Rose à Charlitte

by Marshall Saunders

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE SLEEPING WATER INN.

  "Montrez-moi votre menu et je vous montrerai mon coeur."

  A few minutes later, the train had again entered the forest, and Vesper,who had a passion for trees and ranked them with human beings in hisaffections, allowed the mystery and charm of these foreigners to stealover him. In dignified silence and reserve the tall pines seemed to drawback from the rude contact of the passing train. The more assertive firsand spruces stood still, while the slender hackmatacks, most beautifulof all the trees of the wood, writhed and shook with fright, nervouslytossing their tremulous arms and tasselled heads, and breathing longodoriferous sighs that floated after, but did not at all touch thesympathies of the roaring monster from the outer world who so oftendesecrated their solitude.

  Vesper's delicate nostrils dilated as the spicy odors saluted them, andhe thought, with tenderness, of the home trees that he loved, the elmsof the Common and those of the square where he had been born. How manytimes he had encircled them with admiring footsteps, noting theindividual characteristics of each tree, and giving to each one aseparate place in his heart. Just for an instant he regretted that forto-night he could not lie down in their shadow. Then he turned irritablyto the salesman, who was stretching and shaking out his legs, andperforming other calisthenic exploits as accompaniments of waking.

  "Haven't we come to Great Scott yet?" he asked, getting up, andsauntering to Vesper's window.

  Vesper consulted his folder. Among the French names he could discovernothing like this, unless it was Grosses Coques, so called, hisguide-book told him, because the Acadiens had discovered enormous clamsthere.

  The salesman settled the question by dabbing at the name with his fatforefinger. "Confound these French names, and thank the Lord they'rebeginning to give them up. This Sleeping Water we're coming to used tobe _L'Eau Dormante_. If I had my way, I'd string up on these pines everyfellow that spoke a word of this gibberish. That would cure 'em. Whycan't they have one language, as we do?"

  "How would you like to talk French?" asked Vesper, quietly.

  The little man laughed shrewdly, and not unkindly. "Every man to hisliking. I guess it's best not to fight too much."

  "I get off here," said Vesper, gathering up his papers.

  "Happy you,--you won't have to wait for all of Evangeline's heifers tostep off the track between here and Halifax."

  Vesper nodded to him, and, swinging himself from the car, went to findthe conductor.

  There was ample time to get that gentlemanly official's consent to havehis wheel and trunk put off at this station, instead of at Grand Pre,and ample time for Vesper to give a long look at the names in the lineof cars, which were, successively, Basil the Blacksmith, Benedict theFather, Rene the Notary, and Gabriel the Lover, before the locomotivesnuffed its nostrils and, panting and heaving, started off to trail itsromantic appendages through the country of Evangeline.

  When the train had disappeared, Vesper looked about him. He was nolonger in the heart of the forest. An open country and scattering housesappeared in the distance, and here he could distinctly feel amischievous breeze from the Bay that playfully ruffled his hair, andtossed back the violets at his feet every time that they bent over tolook at their own sweet faces in the black, mirror-like pool of waterset in a mossy bed beside them.

  He stooped and picked one of the wistful purple blossoms, then steppedup on the platform of the gabled station-house. Inside the kitchen, awoman, sitting with her back to the passing trains, was spinning, and atthe same time rocking a cradle, while near the door stood an individualwho, to Vesper's secret amusement, might have posed either as a memberof the human species, or as one of the class _aves_.

  He had many times seen the fellows of this white-haired, smooth-facedold man, in the Southern States in the shape of cardinal-birds. Thoseresplendent creatures in the male sex are usually clothed in gay redjackets. This male's plumage was also red, but, unlike thecardinal-birds, it had a trimming of pearl buttons and white lace. Thebird's high and conical crest was expressed in the man by a pointed redcap. The bird is nondescript as to the legs,--so also was the man; andthe loud and musical note of the Southern songster was reproduced in thefife-like tones of the Acadien, when he presently spoke.

  He was an official, and carried in his hand a locked bag containing herMajesty's mail for her Acadien subjects of the Bay. Vesper had seen themail-carriers along the route, tossing their bags to the passing train,and receiving others in return, but none as gorgeous as this one, and hewas wondering why the gentle-faced septuagenarian made himself sopeculiar, when he was addressed in a sweet, high voice.

