The Flower of the Chapdelaines

by George Washington Cable

  Produced by Al Haines

  [Frontispiece: Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, hehad encountered this fair stranger and her urchin escort.]

  THE FLOWER OF THE CHAPDELAINES

  BY

  GEORGE W. CABLE

  WITH FRONTISPIECE BY

  F. C. YOHN

  NEW YORK

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  1918

  COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY

  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

  Published March, 1918

  The Flower of the Chapdelaines

  I

  Next morning he saw her again.

  He had left his very new law office, just around in Bienville Street,and had come but a few steps down Royal, when, at the next cornerbelow, she turned into Royal, toward him, out of Conti, coming fromBourbon.

  The same nine-year-old negro boy was at her side, as spotless in broadwhite collar and blue jacket as on the morning before, and carrying thesame droll air of consecration, awe, and responsibility. The young manenvied him.

  Yesterday, for the first time, at that same corner, he had encounteredthis fair stranger and her urchin escort, abruptly, as they were makingthe same turn they now repeated, and all in a flash had wondered whomight be this lovely apparition. Of such patrician beauty, suchelegance of form and bearing, such witchery of simple attire, and suchun-Italian yet Latin type, in this antique Creole, modernly Italianizedquarter--who and what, so early in the day, down here among the shops,where so meagre a remnant of the old high life clung on in thesebalconied upper stories--who, what, whence, whither, and wherefore?

  In that flash of time she had passed, and the very liveliness of hisinterest, combined with the urchin's consecrated awe--not to mentionhis own mortifying remembrance of one or two other-day lapses from theausterities of the old street--restrained him from a backward glanceuntil he could cross the way as if to enter the great, white, latelycompleted court-house. Then both she and her satellite had vanished.

  He turned again, but not to enter the building. His watch read buthalf past eight, and his first errand of the day, unless seeing her hadbeen his first, was to go one square farther on, for a look at thewreckers tearing down the old Hotel St. Louis. As he turned, a manneat of dress and well beyond middle age made him a suave gesture.

  "Sir, if you please. You are, I think, Mr. Chester, notary public andattorney at law?"

  "That is my name and trade, sir." Evidently Mr. Geoffry Chester wasalso an American, a Southerner.

  "Pardon," said his detainer, "I have only my business card." Hetendered it: "Marcel Castanado, Masques et Costumes, No. 312, rueRoyale, entre Bienville et Conti."

  "I diz-ire your advice," he continued, "on a very small matter neithernotarial, neither of the law. Yet I must pay you for that, if you canmake your charge as--as small as the matter."

  The young lawyer's own matters were at a juncture where a fee was agodsend, yet he replied:

  "If your matter is not of the law I can make you no charge."

  The costumer shrugged: "Pardon, in that case I must seek elsewhere."He would have moved on, but Chester asked:

  "What kind of advice do you want if not legal?"

  "Literary."

  The young man smiled: "Why, I'm not literary."

  "I think yes. You know Ovide Landry? Black man? Secon'-han' books,Chartres Street, just yonder?"

  "Yes, very pleasantly, for I love old books."

  "Yes, and old buildings, and their histories. I know. You are nowgoing down, as I have just been, to see again the construction of thatold dome they are dim-olishing yonder, of the once state-house,previously Hotel St. Louis. I know. Twice a day you pass my shop. Iam compelled to see, what Ovide also has told me, that, like me and mywife, you have a passion for the _poetique_ and the _pittoresque_!"

  "Yes," Chester laughed, "but that's my limit. I've never written aline for print----"

  "This writing is done, since fifty years."

  "I've never passed literary judgment on a written page and don'tsuppose I ever shall."

  "The judgment is passed. The value of the article is pronouncedgreat--by an expert amateur."

  "SHE?" the youth silently asked himself. He spoke: "Why, then whatadvice do you still want--how to find a publisher?"

  "No, any publisher will jump at that. But how to so nig-otiate that heshall not be the lion and we the lamb!"

  Chester smiled again: "Why, if that's the point--" he mused. The hopecame again that this unusual shopman and his wish had something to dowith _her_.

  "If that's the advice you want," he resumed, "I think we might construeit as legal, though worth at the most a mere notarial fee."

  "And contingent on--?" the costumer prompted.

  "Contingent, yes, on the author's success."

  "Sir! I am not the author of a manuscript fifty years old!"

  "Well, then, on the holder's success. You can agree to that, can'tyou?"

  "'Tis agreed. You are my counsel. When will you see the manuscript?"

  "Whenever you choose to leave it with me."

  The costumer's smile was firm: "Sir, I cannot permit that to pass frommy hand."

  "Oh! then have a copy typed for me."

  The Creole soliloquized: "That would be expensive." Then to Chester:"Sir, I will tell you; to-night come at our parlor, over the shop. Iwill read you that!"

  "Shall we be alone?" asked Chester, hoping his client would say no.

