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The Flower of the Chapdelaines by George W. Cable

G >> George W. Cable >> The Flower of the Chapdelaines




A single step away, in the door of the iron-worker's shop, Beloiseau,
too quick for Chester, at whose elbow he stood, replied: "Tis gone
better! Tis gone to the editor--of the greatez' magazine of the worl'!"

"Bravo! Sinze how long?"

"A week," Chester said.

"Hah! and his _rip_-ly?"

"Hasn't come yet."

"Ah, look out, now! Look out he don' steal that! You di'n' write him:
'Wire answer'? You muz' do that! I'll pay it myseff!"

"I thought I'd wait one more day. He may have other manuscripts to
consider."

"Mr. Chezter, that manuscrip' is not in a prize contess; 'tis only with
itseff! You di'n' say that?"

"I--implied it--as gracefully as I could."

"Ah! graze'--the h-only way to write those fellow, tha'z with the big
stick! 'Wire h-answer!'"

Beloiseau lifted a finger: "I don' think thad way. Firz' place, big
stick or no, that hiztorie is sure to be accept'."

M. De l'Isle let out a roar that seemed to tear the lining from his
throat: "Aw-w-w! tha'z not to compel the agceptanze; tha'z to scare
them from stealing it! And to privend that, there's another thing you
want to infer them: that you billong to the Louisiana Branch of the
Authors' Protegtive H-union! Ah, doubtlezz you don't--billong; but all
the same you can infer them!"

Beloiseau's response crowded Chester's out: "Well, they are maybe
important, those stratagem'; but to me the chieve danger is if maybe
_that_ editor shou'n' have the sagacitie--artiztic--commercial--to
perceive the brilliancy of thad story."

"Never mine! in any'ow two days we'll know. Scipion! The day avter
those two, tha'z a pewblic holiday--everything shut!"

"Yes, well?"

"If that news come, 'accepted,' all of us we'll be so please' that
we'll be compel to egsprezz that in a joy-ride! and even if 'rifused,'
we'll need that joy-ride to swallow the indignation."

"Ah! but with whose mash-in', so it won't put uz in bankrup'cy?"

"With two mash-in'--the two of Thorndyke-Smith! He's offer' to borrow
me those whiles he's going to be accrozz the lake. You'll drive the
large, me the small."

"Hah! Tha'z a gran' scheme. At the en', dinner at Antoine', all the
men chipping in! Castanado--Dubroca--me--Mr. Chezter, eh?"

"With the greatest pleasure if I'm included."

"Include'--hoh! By the laws of nature!" M. De l'Isle went on up-stairs.

"We had a dinner like that," Beloiseau said, "only withoud the joy-ride
and withoud those three Mlles. Chapdelaine, juz' a few week' biffo' we
make' yo' acquaintanze. That was to celebrade that great victory in
France and same time the news of savety of our four boys ad the front."

Chester stood astounded. "What four boys?"

"You di'n' know abboud those? Ah, well, tha'z maybe biccause we don'
speak of them biffo' those ladies Chapdelaine. An' still tha'z droll
you di'n' know that, but tha'z maybe biccause each one he's think
another he's tol' you, and biccause tha'z not a prettie cheerful
subjec', eh? Yes, they are two son' of Dubroca and Castanado,
soldier', and two of De l'Isle and me, aviateur'."

"And up to a few weeks ago they were all well?"

"Ah, not well--one wounded, one h'arm broke, one trench-fivver, but all
safe, laz' account."

"Tell me more about them, Beloiseau. You know I don't easily ask
personal questions. Tell me all I'm welcome to know, will you?"

"I want to do that--to tell you all; but"--M. Ducatel, next neighbor
above, was approaching--"better another time--ah, Rene, tha'z a pretty
warm evening, eh?"