  "Sir," said the bird-man, in French,--for was he not Emmanuel Victor Dela Rive, lineal descendant of a French marquis who had married a queen'smaid of honor, and had subsequently bequeathed his bones and his largefamily of children to his adored Acadie?--"Sir, is it possible that youare a guest for the inn?"

  "It is possible," said Vesper, gravely.

  "Alas!" said the old man, turning to the dark-eyed woman, who had lefther cradle and spinning-wheel, "is it not always so? When Rose aCharlitte does not send, there are arrivals. When she does, there arenot. She will be in despair. Sir, shall I have the honor of taking youover in my road-cart?"

  "I have a wheel," said Vesper, pointing to the bicycle, leaningdisconsolately against his trunk.

  The black-eyed woman immediately put out her hand for his checks.

  "Then may I have the honor of showing you the way?" said Monsieur De laRive, bowing before Vesper as if he were a divinity. "There are sides ofthe road which it is well to avoid."

  "I shall be most happy to avail myself of your offer."

  "I will send the trunk over," said the station woman. "There is aconstant going that way."

  Vesper thanked her, and left the station in the wake of thecardinal-bird, who sat perched on his narrow seat as easily as if itwere a branch of a tree, turning his crested head at frequent intervalsto look anxiously at the mail-bag which, for reasons best known tohimself, he carried slung to a nail in the back of his cart.

  At frequent intervals, too, he piped shrill and sweet remarks to Vesper."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. Monsieurcan mount now. Beware of the sharp stones. All the bones of the earthstick up in places. Does monsieur intend to stay long in Sleeping Water?Was it monsieur that Rose a Charlitte expected when she drove throughthe pouring rain to the station, two days since? What did he say in theletter that he sent yesterday in explanation of his change of plans? Didmonsieur come from Halifax, or Boston? Did he know Mrs. de la Rive,laundress, of Cambridge Street? Had he samples of candy or tobacco inthat big box of his? How much did he charge a pound for his bestpeppermints?"

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

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

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

  He picked himself out of the dust, swearing under his breath, andMonsieur de la Rive, being a gentleman, and seeing that this quiet youngstranger was disinclined for conversation, suddenly whipped up his ponyand sped madly on ahead, the tails of his red coat streaming out behindhim, the tip of his pointed cap fluttering and nodding over his thickwhite locks of hair.

  After the lapse of a few minutes, Vesper had recovered his co
mposure,and was looking calmly about him. The road was better now, and they werenearing the Bay, that lay shimmering and shining like a greatsea-serpent coiled between purple hills. He did not know what Grand Prewas like, and was therefore unaware of the extent of the Acadiens' lossin being driven from it; but this was by no means a barren country. Oneither side of him were fairly prosperous farms, each one with a lightpainted wooden house, around which clustered usually a group ofchildren, presided over by a mother, who, as the mail-driver dashed by,would appear in the doorway, thrusting forth her matronly face, oftenpartly shrouded by a black handkerchief.

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

  He noticed, with regret, that the forest had all been swept away. TheAcadiens, in their zeal for farming, had wielded their axes sosuccessfully that scarcely a tree had been left between the station andthe Bay. Here and there stood a lonely guardian angel, in the shape of asolitary pine, hovering over some Acadien roof-tree, and turning amelancholy face towards its brothers of the forest,--rugged giantsprimeval, now prostrate and forlorn, and being trailed slowly alongtowards the waiting schooners in the Bay.

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

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

  Ah! now the fields did not appear bare, the houses naked, the wholecountry wind-swept and cold, for the wide, regal, magnificent Bay layspread out before him. It was no longer a thread of light, a sea-serpentshining in the distance, but a great, broad, beautiful basin, on whoseplacid bosom all the Acadien, New England, and Nova Scotian fleets mightfloat with never a jostle between any of their ships.

  A fire of admiration kindled in his calm eyes, and he allowed himself toglide rapidly down the hill towards this brilliant blue sweep of water,along whose nearer shores stretched, as far as his gaze could reach, thecurious dotted line of the French village.

  The country had become flat, as flat as Holland, and the fields rolleddown into the water in the softest, most exquisite shades of green,according to the different kinds of grass or grain flourishing along theshores. 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 alwaysin readiness to step into the procession of boats and schooners mooredalmost in their dooryards.

