George Washington Cable

“ The ground seems to M. Vignevielle the unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is waiting for her to do that. She reaches up again; this time a bunch for her mother. That neck and throat! Now she fastens a spray in her hair. The mocking-bird cannot withhold; he breaks into song—she turns—she turns her face—it is she, it is she! Madame Delphine's daughter is the girl he met on the ship. ”

“ I know him now; he is just what you called him."
"Why do you not make him your banker, also, Madame Delphine?"
"I have done so this very day!" she replied, with more happiness in her eyes than Père Jerome had ever before seen there.
"Madame Delphine," he said, his own eyes sparkling, "make him your daughter's guardian; for myself, being a priest, it would not be best; but ask him; I believe he will not refuse you." ”

“ MADAME DELPHINE. CHAPTER I. AN OLD HOUSE.
A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to and across Canal street, the central avenue of the city, and to that corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant merchandise. The crowd—and if it is near the time of the carnival it will be great—will follow Canal street.
But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to call the Rue Royale. ”

“ Père Jerome was walking to and fro, with his hands behind him, pondering these matters. He had paused a moment at the end of the walk furthest from his window, and was looking around upon the sky, when, turning, he beheld a closely veiled female figure standing at the other end, and knew instantly that it was Olive.
She came forward quickly and with evident eagerness. [Pg 102]
"I came to confession," she said, breathing hurriedly, the excitement in her eyes shining through her veil, "but I find I am too late."
"There is no too late or too early for that; I am always ready," said the priest. ”

“ Its plaited masses, quite black in the moonlight, hung down and coiled upon the bench, by her side. Her chaste drapery was of that revived classic order which the world of fashion was again laying aside to re-assume the mediæval bondage of the stay-lace; for New Orleans was behind the fashionable world, and Madame Delphine and her daughter were behind New Orleans. A delicate scarf, pale blue, of lightly netted worsted, fell from either shoulder down beside her hands. The look that was bent upon her changed perforce to one of gentle admiration. She seemed the goddess of the garden. ”

“ Madame Thompson elevated a pair of glasses which were no detraction from her very good looks, and remarked, with the serenity of a reconnoitering general:
"Père Jerome et cette milatraise."
All eyes were bent toward them.
"She walks like a man," said Madame Varrillat, in the language with which the conversation had opened.
"No," said the physician, "like a woman in a state of high nervous excitement."
Jean Thompson kept his eyes on the woman, and said:
"She must not forget to walk like a woman in the State of Louisiana,"—as near as the pun can be translated. The company laughed. ”

“ Père Jerome laid his palms tightly across his knees with his arms bowed out, and fixed his eyes upon the ground, pondering.
"I suppose she is a sweet, good daughter?" said he, glancing at Madame Delphine without changing his attitude.
Her answer was to raise her eyes rapturously.
"Which gives us the dilemma in its fullest force," said the priest, speaking as if to the floor. "She has no more place than if she had dropped upon a strange planet." ”

“ And then he remarked something more,—that the air where he had stopped was filled with the overpowering sweetness of the night-jasmine. He looked around; it could only be inside the fence. There was a gate just there. Would he push it, as his wont was? The grass was growing about it in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the gate-post. ”

“ Père Jerome smiled also, and shrugged.
"To you, Madame Delphine, as you are placed, every white man in this country, on land or on water, is a pirate, and of all pirates, I think that one is, without doubt, the best." ”

“ There is this to be said even for the pride his grandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above low indulgences; and though he had dallied with kings, queens, and knaves through all the mazes of Faro, Rondeau, and Craps, he had done it loftily; but now he maintained a peaceful estrangement from all. Evariste and Jean, themselves, found him only by seeking.
"It is the right way," he said to Père Jerome, the day we saw him there. "Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I have buried him. He left a will. ”

“ Monsieur Vignevielle's steps were bent toward the more central part of the town, and he was presently passing along a high, close, board-fence, on the right-hand side of the way, when, just within this inclosure, and almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. ”

“ To say nothing of the picturesque, sometimes you get sight of comfort, sometimes of opulence, through the unlatched wicket in some porte-cochère—red-painted brick pavement, foliage of dark palm [Pg 3] or pale banana, marble or granite masonry and blooming parterres; or through a chink between some pair of heavy batten window-shutters, opened with an almost reptile wariness, your eye gets a glimpse of lace and brocade upholstery, silver and bronze, and much similar rich antiquity.
The faces of the inmates are in keeping; of the passengers in the street a sad proportion are dingy and shabby ”

“ As the little priest, his labor done and his vestments changed, was turning into the Rue Royale and leaving the cathedral out of sight, he just had time to understand that two women were purposely allowing him to overtake them, when the one nearer him spoke in the Creole patois, saying, with some timid haste:
"Good-morning, Père—Père Jerome; Père Jerome, we thank the good God for that sermon."
"Then, so do I," said the little man. They were the same two that he had noticed when he was preaching. ”

“ There the conversation ceased.
"Why do you not found hospitals and asylums at once," asked the attorney, at another time, with a vexed laugh, "and get the credit of it?" [Pg 62]
"And make the end worse than the beginning," said the banker, with a gentle smile, turning away to a desk of books.
"Bah!" muttered Jean Thompson.
Monsieur Vignevielle betrayed one very bad symptom. Wherever he went he seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but those who saw it once saw it always. ”