XXXV

For two days more the vast machinery of the United States mail swung
back and forth across the continent and the oceans beyond, and in
unnumbered cities and towns the letter-carriers came and went; but
nothing they brought into Bienville or Royal Street bore tidings from
that execrable editor in New York who in salaried ease sat "holding up"
the manuscript once the impressionable Dora's, now the gentle Aline's.
The holiday--"everything shut up"--had arrived. No carrier was abroad.
Neither reason given for the joy-ride held good. Yet the project was
well on foot. The smaller car was at the De l'Isles' lovely gates,
with monsieur in the chauffeur's seat, Mme. Alexandre at his side, and
Dubroca close behind her. The larger machine stood at the opposite
curb, with Beloiseau for driver, and Mme. Dubroca--a very small, trim,
well-coiffed woman with a dainty lorgnette--in the first seat behind
him. Castanado waited in the street door at the foot of his stair,
down which Mme. Castanado was coming the only way she could come.

Her crossing of the sidewalk and her elevation first to the
running-board and then to a seat beside Mme. Dubroca took time and the
strength of both men, yet was achieved with a dignity hardly
appreciated by the street children, who covered their mouths, averted
their faces, and cheered as the two cars, the smaller leading, moved
off and turned from Royal Street into Conti on their way to pick up the
three Chapdelaines.

For nearly two hundred years--ever since the city had had a
post-office--the post-office had been not too superior to remain in the
_vieux carre_. Now, like so many old Creole homes themselves, it was
"away up" in the American quarter--or "nine-tenth'"--at Lafayette
Square. On holidays any one anxious enough for his mail to go "away up
yondah" between nine and ten A.M., could have it for the asking. And
such a one was Chester.

He had his reward. Twice and again he read the magazine's name on the
envelope as he bore it to the Camp Street front of the building, but
would not open the missive. That should be _her_ privilege and honor.
He lifted his eyes from it and behold, here came the two cars! But
where was she? Certainly not in the front one. There he made out, in
pairs, M. De l'Isle and Mme. Alexandre. Mlle. Yvonne and M. Dubroca,
M. Castanado, and Mme. De l'Isle. Then in the rear car his alarmed eye
picked out Beloiseau and Mlle. Corinne, with Cupid between them; Mmes.
Dubroca and Castanado, especially the latter; and then, oh, then!
Behind the smaller woman a vacant seat and behind the vaster one Aline
Chapdelaine.

"You've heard?" cried M. De Elsie, slowing to the curb. Chester
fluttered his prize. "Click, clap!"--he was in without the stopping of
a wheel and had passed the letter to Aline.

"Accepted?" asked several, while both cars resumed their speed up-town.

"We'll open it in Audubon Park," she said to Chester, and Mme.
Castanado and Dubroca passed the word forward to Beloiseau and Mlle.
Corinne. These soon got it to Castanado and Mme. De l'Isle.

"Not to be open' till Audubon Park," sped the word still forward till
Mlle. Yvonne and Dubroca had passed it to Mme. Alexandre and M. De
l'Isle.

"Ahah!" he said, as he turned Lee Circle and went spinning up St.
Charles Avenue. "Not in the pewblic street, but in Audubon Park, and
to the singing of bird'!"




XXXVI

Out near the riverside end of the park the two cars stopped abreast
under a vast live-oak, and Aline, rising, opened the letter and read
aloud:


MY DEAR MR. CHESTER:

Your manuscript, "The Holy Cross," accompanied by your letter of
the -- inst., is received and will have our early attention.

Very respectfully,

THE EDITOR.


All other outcries ceased half-uttered when the Chapdelaine sisters
clapped hands for joy, crying:

"Agcepted! Agcepted! Ah, Aline! by that kindnezz and sag-acitie of
Mr. Chezter--and all the rez' of our Royal Street frien'--you are
biccome the diz-ting-uish' and _lucrative_ authorezz, Mlle.
Chapdelaine!"

M. De l'Isle's wrath was too hot for his tongue, but Scipion stood
waiting to speak, and Mme. Castanado beckoned attention and spoke his
name.

