OVER THE NEW STORE
The accident of the ladies Nancanou making their new home over Frowenfeld's drug-store occurred in the following rather amusing way. It chanced that the building was about completed at the time that the apothecary's stock in trade was destroyed; Frowenfeld leased the lower floor. Honoré Grandissime f.m.c. was the owner. He being concealed from his enemies, Joseph treated with that person's inadequately remunerated employé. In those days, as still in the old French Quarter, it was not uncommon for persons, even of wealth, to make their homes over stores, and buildings were constructed with a view to their partition in this way. Hence, in Chartres and Decatur streets, to-day--and in the cross-streets between--so many store-buildings with balconies, dormer windows, and sometimes even belvideres. This new building caught the eye and fancy of Aurora and Clotilde. The apartments for the store were entirely isolated. Through a large porte-cochère, opening upon the banquette immediately beside and abreast of the store-front, one entered a high, covered carriage-way with a tessellated pavement and green plastered walls, and reached,--just where this way (corridor, the Creoles always called it) opened into a sunny court surrounded with narrow 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 likely to be opened below, and if that proved unexceptionable she would lease the 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 changed and 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 the apothecary; and probably two sensible young lovers never before nor since behaved with such abject fear of each other--for a time. Later, and after much oft-repeated good advice given to each separately and to both together, Honoré Grandissime persuaded them that Clotilde could make excellent use of a portion of her means by reenforcing Frowenfeld's very slender stock and well filling his rather empty-looking store, and so they signed regular articles of copartnership, blushing frightfully.
Frowenfeld became a visitor, Honoré not; once Honoré had seen the ladies' moneys satisfactorily invested, he kept aloof. It is pleasant here to remark that neither Aurora nor Clotilde made any waste of their sudden acquisitions; they furnished their rooms with much beauty at moderate cost, and their salon with artistic, not extravagant, elegance, and, for the sake of greater propriety, employed a decayed lady as housekeeper; but, being discreet in all other directions, they agreed upon one bold outlay--a volante.
Almost any afternoon you might have seen this vehicle on the Terre aux Boeuf, or Bayou, or Tchoupitoulas Road; and because of the brilliant beauty of its occupants it became known from all other volantes as the "meteor."
Frowenfeld's visits were not infrequent; he insisted on Clotdlde's knowing just what was being done with her money. Without indulging ourselves in the pleasure of contemplating his continued mental unfolding, we may say that his growth became more rapid in this season of universal expansion; love had entered into his still compacted soul like a cupid into a rose, and was crowding it wide open. However, as yet, it had not made him brave. Aurora used to slip out of the drawing-room, and in some secluded nook of the hall throw up her clasped hands and go through all the motions of screaming merriment.
"The little fool!"--it was of her own daughter she whispered this complimentary remark--"the little fool is afraid of the fish!"
"You!" she said to Clotilde, one evening after Joseph had gone, "you call yourself a Creole girl!"
But she expected too much. Nothing so terrorizes a blushing girl as a blushing man. And then--though they did sometimes digress--Clotilde and her 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 same contingency, Aurora replied:
"Ah! bud Clotilde mighd gid robb'!"
But for all the exuberance of Aurora's spirits, there was a cloud in her sky. Indeed, we know it is only when clouds are in the sky that we get the rosiest tints; and so it was with Aurora. One night, when she had heard the wicket in the porte-cochère shut behind three evening callers, one of whom she had rejected a week before, another of whom she expected to dispose of similarly, and the last of whom was Joseph Frowenfeld, she began such a merry raillery at Clotilde and such a hilarious ridicule of the "Professor" that Clotilde would have wept again had not Aurora, all at once, in the midst of a laugh, dropped her face in her hands and run from the room in tears. It is one of the penalties we pay for being joyous, that nobody thinks us capable of care or the victim of trouble until, in some moment of extraordinary expansion, our bubble of gayety bursts. Aurora had been crying of nights. Even that same night, Clotilde awoke, opened her eyes and beheld her mother risen from the pillow and sitting upright in the bed beside her; the moon, shining brightly through the mosquito-bar revealed with distinctness her head slightly drooped, her face again in her hands and the dark folds of her hair falling about her shoulders, half-concealing the richly embroidered bosom of her snowy gown, and coiling in continuous abundance about her waist and on the slight summer covering of the bed. Before her on the sheet lay a white paper. Clotilde did not try to decipher the writing on it; she knew, at sight, the slip that had fallen from the statement of account on the evening of the ninth of March. 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 and drew 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 I cannot do those things now; I have been frightened ever since. I shall never do so any more. I shall never commit another sin as long as I live!"
