by Pamela Morsi
Father Denis had scolded her. Almighty God, the priest told her, had given her much. She had a good home, a devoted father, plenty to eat, and fine things to wear, and she was the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River. Did she dare to ask heaven for more?
"No good can come of your romantic lingering," he'd warned her. "It is your duty to marry and bear children. You hesitate over some foolish female notion; God is not pleased."
What God truly thought, Aida did not know, but she suspected that Father Denis had not been pleased with her for some time.
"You are a vain, undutiful daughter," the priest had charged. "You are selfish and spoiled!"
That's what Father Denis always said. And Aida had to admit that it was the truth. She never suggested that the good father was not absolutely right. She always made her confessions and sorrowfully she did her penance, but she didn't really reform.
How could she? She really wanted to be a better woman, a better person. But could a person really not put herself first? Could a person truly say, I only wish to do my duty and I will find happiness in that? Perhaps another, a better person could say that. Aida Gaudet could not.
Aida was not evil, but she knew that she was not at all saintly. She also knew that beauty was not enough upon which to base a marriage.
"Aida! Are you coming now?" her father called out.
"Yes, Poppa, I'm coming," she lied.
Most Acadian farm girls began dreaming of weddings and trousseaus while still dressed in pinafores. A wedding was the pinnacle of a woman's life, the measure of her success. Aida, too, had dreamed of a beautiful wedding, flowers and ribbons and every eye upon her. And she had dreamed of a handsome man standing beside her. She dreamed of love. She dreamed of being loved by a husband. With a little shake of her head she remembered a long-ago wedding when she'd gathered up some flower petals and flotsam and made herself a love charm to ensure that happened. Vaguely she wondered what had become of that silliness wrapped in a handkerchief.
Aida was to marry Laron Boudreau. He was handsome, kind, hardworking. Everyone in Prairie l'Acadie thought the two of them a perfect match. The most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River should be won by the most handsome man.
That's what people thought. Aida's choice, in fact had nothing to do with Monsieur Boudreau's good looks. Laron had not money or property to recommend him. To Aida his lack of finances worked in his favor. She'd thought it all out carefully. Laron would come live with her at her father's house. Though he would be her husband, it would still be her father's house and he would always work her father's land. For that he would, of necessity, be grateful for his marriage. Gratitude was not love, but it was closer than admiration. If he could need her, then he could love her, her and not the most beautiful woman on the Vermilion River.
Of course there was the German widow. Aida tapped her teeth thoughtfully with her fingernail. She doubted that Laron realized Aida knew about her. Aida wasn't hurt or worried about that alliance. She wasn't even certain that she would object to it continuing after they had wed.
The German widow was Laron's mistress. Aida allowed the thought to flow over her like water, testing the feel of it. It was not bothersome at all. Aida thought that it should bother her, but it didn't. That he held another woman in his arms, that he probably did with her unspeakably intimate things, was not disturbing or hurtful, but merely a curiosity.
If Aida never acted as if she noticed, no one would ever suspect that she knew. Surely he couldn't love the German widow. Her brow furrowed unhappily at the suggestion. Aida didn't mind Laron having a mistress, as long as he didn't love her. When Monsieur Boudreau finally began to love, Aida wanted to be the recipient.
She pushed away the troubling thoughts. She was young and pretty, and tonight, just up the river, music was playing. Somehow, some way, her husband would come to love her. She was Aida Gaudet, young and beautiful and ready for a party.
"Aida!" her father called out impatiently once more.
"Coming," she answered as she began looking around for her fancy kid dancing slippers. She bit her lower lip, worried. Where were they? It was one of the terrible realities of her life; Aida was likely to lose things. Well, perhaps that wasn't exactly true. She would simply forget where they had been put.
"She would forget her head, were it not attached," the old women joked of her. Unfortunately, it was probably true. Somehow she could not seem to recall what she was supposed to do when. Where things were or why. Or even if she had done what she was required to do.