"_Messieurs et mesdames_" he said, "that manuscrip' is no mo' agcept'
than rij-ect'. That stadement, tha'z only to rilease those insuranze
companie' and----"

"And to stop us from telegraphing!" M. De l'Isle broke in, "and to
make us, ad the end, glad to get even a small price! Ah,
mesdemoiselles, you don't know those razcal' like me!"

"Oh!" cried the tender Yvonne--original rescuer of Marie Madeleine from
boy lynchers--"you don't have charitie! That way you make _yo'seff_
un'appie."

"Me, I cann' think," her sister persevered, "that tha'z juz' for the
insuranse. The manuscrip' is receive'? Well! 'ow can you receive
something if you don't agcept it? And 'ow can you agcep' that if you
don' receive it? Ah-h-h!"

"No," Beloiseau rejoined, "tha'z only to signify that the editorial
decision--tha'z not decide'."

Mlle. Corinne lifted both hands to the entire jury: "Oh, frien', I
assure you, that manuscrip' is agcept'. And tha'z the proof; that both
Yvonne and me we've had a presentiment of that already sinze the
biggening! Ah-h-h!"

Castanado intervened: "Mademoiselle, that lady yonder"--he gave his
wife a courtier's bow--"will tell you a differenze. Once on a time she
receive' a h-offer of marriage; but 'twas not till after many days thad
she agcept' it." [Applause.] "But ad the en', I su'pose tha'z for Mr.
Chezter, our legal counsel, to conclude."

Mr. Chester "thought that although receipt did not imply acceptance the
tardiness of this letter did argue a probability that the manuscript
had successfully passed some sort of preliminary reading--or
readings--and now awaited only the verdict of the editor-in-chief."

"Or," ventured Mme. Alexandre, "of that editorial board all together."

M. De l'Isle shook his head and then a stiff finger: "I tell you! They
are sicretly inquiring Thorndyke-Smith--lit'ry magnet--to fine out if
we are truz'-worthy! And tha'z the miztake we did---not sen'ing the
photograph of Mlle. Aline ad the biggening. But tha'z not yet too
late; we can wire them from firz' drug-store, 'Suspen' judgment!
Portrait of authorezz coming!'"

All eyes, even Cupid's, turned to her. She was shaking her head.
"No," she responded, with a smile as lovely, to Chester's fancy, as it
was final; as final, to the two aunts' conviction, as it was lovely.

"No photograph would be convincing," Chester began to plead, but
stopped for the aunts.

"Oh, impossible!" they cried. "That wou'n' be de-corouz!"

"Ladies an' gentlemen," said M. Castanado, "we are on a joy-ride."

"An' we 'ave reason!" his wife exclaimed.

"Biccause hope!" Mme. Alexandre put in.

"Yes!" said Dubroca. "That manuscrip' is not allone receive'; sinze
more than a week 'tis _rittain'_, whiles they dillib-rate; and the
chateau what dillib-rate'--you know, eh? M'sieu' De l'Isle, I move you
we go h-on."

They went, the De l'Isle car and then Scipion's, back to St. Charles
Avenue, and turned again up-town. On the rearmost seat----

"Why so silent?" Aline inquired of Chester.

"Because so content," he said, "except when I think of the book."

"The half-book?"

"Exactly. We've only half enough stories yet.

"Though with the _vieux carre_ full of them?"

"Oh! mostly so raw, so bald, so thin!"

"Ah, I knew you would see that. As though human life and character
were--what would say?"

"I'd say crustacean; their anatomy all on the surface. Such stories
are not life, life in the round; they're only paper silhouettes--of the
real life's poorest facts and moments. I state the thought poorly but
you get it, don't you?"

The girl sparkled, not so much for the thought as for their fellowship
in it. "Once I heard mamma say to my aunts: 'So many of these _vieux
carre_ stories are but pretty pebbles--a quadroon and a duel, a
quadroon and a duel--always the same two peas in the baby's rattle.'"

"There are better stories for a little deeper search," Chester said.

"Ah, she said that too! 'And not,' she said, 'because the _vieux
carre_ is unlike, but so like the rest of the world.'"