  "Only excepting my"--a tender brightness--"my wife!" Then a shade ofregret: "We are without children, me and my wife."

  His wife. H'mm! _She_? That amazing one who had vanished within afew yards of his bazaar of "masques et costumes"? Though to ChesterNew Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim pursekept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grewrich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to standbehind counters. Yet no such plight could he imagine of thatbewildering young--young luminary who, this second time, so out oftime, had gleamed on him from mystery's cloud. His earlier hope came athird time: "Excepting only your wife, you say? Why not also youramateur expert?"

  "I am sorry, but"--the Latin shrug--"that is--that is not possible."

  "Have I ever seen your wife? She's not a tallish, slender young-----?"

  "No, my wife is neither. She's never in the street or shop. She hasno longer the cap-acity. She's become so extraordinarily _un_-slenderthat the only way she can come down-stair' is backward. You'll see.Well,"--he waved--"till then--ah, a word: my close bargaining--I mustexplain you that--in confidence. 'Tis because my wife and me we areanxious to get every picayune we can get for the owners--of thatmanuscript."

  Chester thought to be shrewd: "Oh! is _she_ hard up? the owner?"

  "The owners are three," Castanado calmly said, "and two dip-end on theearnings of a third." He bowed himself away.

  A few hours later Chester received from him a note begging indefinitepostponement of the evening appointment. Mme. Castanado had fever andprobably _la grippe_.

  II

  Early one day some two weeks after the foregoing incident the younglawyer came out of his _pension francaise_, opposite his office, andstood a moment in thought. In those two weeks he had not again seenMr. Castanado.

  Once more it was scant half past eight. He looked across to thewindows of his office and of one bare third-story sleeping-room overit. Eloquent windows! Their meanness reminded him anew how definitelyhe had chosen not merely the simple but the solitary life. Yet now heturned toward Royal Street. But at the third or fourth step he facedabout toward Chartres. The distance to the courthouse was the sameeither way, and its entrances were ali
ke on both streets.

  Thought he as he went the Chartres Street way: "If I go _one more time_by way of Royal I shall owe an abject apology, and yet to try to offerit would only make the matter worse."

  He went grimly, glad to pay this homage of avoidance which would havebeen more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequentfailure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of _her_ and anitching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconiedwindows besides those of the unslender Mme. Castanado.

  Temptation is a sly witch. Down at Conti Street, on the court-house'supper riverside corner, he paused to take in the charm of one of themost picturesque groups of old buildings in the _vieux carre_. Butthere, to gather in all the effect, one must turn, sooner or later, andinclude the upper side of Conti Street from Chartres to Royal; and asChester did so, yonder, once more, coming from Bourbon and turning fromConti into Royal, there she was again, the avoided one!

  Her black cupid was at her side, tiny even for nine years. Theydisappeared conversing together. With his heart in his throat Chesterturned away, resumed his walk, and passed into the marble halls wherejustice dreamt she dwelt. Up and down one of these, little traversedso early, he paced, with a question burning in his breast, which everynew sigh of mortification fanned hotter: _Had she seen him_?--thistime? those other times? And did those Castanados suspect? Was thatwhy Mme. Castanado had the grippe, and the manuscript was yet unread?

  A voice spoke his name and he found himself facing the very blackdealer in second-hand books.

  "I was yonder at Toulouse Street," said Ovide Landry, "coming up-town,when I saw you at Conti coming down. I have another map of the oldcity for you. At that rate, Mr. Chester, you'll soon have as good acollection as the best."

  The young man was pleased: "Does it show exactly where Maspero'sExchange stood?" he asked.

  Ovide said come to the shop and see.

  "I will, to-day; at six." Another man came up, "Ah, Mr. Castanado!How--how is your patient?"

  "Madame"--the costumer smiled happily--"is once more well. I waslooking for you. You didn't pass in Royal Street this morning."

  [Ah, those eyes behind those windows behind those balconies!]

  "No, I--oh! going, Landry? Good day. No, Mr. Castanado, I----"

  "Madame hopes Mr. Chezter can at last, this evening, come at home forthat reading."

  "Mr. Castanado, I can't! I'm mighty sorry! My whole evening'sengaged. So is to-morrow's. May I come the next evening after? . . .Thank you. . . . Yes, at seven. Just the three of us, of course?Yes."

  III

  Six o'clock found Chester in Ovide's bookshop.

  Had its shelves borne law-books, or had he not needed for law-books allhe dared spend, he might have known the surprisingly informed and refinedshopman better. Ovide had long been a celebrity. Lately a brief summaryof his career had appeared incidentally in a book, a book chiefly aboutothers, white people. "You can't write a Southern book and keep us out,"Ovide himself explained.

  Even as it was, Chester had allowed himself that odd freedom with Landrywhich Southerners feel safe in under the plate armor of their racedistinctions. Receiving his map he asked, as he looked along a shelf ortwo: "Have you that book that tells of you--as a slave? your masterletting you educate yourself; your once refusing your freedom, and yourbeing private secretary to two or three black lieutenant-governors?"