Their lips met fervently.
"My sweet sweet," whispered Clotilde, "you looked so beautiful sitting up with the moonlight all around you!"
"Clotilde, my beautiful daughter," said Aurora, pushing her bedmate from her and pretending to repress a smile, "I tell you now, because you don't know, and it is my duty as your mother to tell you--the meanest wickedness a woman can do in all this bad, bad world is to look ugly in bed!"
Clotilde answered nothing, and Aurora dropped her outstretched arms, turned away with an involuntary, tremulous sigh, and after two or three hours of patient wakefulness, fell asleep.
But at daybreak next morning, he that wrote the paper had not closed his eyes.
A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
There was always some flutter among Frowenfeld's employés when he was asked for, and this time it was the more pronounced because he was sought by a housemaid from the upper floor. It was hard for these two or three young Ariels to keep their Creole feet to the ground when it was presently revealed to their sharp ears that the "prof-fis-or" was requested to come upstairs.
The new store was an extremely neat, bright, and well-ordered establishment; yet to ascend into the drawing-rooms seemed to the apothecary like going from the hold of one of those smart old packet-ships of his day into the cabin. Aurora came forward, with the slippers of a Cinderella twinkling at the edge of her robe. It seemed unfit that the floor under them should not be clouds.
"Proffis-or Frowenfel', good-day! Teg a cha'." She laughed. It was the pure joy of existence. "You's well? You lookin' verrie well! Halways bizzie? You fine dad agriz wid you' healt', 'Sieur Frowenfel'? Yes? Ha, ha, ha!" She suddenly leaned toward him across the arm of her chair, with an earnest face. "'Sieur Frowenfel', Palmyre wand see you. You don' wan' come ad 'er 'ouse, eh?--an' you don' wan' her to come ad yo' bureau. You know, 'Sieur Frowenfel', she drez the hair of Clotilde an' mieself. So w'en she tell me dad, I juz say, 'Palmyre, I will sen' for Proffis-or Frowenfel' to come yeh; but I don' thing 'e comin'.' You know, I din' wan' you to 'ave dad troub'; but Clotilde--ha, ha, ha! Clotilde is sudge a foolish--she nevva thing of dad troub' to you--she say she thing you was too kine-'arted to call dad troub'--ha, ha, ha! So anny'ow we sen' for you, eh!"
Frowenfeld said he was glad they had done so, whereupon Aurora rose lightly, saying:
"I go an' sen' her." She started away, but turned back to add: "You know, 'Sieur Frowenfel', she say she cann' truz nobody bud y'u." She ended with a low, melodious laugh, bending her joyous eyes upon the apothecary with her head dropped to one side in a way to move a heart of flint.
She turned and passed through a door, and by the same way Palmyre entered. The philosophe came forward noiselessly and with a subdued expression, different from any Frowenfeld had ever before seen. At the first sight of her a thrill of disrelish ran through him of which he was instantly ashamed; as she came nearer he met her with a deferential bow and the silent tender of a chair. She sat down, and, after a moment's pause, handed him a sealed letter.
He turned it over twice, recognized the handwriting, felt the disrelish return, and said:
"This is addressed to yourself."
She bowed.
"Do you know who wrote it?" he asked.
She bowed again.
"Oui, Miché."
"You wish me to open it? I cannot read French."
She seemed to have some explanation to offer, but could not command the necessary English; however, with the aid of Frowenfeld's limited guessing powers, she made him understand that the bearer of the letter to her had brought word from the writer that it was written in English purposely that M. Frowenfeld--the only person he was willing should see it--might read it. Frowenfeld broke the seal and ran his eye over the writing, but remained silent.
The woman stirred, as if to say "Well?" But he hesitated.
"Palmyre," he suddenly said, with a slight, dissuasive smile, "it would be a profanation for me to read this."
