningof strength to say what she had lacked the courage to utter,--"my child,I pray the good God you will not let your heart go after one whom youmay never see in this world!"
The maiden turned her glance, and their eyes met. She cast her armsabout her mother's neck, laid her cheek upon it for a moment, and then,feeling the maternal tear, lifted her lips, and, kissing her, said:
"I will not! I will not!"
But the voice was one, not of willing consent, but of desperateresolution.
"It would be useless, anyhow," said the mother, laying her arm aroundher daughter's waist.
Olive repeated the kiss, prolonging it passionately.
"I have nobody but you," murmured the girl; "I am a poor quadroone!"
She threw back her plaited hair for a third embrace, when a sound in theshrubbery startled them.
"_Qui ci pa?_" called Madame Delphine, in a frightened voice, as thetwo stood up, holding to each other.
No answer.
"It was only the dropping of a twig," she whispered, after a longholding of the breath. But they went into the house and barred iteverywhere.
It was no longer pleasant to sit up. They retired, and in course oftime, but not soon, they fell asleep, holding each other very tight, andfearing, even in their dreams, to hear another twig fall.
Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life Page 9