Frantically she began searching the room, sorting through the worn old sea chest, searching through the unstraightened bedclothes, kneeling to look under the bed. By complete chance she spotted them. The slippers of aged buckskin dyed with poke salet berries were hanging from the rafters. The rains had been bad last week and she had feared the damp floors would ruin them.
She climbed up on a chair and brought them down, grateful for their safety. Brushing them lightly to assure herself they were not dusty, she slipped them into her sleeve for safekeeping. She grabbed her guinea feather fan and hurried from her room, through her father's, and into the main part of the house.
Her wooden sabots sat next to the door and she slipped her bare feet into them. They clomped against the porch boards as she made her way noisily outside.
The dancing slippers could not be risked to the damp dangers of water travel. If a shoe became muddy or lost in the water, it should be a wooden one, easily replaced.
"Coming, Poppa," she called out to the gray-haired man waiting rather impatiently at the end of the dock.
The Gaudet house, like most on the Prairie l'Acadie, was built on the natural rise of land beside the water. The stream facilitated travel, whether for visiting neighbors or for transporting goods to market. Water access meant prosperity.
But water could also mean flood. The whole area was low and wet. Good for game and crops, but people and their possessions needed to be high and dry. As if God understood this wet paradox, all along the bayous and rivers, thousands of years of sediment deposit built up along the banks, making the areas near the water the safest in time of flood. So even with huge areas of open space behind them, the residents of Prairie l'Acadie lived bunched together on the natural levees in close proximity to the river and its tiny tributaries.
Jesper Gaudet was wearing his best cottonade culotte tied just below the knee and his striped blue chemise. His face was shaded from the last of the afternoon sun by a wide-brimmed hat woven of palmetto.
"We're going to miss everything," he complained as he helped Aida into the long narrow boat known in the bayous as a pirogue. She ignored his words and settled herself comfortably in the narrow, seatless hull, her cherry-striped skirt billowing around her like a frothy soufflé, as her father pushed off from the dock and began the slow, laborious task of poling the pirogue upstream.
"They've been playing and singing for seems like half a day already," Jesper continued to fuss. "All the good food is likely gone."
"Oh, I'm not hungry," Aida told him lightly.
"Well, I certainly am," the old man complained.
With a little O of surprise and shame, Aida covered her mouth. She had forgotten once more to fix Poppa any supper.
It was near sunset. The light was low and filtered through the thick line of aging cypress and tupelos on either side of the broad expanse of water. The outstretched branches of the trees were draped and weeping with Spanish moss. And the quiet serenity of coming evening was disturbed only by the call of crickets and the buzz of mosquitoes.
The loud hungry squawk of a heron caught Aida's attention and she watched the bird's smooth graceful flight just above the water as it searched for prey. It was beautiful. She admired beautiful things.
The pirogue cut a neat swath through the bright green duckweed, so thick and verdant, it looked as if a person could simply walk across it to the distant banks where the knobby knees of the trees were visible above the water. The river w
as light and color and beauty. It was home.
They came around a bend in the waterway, and the sounds of song and merriment grew more distinct. Up ahead the glow of lanterns was visible in the distance. Aida sighed happily. This was life, this was what life was meant to be, joie de vivre.
Chapter Two
The whine of bowed fiddles and the pounding of dancing feet against cypress planking filled the air, mixing with the smells of boiled shrimp, gumbo fevi, and fresh baked miches. It was Saturday night and for Acadians that meant dancing and laughing and fun.
Fais-dodo was what the people had jokingly begun to call these community outings. The term, meaning "go to sleep," was coined from the practice of putting all the babies together in a bed at the back of the house. Children, typically much beloved and coddled, found suddenly that the parents who normally were content to converse with them for hours on end now only had one phrase to say: "Go to sleep!"
It was a phrase that Armand Sonnier himself uttered as he helped his sister-in-law get her three children tucked into the Marchand family's low- slung four-poster. A half-dozen children already reclined there, boys and girls alike wearing the traditional shapeless knee-length gown.