Thus they spoke, happily--even a bit recklessly--conscious that they
were themselves a beautiful story without the flash of a sword or the
cloud of a misdeed in range of their sight, and not because the _vieux
carre_ was unlike, but so like the rest of the world.

"Where are we going?" Aline inquired, and tried to look forward around
Mme. Castanado.

"You and I," Chester said, "are going back to your father's story. You
said, the other day, his life was quiet, richer within than without."

"Yes. Ah, yes; so that while of the inside I cannot tell half, of the
outside there is almost nothing to tell."

"All the same, tell it. Were not he and these Royal Street men boys
together?"

"Yes, though with M. De l'Isle the oldest, and though papa was away
from them many years, over there in France. Yes, they were all his
friends, as their fathers had been of _grandpere_. And they'll all
tell you the same thing; that he was their hero, while at the same time
that his story is destitute of the theatrical. Just he himself, he and
mamma--they are the whole story."

"A sea without a wave?"

"Ah, no; yet without a storm. And, Mr. Chester, I think a sea without
a storm can be just as deep as with, h'm?"




XXXVII

"Well, they married, your father and mother, over there where her
people are fighting the Germans right now, and came and lived in
Bourbon Street with your aunts, eh?"

"Yes, or rather my aunts with them, they were of so much more strong
natures than my aunts--more strong and large while just as sweet, and
that's saying much, you know."

"I see it is."

"Mr. Chester, what you see, I think, is that my aunts are perhaps the
two most--well--unworldly women you ever knew."

"True. In that quality they're childlike."

"Yes, and because they are so childlike in--above all--the freedom of
their speech, what I want to say of them, just this one time, is the
more to their honor: that in my _whole_ life I've never heard them
speak one word against anybody."

"Not even Cupid?"

"Ah-h-h! that's a cruel joke, and false! That true Cupid, he's an
assassin; while that child, he's faultless?"

The speaker really said "fauklezz," and it was a joy to Chester to hear
her at last fall unwittingly into a Creole accent. "Well, anyhow," he
led on, "the four lived together; and if I guess right your mother
became, to all this joy-ride company, as much their heroine as your
father was their hero."

"'Tis true!"

"But your father's coming back from France--it couldn't save the
business?"

"Alas, no! Even together, he and mamma--and you know what a strong
businezz partner a French wife can be--they could not save it. Both of
them were, I think, more artist than merchant, and when all that kind
of businezz began to be divorce' from art and married to
machinery"--the narrator made a sad gesture.

"_Kultur_ against culture, was it? and your father not the sort to
change masters."

"True again. But tha'z not all; hardly was it half. One thing beside
was the miz-conduct of an agent, the man who lately"--a silent smile.

"What?--sold your aunts that manuscript?"

"Yes. But he didn' count the most. Oh, the whole businezz, except
papa's, became, as we say--give me the word!"

"Americanized?"

"No, papa he always refused to call it that. Mr. Chester, he used to
say that those two marvellouz blessings, machinery, democracy, they are
in one thing too much alike; they are, at first--say it, you."

"Vulgarizing?"

"Yes. I suppose that has to be--at the first, h'm? And with the
buying world every day more and more in love with machine work--and
seeming itself to become machine work, while at the same time
Americanized, papa was like a river town"--another gesture--"left by
the river!"

"Yet he never went into bankruptcy? You can point with pride to that,
mademoiselle."

"Ah, Mr. Chester, pride! Once I pointed, and papa--'My daughter, there
are many ways to go bankrupt worse than in money, and to have gone
bankrupt in none of them--' there he stopped; he was too noble for
pride. No, the businezz, juz' year after year it starved to death. In
the early days _grandpere_ had two big stores, back to back;
whole-sale, Chartres Street; retail, Royal, where now all that is left
of it is the shop of Mme. Alexandre. Both her husband and she were
with papa in the retail store, until it diminish' that he couldn' keep
them, and--in the time of President Roosevelt--some New York men they
bought him out. Because a new head of the custom-house, old Creole
friend of papa, without solicitation except maybe of M. Beloiseau and
those, appointed him superintendent of customs warehouses, you know?
where they keep all kind of imported goods, so they needn't pay the
tariff till they take them out to sell them in the store? h'm?"

