CHAPTER XLIX
OVER THE NEW STORE
The accident of the ladies Nancanou making their new home overFrowenfeld's drug-store occurred in the following rather amusing way. Itchanced that the building was about completed at the time that theapothecary's stock in trade was destroyed; Frowenfeld leased the lowerfloor. Honore Grandissime f.m.c. was the owner. He being concealed fromhis enemies, Joseph treated with that person's inadequately remuneratedemploye. In those days, as still in the old French Quarter, it was notuncommon for persons, even of wealth, to make their homes over stores,and buildings were constructed with a view to their partition in thisway. Hence, in Chartres and Decatur streets, to-day--and in thecross-streets between--so many store-buildings with balconies, dormerwindows, and sometimes even belvideres. This new building caught the eyeand fancy of Aurora and Clotilde. The apartments for the store wereentirely isolated. Through a large _porte-cochere_, opening upon thebanquette immediately beside and abreast of the store-front, one entereda high, covered carriage-way with a tessellated pavement and greenplastered walls, and reached,--just where this way (corridor, theCreoles always called it) opened into a sunny court surrounded withnarrow parterres,--a broad stairway leading to a hall over the"corridor" and to the drawing-rooms over the store. They liked it!Aurora would find out at once what sort of an establishment was likelyto be opened below, and if that proved unexceptionable she would leasethe upper part without more ado.
Next day she said:
"Clotilde, thou beautiful, I have signed the lease!"
"Then the store below is to be occupied by a--what?"
"Guess!"
"Ah!"
"Guess a pharmacien!"
Clotilde's lips parted, she was going to smile, when her thought changedand she blushed offendedly.
"Not--"
"'Sieur Frowenf--ah, ha, ha, ha!--_ha, ha, ha_!"
Clotilde burst into tears.
Still they moved in--it was written in the bond; and so did theapothecary; and probably two sensible young lovers never before norsince behaved with such abject fear of each other--for a time. Later,and after much oft-repeated good advice given to each separately and toboth together, Honore Grandissime persuaded them that Clotilde couldmake excellent use of a portion of her means by reenforcing Frowenfeld'svery slender stock and well filling his rather empty-looking store, andso they signed regular articles of copartnership, blushing frightfully.
Frowenfeld became a visitor, Honore not; once Honore had seen theladies' moneys satisfactorily invested, he kept aloof. It is pleasanthere to remark that neither Aurora nor Clotilde made any waste of theirsudden acquisitions; they furnished their rooms with much beauty atmoderate cost, and their _salon_ with artistic, not extravagant,elegance, and, for the sake of greater propriety, employed a decayedlady as housekeeper; but, being discreet in all other directions, theyagreed upon one bold outlay--a volante.
Almost any afternoon you might have seen this vehicle on the Terre auxBoeuf, or Bayou, or Tchoupitoulas Road; and because of the brilliantbeauty of its occupants it became known from all other volantes asthe "meteor."
Frowenfeld's visits were not infrequent; he insisted on Clotdlde'sknowing just what was being done with her money. Without indulgingourselves in the pleasure of contemplating his continued mentalunfolding, we may say that his growth became more rapid in this seasonof universal expansion; love had entered into his still compacted soullike a cupid into a rose, and was crowding it wide open. However, asyet, it had not made him brave. Aurora used to slip out of thedrawing-room, and in some secluded nook of the hall throw up her claspedhands and go through all the motions of screaming merriment.
"The little fool!"--it was of her own daughter she whispered thiscomplimentary remark--"the little fool is afraid of the fish!"
"You!" she said to Clotilde, one evening after Joseph had gone, "youcall yourself a Creole girl!"
But she expected too much. Nothing so terrorizes a blushing girl as ablushing man. And then--though they did sometimes digress--Clotilde andher partner met to talk "business" in a purely literal sense.
Aurora, after a time, had taken her money into her own keeping.
"You mighd gid robb' ag'in, you know, 'Sieur Frowenfel'," she said.
But when he mentioned Clotilde's fortune as subject to the samecontingency, Aurora replied:
"Ah! bud Clotilde mighd gid robb'!"
But for all the exuberance of Aurora's spirits, there was a cloud in hersky. Indeed, we know it is only when clouds are in the sky that we getthe rosiest tints; and so it was with Aurora. One night, when she hadheard the wicket in the _porte-cochere_ shut behind three eveningcallers, one of whom she had rejected a week before, another of whom sheexpected to dispose of similarly, and the last of whom was JosephFrowenfeld, she began such a merry raillery at Clotilde and such ahilarious ridicule of the "Professor" that Clotilde would have weptagain had not Aurora, all at once, in the midst of a laugh, dropped herface in her hands and run from the room in tears. It is one of thepenalties we pay for being joyous, that nobody thinks us capable of careor the victim of trouble until, in some moment of extraordinaryexpansion, our bubble of gayety bursts. Aurora had been crying ofnights. Even that same night, Clotilde awoke, opened her eyes and beheldher mother risen from the pillow and sitting upright in the bed besideher; the moon, shining brightly through the mosquito-bar revealed withdistinctness her head slightly drooped, her face again in her hands andthe dark folds of her hair falling about her shoulders, half-concealingthe richly embroidered bosom of her snowy gown, and coiling incontinuous abundance about her waist and on the slight summer coveringof the bed. Before her on the sheet lay a white paper. Clotilde did nottry to decipher the writing on it; she knew, at sight, the slip that hadfallen from the statement of account on the evening of the ninth ofMarch. Aurora withdrew her hands from her face--Clotilde shut her eyes;she heard Aurora put the paper in her bosom.
"Clotilde," she said, very softly.
"Maman," the daughter replied, opening her eyes, reached up her arms anddrew the dear head down.
"Clotilde, once upon a time I woke this way, and, while you were asleep,left the bed and made a vow to Monsieur Danny. Oh! it was a sin! but Icannot do those things now; I have been frightened ever since. I shallnever do so any more. I shall never commit another sin as long asI live!"
Their lips met fervently.
"My sweet sweet," whispered Clotilde, "you looked so beautiful sittingup with the moonlight all around you!"
"Clotilde, my beautiful daughter," said Aurora, pushing her bedmate fromher and pretending to repress a smile, "I tell you now, because youdon't know, and it is my duty as your mother to tell you--the meanestwickedness a woman can do in all this bad, bad world is to look uglyin bed!"
Clotilde answered nothing, and Aurora dropped her outstretched arms,turned away with an involuntary, tremulous sigh, and after two or threehours of patient wakefulness, fell asleep.
But at daybreak next morning, he that wrote the paper had not closed hiseyes.
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