His niece and two nephews were healthy, rowdy, and active, much too much for his sister-in-law to handle alone.
Felicite Sonnier was heavily pregnant again. Her once pink, pretty face was round as a plate and splotched with the faint brown mask of childbearing. Her formerly lustrous brown curls were dull and limp and wound rather untidily about her head. And below the hem of her skirt her feet were so swollen no shoes would fit her and it appeared she had no ankles at all. Her best dress hung around her massive body like a tent, the shoulder stained with baby spit-up. Felicite Sonnier was tired. Armand knew by the sounds of her sighs that she was very tired.
"You rabbits get down in your den," Armand told the three curly-headed children. "And I don't want to hear a one of you calling out for Maman."
"I'm too big to go to sleep," four-year-old Gaston complained with a yawn.
"Me, too," his three-year-old sister chimed in. Little Marie's words were hard to make out as her thumb was already tucked firmly in her tiny little mouth.
"You two must lie here with Pierre," their uncle explained to them with great seriousness. "The baby needs his rest and you must watch over him."
Ten-month-old Pierre, wide-eyed, gurgling happily, and as fat as a sausage, seemed the only one of the three who wasn't really sleepy.
"All right," Gaston agreed with a sigh as he snuggled down into the bed. "I'll lie here and take care of Pierre."
"Me, too," Marie echoed.
Armand kissed all three and waited beside the bed as he watched Felicite do the same. The two older children were already dozing off as he took his sister-in-law's arm and urged her away from the sleeping room.
"We must find you a place to sit," he said. "You are so near your last gasp, I really should carry you."
Felicite giggled. She was a head taller than he and outweighed him by half again as much.
"I'm just fine, Armand. You'll spoil me with this treatment. It reminds me of your brother when we were expecting our first."
"A little spoiling wouldn't hurt you," Armand insisted.
She laughed. "Truly, I am getting used to my delicate condition. I've been having a baby, just had a baby, or having another baby for years now." She leaned forward as if to whisper conspiratorially. "It seems to be something that I'm good at."
Armand grinned back at her. "Along with cooking, cleaning, sewing, and sister-in-lawing. Let's find you a place to sit and rest awhile and I'll bring you something to eat."
Jean Baptiste had been tying up the pirogue and was still standing at the end of the dock, engaged in a deep discussion with Emile Marchand. Armand didn't mind fending for Felicite. As a single man in her household, he was routinely provided good cooking, clean clothes, and a tranquil home life. Armand was grateful to her for those things. He also simply liked her ready wit and empathy for others. They were fine qualities in a woman, qualities he someday hoped to find in the woman he chose for his own bride.
An empty chair was finally located on the north side of the house next to Madame Hebert. The woman, a close friend of Felicite's, welcomed her eagerly, ready to talk. She was one of Laron's many sisters and had his handsome good looks, plus ten years.
"Doesn't he look slicked and pressed?" Madame Hebert said to Felicite as she pointed in Armand's direction. "Must be a lady on his mind."
Felicite nodded in agreement. "Yes, Yvonne, I have to agree. When a man combs back his hair and puts on a clean shirt of his own volition, there must be a woman on his mind."
Armand laughed and shook his head. "I only dress for Saturday night, mesdames," he assured them. Unlike most of the men present in their knee-length culottes, Armand wore trousers. He thought that the longer pants made him appear taller. "Even the most careless swamper shines up for Saturday night."
"So you have no interest in women?" Madame Hebert asked, disbelieving. "My husband has a cousin in St. Martinville. She is just turned fifteen and very petite I hear."
Armand smiled broadly at her. "Perhaps I must find an excuse to visit St. Martinville this winter," he said.
"He is planning a house," Felicite whispered excitedly.
Madame Hebert's eyes widened and Armand would have gladly stuck a stocking in his sister-in- law's mouth.
"I had not heard this," Madame Hebert declared.