  At the point where Vesper found himself threatened with precipitationinto the Bay, they struck the village line. Here, at the corner, was thegeneral shop and post-office of Sleeping Water. The cardinal-birdfluttered his mail-bag in among the loafers at the door, saw theshopkeeper catch it, then, swelling out his vermilion breast withimportance, he nimbly took the corner with one wheel in the air andpulled up before the largest, whitest house on the street, andflourished a flaming wing in the direction of a swinging sign,--"TheSleeping Water Inn."

  Vesper, biting his lip to restrain a smile, rounded the corner afterhim, 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, hesauntered through the open door into the hall.

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

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

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

  This one happened to be large, lofty, and of a grateful irregularity inshape. The ceiling was as white as snow, and a delicate blue and creampaper adorned the walls. The floor was of hard wood and partly coveredwith brightly colored mats, made by the skilful fingers of Acadienwomen. There were several windows and doors, and two pantries, but nofireplace. An enormous Boston cooking range took its place. Every coveron it glistened with blacking, every bit of nickel plating was polishedto the last degree, and, as if to show that this model stove could notpossibly be malevolent enough to throw out impurities in the way of sootand ashes, there stood beside it a tall clothes-horse full of whiteironed clothes hung up to air.

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

  "ROSE A CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER."]

  "Can you give me some lunch?" asked Vesper, and he wondered whether heshould 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 ratherof 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 shrewdnessand 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 almostimperceptible motion of her head in the direction of the neatmaid-servant behind her, who at once flew out to the garden for freshvegetables, while, with her foot, which was almost as slender as herhand, Mrs. Rose a Charlitte pulled out a damper in the stove that atonce caused a still more urgent draft to animate the glowing woodinside.

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

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

  The child, without taking his fascinated gaze from Vesper, responded, ina 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 thestaircase to a hall above, where he gravely threw open the door of agood-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 theyoung man observe him intently. "I believe you look like me, you blacklily," he said, at last.

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

  "THEY WERE FRIENDS."]

  Vesper allowed the child to hold his hand until he plunged his head intoa basin of cold water. Then, with water dripping from his face, hepaused to examine a towel before he would press it against his sensitiveskin. It was fine and perfectly clean, and, with a satisfied air, hemur
mured: "So far, Doctor Arseneau has not led me astray."

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

  Upon arriving there, he modestly withdrew to a corner, after pointingout a collection of photographs on the table. Vesper made a pretence ofexamining them until the entrance of his landlady with the announcementthat his lunch was served.

  She shyly set before him a plate of soup, and a dish which she called alittle _ragout_, "not as good as the _ragouts_ of Boston, and yeteatable."

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

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

  Vesper said nothing, but his silence seemed to invite a furtherexplanation, and she went on, modestly: "When I received news that myhusband 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 willkeep hotel. My house is of size. I will go to Boston and learn to cookbetter 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 andregarded the tables and tasted the dishes. If I now had more money, Iwould do similar," and she anxiously surveyed her modest table and thearistocratic young man seated at it; "but not many people come, and themoney 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 hundreddollars. It is not much; not so much as the Gautreaus, who have sixhundred, and Agapit, who has four, yet it is a starting."

  Vesper slightly wrinkled his forehead, and Mrs. Rose, fearful that hercooking displeased him, for he had scarcely tasted the _ragout_ and hadput aside a roast chicken, hastened to exclaim, "That pudding is butoverheated, and I did wrong to place it before you. Despise it if youcare, and it will please the hens."

  "It is a very good pudding," said Vesper, composedly, and he proceededto 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 thejudge's room?"

  "Because we have court near by, every year. The judge who comes existsin that room. It is a most stirabout time, for many witnesses andlawyers come. Perhaps monsieur passed the court-house and saw a ladylooking through the bars?"

  "No, I did not. Who is the lady?"

  "A naughty one, who sold liquor. She had no license, she could not payher fine, therefore she must look through those iron bars," and Mrs.Rose a Charlitte shuddered.

  Vesper looked interested, and presently she went on: "But ClothildeDubois has some mercies,--one rocking-chair, her own feather bed, somedainties to eat, and many friends to visit and talk through the bars."

  "Is there much drinking among the Acadiens on this Bay?" asked Vesper.

  "They do not drink at all," she said, stoutly.

  "Really,--then you never see a drunken man?"