  "I had a copy," Landry said, "but I've sold it. Where did you hear ofit? From Rene Ducatel, in his antique-shop, whose folks 'tis mostlyabout?"

  "Yes. An antique himself, in spirit, eh? Yet modern enough to praiseyou highly."

  "H'mm! but only for the virtues of a slave."

  Chester smiled round from the shelves: "I noticed that! I'm afraid wewhite folks, the world over, are prone to do that--with you-all."

  "Yes, when you speak of us at all."

  "Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even moreinteresting."

  "Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the touristtrade is every day killing even in Royal Street."

  "That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young mansaid.

  "And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dryland left of it--of that spirit of art--is----"

  "Castanado's shop, I dare say."

  "Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every daywithout discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer."

  "Not so very. What are the other three?"

  "First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of ScipionBeloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next belowDucatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La Porte,perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all."

  "Not the watchmaker on the square above?"

  "Ah! distantly he's of them: and there _was_ old Manouvrier, taxidermist;but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin."

  Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From aninner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife, camethe little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what perfection inhow many points! As she returned to Ovide an old magazine, at last heheard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She thanked the bookman forhis loan and, with the child, went out.

  It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but hesaw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that thatyoung lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!"

  Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here bybusiness appointment. And what of it if you have seen her, or she seenyou, here--or anywhere?"

  "Only this: that I've met her so often by pure--by chance, on that squareyou speak of, I bound for the court-house, she for I can't divinewhere--for I've never looked behind me!--that I've had to take anotherstreet to show I'm a gentleman. This very morn'--oh!--and now! here!How can I explain--or go unexplained?"

  Ovide lifted a hand: "Will you leave that to my wife, so unlearned yet sowise and good? For the young lady's own sake my wife, _without_explaining, will see that you are not misjudged."

  "Good! Right! Any explanation would simply belie itself. Yes, let herdo it! But, Landry----"

  "Yes?"

  "For heaven's sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven'tgot this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge.But in this thing--I say it only to you--I'm making none. I'm neither amarrying man, a villain, nor an ass."

  Ovide smiled: "My wife can manage that. Maybe it's good you came here.It may well be that the young lady herself would be glad if some oneexplained her to you."

  "Hoh! does an angel need an explanation?"

  "I should say, in Royal Street, yes."

  "Then for mercy's sake give it! right here! you! come!" The youthlaughed. "Mercy to me, I mean. But--wait! Tell me; couldn't Castanadohave given it, as easily as you?"

  "You never gave Castanado this chance."

  "How do you know that? Oh, never mind, go ahead--full speed."

  "Well, she's an orphan, of a fine old family----"

  "Obviously! Creole, of course, the family?"

  "Yes, though always small in Louisiana. Creole except one New Englandgrandmother. But for that one she would not have been here just now."

  "Humph! that's rather obscure but--go on."

  "Her parents left her without a sou or a relation except two maiden auntsas poor as she."

  "Antiques?"

  "Yes. She earns their living and her own."

  "You don't care to say how?"

  "She wouldn't like it. 'Twould be to say where."

  "She seems able to dress exquisitely."

  "Mr. Chester, a woman would see with what a small outlay that is done.She has that gift for the needle which a poet has for the pen."

  "Ho! that's _charmingly_ antique. But now tell me how having a Yankeegrandmother
caused her to drop in here just now. Your logic's dim."

  "You are soon to go to Castanado's to see that manuscript story, are younot?"

  "Oh, is it a story? Have you read it?"

  "Yes, I've read it, 'tis short. They wanted my opinion. And 'tis astory, though true."

  "A story! Love story? very absorbing?"

  "No, it is not of love--except love of liberty. Whether 'twill absorbyou or no I cannot say. Me it absorbed because it is the story of someof my race, far from here and in the old days, trying, in the old vainway, to gain their freedom."

  "Has--has mademoiselle read it?"

  "Certainly. It is her property; hers and her two aunts'. Those two,they bought it lately, of a poor devil--drinking man--for a dollar. Theyhad once known his mother, from the West Indies."

  "He wrote it, or his mother?"

  "The mother, long ago. 'Tis not too well done. It absorbs mademoisellealso, but that is because 'tis true. When I saw that effect I told herof a story like it, yet different, and also seeming true, in this oldmagazine. And when I began to tell it she said, 'It _is_ true! MyVermont _grand'mere_ wrote that! It happened to her!'"

  "How queer! And, Landry, I see the connection. Your magazine being oneof a set, you couldn't let her read it anywhere but here."

  "I have to keep my own rules."

  "Let me see it. . . . Oh, now, why not? What was the use of either ofus explaining if--if----?"

  But Ovide smilingly restored the thing to its stack. "Now," he said,"'tis Mr. Chester's logic that fails." Yet as he turned to a customer helet Chester take it down.