"He has just been talking and dreaming about it with Jean Baptiste," Felicite explained. "When a man starts thinking of having his own house, you know he must be thinking of having his own wife."
Tutting with concern, Madame Hebert was shaking her head. "Does my brother know this? Poor Laron wishes his own house, I know. On his land it would look more like a bridge than a home."
Armand laughed. "Your brother knows all about it," he said.
"He will not need a house," Felicite pointed out. "Once Laron and Aida are married, they will live with Jesper."
Madame Hebert nodded. "Still a man always wants his own house, does he not?"
"Laron can share my house," Armand said. "In fact he has offered to help me build it. He says I needn't despair to live in it alone. If no woman will have me we will live as two old bachelors together."
"Two bachelors in a house!" Madame Hebert giggled. "Father Denis will worry about every female in the parish."
"Truth is, that I do hope to wed," Armand told her. "I just need to find the right woman, as my brother did."
Felicite laughed again. "Any woman would be lucky to get you," she said.
"And every man on the river has a bet on who it will be. Oops!" Madame Hebert covered her mouth with her hand, horrified at her own words.
"Are they truly betting?" Felicite asked.
Madame Hebert looked chagrined. "You know these men, everything to them is a horse race, even romance."
Armand laughed, unoffended. "You well may be right, Madame." He glanced once more at his sister- in-law. "Let me get you something to eat."
Felicite looked toward the line of people waiting to be fed. "Oh, it is too much trouble," she told him.
Armand shook his head. "Nonsense, I have nothing else to do," he insisted, adding with a teasing smile to Madame Hebert. "The woman of my dreams could be watching me at this very minute. I do so want to make a good impression."
The two women laughed like young girls. Armand bowed smartly to them and took his leave. The smile lingered on his face as he made his way through the crowd. The Marchand homestead was prosperous enough, with a sturdy double-house on the levee and several smaller outbuildings around the back. On the river side a broad cypress dock stretched out into the river, providing both easy access to water and a wide storage place for ready-to-ship goods.
Tonight that dock was being used as a dance floor, and a quartet of couples, some in bare feet, others in dancing slippers, were moving with lightfooted exuberance through
the movements of the Lancier Acadien.
Armand watched them enviously a moment. He loved to dance but rarely did. The young ladies, all of whom had known him since childhood, were always polite and willing, but he could tell that they were less than charmed to be partnered by a man whose stature made him most likely eye level with their bosoms. And of course he felt strange himself. When a fellow pulled a woman close, she was supposed to look up into his eyes.
The swirling dancers were like the brightest flower garden in springtime stirred into wild motion. He watched with longing. To be young and in love and dance away the night.
He pushed away the frivolous thought. He knew about being in love. He could not recall with accuracy the day that he knew he loved Aida Gaudet. It was like owning to the day he knew that he loved the river, his family, his life. He felt he had always loved her, even when she was a young girl. And from the first moment in his life that he felt desire, it had been exclusively for her. Her smile, her laugh had entranced him and he had dreamed of her, sighed after her ever since. But he could never have her.
He knew her too well. Aida was sweet and often kind, but she was also giddy and featherbrained. She loved beautiful things, clothes, ribbons, flowers. She surrounded herself with loveliness. It was only natural that the man she would call her own would be perfect.
Armand was clearly imperfect: short and plain and ordinary. And she saw him only as another of the legions that desired her. She no longer flirted with him, of course. He refused to allow it. He might not be special to her, but she was special to him and he would not let their friendship be otherwise.
Once he had wished for her, longed for some magical charm to win her. But it had never occurred. And when Laron declared his intention for her, Armand had put away his hopes completely. She was to be his best friend's wife.
Someday there would be a woman for Armand. He knew that. Someday a shy sweet girl, just as high as his chin, would look up to him as if he were the tallest man in the world. He would be a good and faithful husband, devoted and loving. And perhaps, perhaps eventually, he would forget about Aida Gaudet.