  "I never see a drunken man," rejoined his pretty hostess.

  "Then I suppose there are no fights."

  "There are no fights among Acadiens. They are good people. They go tomass and vespers on Sunday. They listen to their good priests. In theevening one amuses oneself, and on Monday we rise early to work. Thereare no dances, no fights."

  Vesper's meditative glance wandered through the window to a square ofgrass outside, where some little girls in pink cotton dresses wereplaying croquet. He was drinking his coffee and watching their gracefulbehavior, when his attention was recalled to the room by hearing Mrs.Rose a Charlitte say to her child, "There, Narcisse, is a morsel for thytrees."

  The little boy had come from the corner where he had sat like a patientmouse, and, with some excitement, was heaping a plate with the food thatVesper had rejected.

  "Not so fast, little one," said his mother, with an apologetic glance atthe stranger. "Take these plates to the pantry, it will be better."

  "Ah, but they will have a good dinner to-day," said the child. "I willgive most to the French willows, my mother. In the morning it will allbe gone."

  "But, my treasure, it is the dogs that get it, not the trees."

  "No, my mother," he drawled, "you do not know. In the night the longbranches stretch out their arms; they sweep it up," and he clasped histiny hands in ecstasy.

  Vesper's curiosity was aroused, although he had not understood half thatthe child had said. "Does he like trees?" he asked.

  Rose a Charlitte made a puzzled gesture. "Sir, to him the trees, theflowers, the grass, are quite alive. He will not play croquet with thosedear little girls lest his shoes hurt the grass. If I would allow, hewould take all the food from the house and lay under the trees and theflowers. He often cries at night, for he says the hollyhocks andsunflowers are hungry, because they are tall and lean. He suffersterribly to see the big spruces and pines cut down and dragged to theshore. The doctor says he should go away for awhile, but it is a puzzle,for I cannot endure to have him leave me."

  Vesper gave more attention than he yet had done to the perusal of thechild's sensitive yet strangely composed face. Then he glanced at themother. Did she understand him?

  She did. In her deep blue eyes he could readily perceive the quick flashof maternal love and sympathy whenever her boy spoke to her. She wasyoung, too, extremely young, to have the care of rearing a child. Shemust have been married in her cradle, and with that thought in mind hesaid, "Do Acadien women marry at an early age?"

  "Not more so than the English," said Mrs. Rose, with a shrug of hergraceful, sloping shoulders, "though I was but young,--but seventeen.But my husband wished it so. He had built this house. He had been longready for marriage," and she glanced at the wall behind Vesper.

  The young man turned around. Just behind him hung the enlargedphotograph of a man of middle age,--a man who must have been many yearsolder than his young wife, and whose death had, evidently, not left apermanent blank in her affections.

  In a naive, innocent way she imparted a few more particulars to Vesperwith regard to her late husband, and, as he rose from the table, shefollowed him to the parlor and said, gently, "Perhaps monsieur willregister."

  Vesper sat down before the visitors' book on the table, and, taking up apen, wrote, "Vesper L. Nimmo, _The Evening News_, Boston."

  After he had pressed the blotting-paper on his words, and pushed thebook from him, his landlady stretched out her hand in childlikecuriosity. "Vesper," she said,--"that name is beautiful; it is in ahymn to the blessed virgin; but _Evening News_,--surely it means not ajournal?"

  Vesper assured her that it did.

  The young French widow's face fell. She gazed at him with a sudden andinexplicable change of expression, in which there was something ofregret, something of reproach. "_Il faut que je m'en aille_" (I must goaway), she murmured, reverting to her native language, and she swiftlywithdrew.

  Vesper lifted his level eyebrows and languidly strolled out to theveranda. "The Acadienne evidently entertains some prejudice againstnewspaper men. If my dear father were here he would immediately proceed,in his inimitable way, to clear it from her mind. As for me, I am notsufficiently interested," and he listlessly stretched himself out on averanda settle.

  "Monsieur," said a little voice, in deliberate French, "will you tell mea story about a tree?"

  Vesper understood Narcisse this time, and, taking him on his knee, hepointed to the wooded hills across the Bay and related a wonderful taleof a city beyond the sun where the trees were not obliged to stand stillin the earth from morning till night, but could walk about and visit menand women, wh
o were their brothers and sisters, and sometimes the youngtrees would stoop down and play with the children.