“ Capitaine Lemaitre was dead and buried. At noon there had been a wedding in the little church. Its scenes lingered before Père Jerome's vision now—the kneeling pair: the bridegroom, rich in all the excellences of man, [Pg 122] strength and kindness slumbering interlocked in every part and feature; the bride, a saintly weariness on her pale face, her awesome eyes lifted in adoration upon the image of the Saviour; the small knots of friends behind: Madame Thompson, large, fair, self-contained; Jean Thompson, with the affidavit of Madame Delphine showing through his tightly buttoned coat ”

“ So Père Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward the residence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employés.
"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, as far as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Everything is in another name." And then he whispered:
"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from some of the prisoners taken months ago by the United States brig Porpoise. But"—a still softer whisper—"have no fear; they will never find him: Jean Thompson and Evariste Varrillat have hid him away too well for that." ”

“ Being in command of men of a sort that to control required to be kept at the austerest distance, he now found himself separated from the human world and thrown into the solemn companionship with the sea, with the air, with the storm, the calm, the heavens by day, the heavens by night. ”

“ It isn't fair for you to cry so hard. Miché Vignevielle says you shall have [Pg 87] the one you wish, or none at all, Olive, or none at all."
"None at all! none at all! None, none, none!"
"No, no, Olive," said the mother, "none at all. He brings none with him to-night, and shall bring none with him hereafter."
Olive rose suddenly, silently declined her mother's aid, and went alone to their chamber in the half-story.
Madame Delphine wandered drearily from door to window, from window to door, and presently into the newly-furnished front room which now seemed dismal beyond degree. ”

“ O God, I thank thee that that day must come at last, when thou wilt [Pg 33] destroy the world, and stop the interest on my account!"
It was about at this point that Père Jerome noticed, more particularly than he had done before, sitting among the worshippers near him, a small, sad-faced woman, of pleasing features, but dark and faded, who gave him profound attention. With her was another in better dress, seemingly a girl still in her teens, though her face and neck were scrupulously concealed by a heavy veil, and her hands, which were small, by gloves. ”

“ The vehicles in the street are few in number, and are merely passing through; the stores are shrunken into shops; you see here and there, like a patch of bright mould, the stall of that significant fungus, the Chinaman. Many great doors are shut and clamped and grown gray with cobweb; many street windows are nailed up ”

“ They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing, speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric [Pg 21] way, the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the lawyer, who was half Américain; but running sometimes into English and sometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.
Père Jerome advanced an idea something like this:
"It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality of any human act or of any human life. ”

“ Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!"
The mother and daughter leaned a little farther forward, and exchanged the same spasmodic hand-pressure as before. The mother's eyes were full of tears.
"I once knew a man," continued the little priest, glancing to a side aisle where he had noticed Evariste and Jean sitting against each other, "who was carefully taught, from infancy to manhood, this single only principle of life: defiance. Not justice, not righteousness, not even gain; but defiance: defiance to God, defiance to man, defiance to nature, defiance [Pg 35] to reason ”

“ He looked at it a moment, when his eyes suddenly lighted up and he passed it to the attorney.
"Et là"—Madame Delphine's utterance failed—"et là, ouala sa moman." (That is her mother.)
The three others instantly gathered around Jean Thompson's chair. They were much impressed.
"It is true beyond a doubt!" muttered Madame Thompson.
Madame Varrillat looked at her with astonishment.
"The proof is right there in the faces," said Madame Thompson.
"Yes! yes!" said Madame Delphine, excitedly; "the proof is there! You do not want any better! I am willing to swear to it! But you want no better proof! ”

“ There should not be anything terrible in a footstep merely because it is masculine; but Madame Delphine's mind was not prepared to consider that. A terrible secret was haunting her. Yesterday morning she had found a shoe-track in the garden. She had not disclosed the discovery to Olive, but she had hardly closed her eyes the whole night. ”

“ She sank, trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," [Pg 95] she continued, shaking her head, "'tis not Miché Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted with sudden fierceness. "'Tis dad law! Dad law is crezzie! Dad law is a fool!"
A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is—the law; but Père Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this very response. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:
"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can I help you?" ”

“ The younger one bowed silently; she was a beautiful figure, but the slight effort of Père Jerome's kind eyes to see through the veil was vain. He would presently [Pg 38] have passed on, but the one who had spoken before said:
"I thought you lived in the Rue des Ursulines."
"Yes; I am going this way to see a sick person."
The woman looked up at him with an expression of mingled confidence and timidity.
"It must be a blessed thing to be so useful as to be needed by the good God," she said.
Père Jerome smiled:
"God does not need me to look after his sick ”

“ I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized as partners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wiser care and with better companions, how different might he not have been! How can we speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him from that name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed his speech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Père Jerome, 'ow dat is a dreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! ”

“ The shadow of some one approaching it [Pg 47] from without fell upon the threshold, and a man entered, dressed in dark blue cottonade, lifting from his head a fine Panama hat, and from a broad, smooth brow, fair where the hat had covered it and dark below, gently stroking back his very soft, brown locks. Madame Delphine slightly started aside, while Père Jerome reached silently, but eagerly, forward, grasped a larger hand than his own, and motioned its owner to a seat. Madame Delphine's eyes ventured no higher than to discover that the shoes of the visitor were of white duck. ”

“ Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride, of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority (say 1808 or 1812) , only merchant blacksmiths, so to speak, a term intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands, who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and moved in society among its autocrats. ”

“ In the gentlest and most poetic sense [Pg 9] they were indeed the sirens of this land, where it seemed "always afternoon"—a momentary triumph of an Arcadian over a Christian civilization, so beautiful and so seductive that it became the subject of special chapters by writers of the day more original than correct as social philosophers.
The balls that were got up for them by the male sang-pur were to that day what the carnival is to the present. Society balls given the same nights proved failures through the coincidence. ”