She bowed to signify that she caught his meaning, then raised her elbows with an expression of dubiety, and said:
"'E hask you--"
"Yes," murmured the apothecary. He shook his head as if to protest to himself, and read in a low but audible voice:
"Star of my soul, I approach to die. It is not for me possible to live without Palmyre. Long time have I so done, but now, cut off from to see thee, by imprisonment, as it may be called, love is starving to death. Oh, have pity on the faithful heart which, since ten years, change not, but forget heaven and earth for you. Now in the peril of the life, hidden away, that absence from the sight of you make his seclusion the more worse than death. Halas! I pine! Not other ten years of despair can I commence. Accept this love. If so I will live for you, but if to the contraire, I must die for you. Is there anything at all what I will not give or even do if Palmyre will be my wife? Ah, no, far otherwise, there is nothing!" ...
Frowenfeld looked over the top of the letter. Palmyre sat with her eyes cast down, slowly shaking her head. He returned his glance to the page, coloring somewhat with annoyance at being made a proposing medium.
"The English is very faulty here," he said, without looking up. "He mentions Bras-Coupé." Palmyre started and turned toward him; but he went on without lifting his eyes. "He speaks of your old pride and affection toward him as one who with your aid might have been a leader and deliverer of his people." Frowenfeld looked up. "Do you under--"
"Allez, Miché" said she, leaning forward, her great eyes fixed on the apothecary and her face full of distress. "Mo comprend bien."
"He asks you to let him be to you in the place of Bras-Coupé."
The eyes of the philosophe, probably for the first time since the death of the giant, lost their pride. They gazed upon Frowenfeld almost with piteousness; but she compressed her lips and again slowly shook her head.
"You see," said Frowenfeld, suddenly feeling a new interest, "he understands their wants. He knows their wrongs. He is acquainted with laws and men. He could speak for them. It would not be insurrection--it would be advocacy. He would give his time, his pen, his speech, his means, to get them justice--to get them their rights."
She hushed the over-zealous advocate with a sad and bitter smile and essayed to speak, studied as if for English words, and, suddenly abandoning that attempt, said, with ill-concealed scorn and in the Creole patois:
"The tall figure of Palmyre rose slowly and silently from her chair, her eyes lifted up and her lips moving noiselessly. She seemed to have lost all knowledge of place or of human presence".
"What is all that? What I want is vengeance!"
"I will finish reading," said Frowenfeld, quickly, not caring to understand the passionate speech.
"Ah, Palmyre! Palmyre! What you love and hope to love you because his heart keep itself free, he is loving another!"
"Qui ci ça, Miché?"
Frowenfeld was loth to repeat. She had understood, as her face showed; but she dared not believe. He made it shorter:
"He means that Honoré Grandissime loves another woman."
"'Tis a lie!" she exclaimed, a better command of English coming with the momentary loss of restraint.
The apothecary thought a moment and then decided to speak.
"I do not think so," he quietly said.
"'Ow you know dat?"
She, too, spoke quietly, but under a fearful strain. She had thrown herself forward, but, as she spoke, forced herself back into her seat.
"He told me so himself."
The tall figure of Palmyre rose slowly and silently from her chair, her eyes lifted up and her lips moving noiselessly. She seemed to have lost all knowledge of place or of human presence. She walked down the drawing-room quite to its curtained windows and there stopped, her face turned away and her hand laid with a visible tension on the back of a chair. She remained so long that Frowenfeld had begun to think of leaving her so, when she turned and came back. Her form was erect, her step firm and nerved, her lips set together and her hands dropped easily at her side; but when she came close up before the apothecary she was trembling. For a moment she seemed speechless, and then, while her eyes gleamed with passion, she said, in a cold, clear tone, and in her native patois:
"Very well: if I cannot love I can have my revenge." She took the letter from him and bowed her thanks, still adding, in the same tongue, "There is now no longer anything to prevent."
The apothecary understood the dark speech. She meant that, with no hope of Honoré's love, there was no restraining motive to withhold her from wreaking what vengeance she could upon Agricola. But he saw the folly of a debate.
"That is all I can do?" asked he.
"Oui, merci, Miché" she said; then she added, in perfect English, "but that is not all I can do," and then--laughed.
The apothecary had already turned to go, and the laugh was a low one; but it chilled his blood. He was glad to get back to his employments.