"Yes. And he kept that place--how long?"

"Always, till he passed, he and mamma; mamma first, he two years avter.
Ad the last he said to me--we chanced to be talking in Englizh--'I've
lived the quiet life. If I must go I can go quietly.'

"'And still,' I said, 'if your life had been as stormy as _grandpere's_
you'd have been always for the right, and ad the last content, I think.'

"'Yes,' he said, 'I believe I never ran away from a storm, while ad the
same time I never ran avter one.' And then he said something I wrote
down the same night in the fear I might sometime partly forget it."

"Have you it with you, now, here?" She showed a bit of paper, holding
it low for him to read as she retained it:


On the side of the right all the storms of life--all the storms of the
world--are for the perfection of the quiet life--the active-quiet
life--to build it stronger, wider, finer, higher, than is possible for
the stormy life to be. Whether for each man or for the nations, the
stormy life is but the means; the active-quiet life, without decay of
character in man or nation but with growth forever--that is the end.


The pair exchanged a look. "Thank you," murmured Chester, and
presently added: "So you were left with your two aunts. Then what?"

"I'll tell you. But"---the Creole accent faded out--"we must not
disappoint the De l'Isles, nor those others, we must----"

"I see; we must notice where we're going and give and take our share of
the joy."

"We mustn't be as if reading the morning paper, h'm? I think 'tis for
you they've come this way instead of going on those smooth shell-roads
between the city and the lake."

The two cars had come up through old "Carrollton," where the
Mississippi, sweeping down from Nine-Mile Point, had been gnawing
inland for something like a century, in spite of all man's engineering
could pile against it, and now were out on the levee road and half
round the bend above.

To press her policy, "See!" exclaimed Aline, as a light swell of the
ground brought to view a dazzling sweep of the river, close beyond the
levee's crown and almost on a level with the eye. They were in a
region of wide, highly kept sugar-plantations. Whatever charms belong
to the rural life of the Louisiana Delta were at their amplest on every
side. Groves of live-oak, pecan, magnolia, and orange about large
motherly dwellings of the Creole colonial type moved Aline to turn the
conversation upon country life in Chester's State, and constrain him to
tell of his own past and kindred. So time and the river's great
windings slipped by with the De l'Isles undisappointed, and early in
the afternoon the company lunched in the two cars, under a homestead
grove. Its master and mistress, old friends of all but Chester, came
running, followed by maids with gifts of milk and honey. They climbed
in among the company; shared, lightly, their bread and wine; heard with
momentary interest the latest news of the great war; spoke English and
French in alternating clauses; inquired after the coterie's four young
heroes at the French front, but only by stealth and out of Aline's
hearing; and cried to Cupid, "'Ello, 'Ector! _comment ca va-t-il_?
And 'ow she is, yonder at 'ome, that Marie Madeleine?"

Cupid smiled to his ears, but it was the absentee's two mistresses who
answered for her, volubly, tenderly: "We was going to bring her, but
juz' at the lazt she discide' she di'n' want to come. You know, tha'z
beautiful, sometime', her capriciouznezz!"

Indoors, outdoors, the visitors spent an hour seeing the place and
hearing its history all the way back to early colonial days. Then, in
the two cars once more, with seats much changed about, yet with Aline
and Chester still paired, though at the rear of the forward car, they
glided cityward. At Carrollton they turned toward the New Canal, and
at West End took the lake shore eastward--but what matter their way?
Joy was with ten of them, and bliss with two--three, counting
Cupid--and it was only by dutiful effort that the blissful ones kept
themselves aware of the world about them while Aline's story ran gently
on. It had run for some time when a query from Chester evoked the
reply:

"No, 'twas easier to bear, I think, because I had _not_ more time and
less work."

"What was your work, mademoiselle? what is it now? Incidentally you
keep books, but mainly you do--what?"

"Mainly--I'll tell you. Papa, you know, he was, like _grandpere_, a
true connoisseur of all those things that belong to the arts of
beautiful living. Like _grandpere_ he had that perception by three
ways--occupation, education, talent. And he had it so abboundingly
because he had also _the art_--of that beautiful life, h'm?"

"The art beyond the arts," suggested the listener; "their underlying
philosophy."

The narrator glowed. Then, grave again, she said: "Mr. Chezter, I'll
tell you something. To you 'twill seem very small, but to me 'tis
large. It muz' have been because of both together, those arts and that
art, that, although papa he was always of a strong enthusiasm and
strong indignation, yet never in my life did I hear him--egcept in
play--speak an exaggeration. 'Sieur Beloiseau he will tell you
that--while ad the same time papa he never rebuke' that in anybody
else--egcept, of course--his daughter."

"But I ask about you, your work."

"Ah! and I'm telling you. Mamma she had the same connoisseur talent as
papa, and even amongs' that people where she was raise', and under the
shadow, as you would say, of that convent so famouz for all those
weavings, laces, tapestries, embro'deries, she was thought to be
wonderful with the needle."

Chester interrupted elatedly: "I see what you're coming to. You,
yourself, were born needle in hand--the embroidery-needle."

"Well, ad the least I can't rimember when I learned it. 'Twas always
as if I couldn' live without it. But it was not the needle alone, nor
embro'deries alone, nor alone the critical eye. Papa he had, pardly
from _grand-pere_, pardly brought from France, a separate librarie
abbout all those arts, and I think before I was five years I knew every
picture in those books, and before ten every page. And always papa and
mamma they were teaching me from those books--they couldn' he'p it! I
was very naughty aboud that. I would bring them the books and if they
didn' teach me I would weep. I think I wasn' ever so naughty aboud
anything else. But in the en', with the businezz always diclining,
that turn' out fortunate. By and by mamma she persuade' papa to let
her take a part in the pursuanze of the businezz. But she did that all
out of sight of the public----"

"Had you never a brother or sister?"

"Yes, long ago. We'll not speak of that. A sizter, two brothers;
but--scarlet-fever----"

The story did not pause, yet while it pressed on, its hearers musing
lingered behind. Why were the long lost ones not to be spoken of? For
fear of betraying some blame of the childlike aunts for the
scarlet-fever? The unworthy thought was put aside and the hearer's
attention readjusted.

"Even mamma," the girl was saying, "she didn' escape that contagion,
and by reason of that she was compelled to let papa put me in her place
in the businezz; and after getting well she never was the same and I
rittained the place till a year avter, when she pas' away, and I have
it yet."

"And who filled M. Alexandre's place?"

"Oh, that? Tis fil' partly by Mme. Alexandre and partly by that
diminishing of the businezz--till the largez' part of it is
ripairing--of old laces, embro'deries, and so forth. Madame's shop is
the chief place in the city for that. Of that we have all we can do.
'Tis a beautiful work.

"So tha'z all I have to tell, Mr. Chezter; and I've enjoyed to tell you
that so you can see why we are so content and happy, my aunts and
I--and Hector--and Marie Madeleine. H'm?"

"That's all you have to tell?"

"That is all."

"But not all there is to tell, even of the past, mademoiselle."

"Ah! and why not?"

"Oh, impossible!" Chester softly laughed and had almost repeated the
word when the girl blushed; whereupon he did the same. For he seemed
all at once to have spoiled the whole heavenly day, until she smilingly
restored it by saying:

"Oh, yes! One thing I was forgetting. Just for the laugh I'll tell
you that. You know, even in a life as quiet as mine, sometimes many
things happening together, or even a few, will make you see bats
instead of birds, eh?"

"I know, and mistake feelings for facts. I've done it often, in a
moderate way."

"Yes? Me the same. But very badly, so that the sky seemed falling in,
only once."

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