I have still sharp memories of the tortures of that illness, though it
befell so long ago. At times, when my mind was gone from me, I cried out
I know not what of jargon, of sentiment, of the horrors I had beheld in
my life. I lived again the pleasant scenes, warped and burlesqued almost
beyond cognizance, and the tragedies were magnified a hundred fold. Thus
it would be: on the low, white ceiling five cracks came together, and
that was a device. And the device would take on color, red-bronze like
the sumach in the autumn and streaks of vermilion, and two glowing coals
that were eyes, and above them eagles' feathers, and the cracks became
bramble bushes. I was behind the log, and at times I started and knew
that it was a hideous dream, and again Polly Ann was clutching me and
praying me to hold back, and I broke from her and splashed over the
slippery limestone bed of the creek to fight single-handed. Through all
the fearful struggle I heard her calling me piteously to come back to
her. When the brute got me under water I could not hear her, but her
voice came back suddenly (as when a door opens) and it was like the wind
singing in the poplars. Was it Polly Ann's voice?
Again, I sat with Nick under the trees on the lawn at Temple Bow, and the
world was dark with the coming storm. I knew and he knew that the storm
was brewing that I might be thrust out into it. And then in the
blackness, when the air was filled with all the fair things of the earth
torn asunder, a beautiful woman came through the noise and the fury, and
we ran to her and clung to her skirts, thinking we had found safety.
But she thrust us forth into the blackness with a smile, as though she
were flinging papers out of the window. She, too, grew out of the design
in the cracks of the ceiling, and a greater fear seized me at sight of
her features than when the red face came out of the brambles.
My constant torment was thirst. I was in the prairie, and it was
scorched and brown to the horizon. I searched and prayed pitifully for
water,--for only a sip of the brown water with the specks in it that was
in the swamp. There were no swamps. I was on the bed in the cabin
looking at the shifts and hunting shirts on the pegs, and Polly Ann would
bring a gourdful of clear water from the spring as far as the door. Nay,
once I got it to my lips, and it was gone. Sometimes a young man in a
hunting shirt, square-shouldered, clear-eyed, his face tanned and his
fair hair bleached by the sun, would bring the water. He was the hero of
my boyhood, and part of him indeed was in me. And I would have followed
him again to Vincennes despite the tortures of the damned. But when I
spoke his name he grew stouter before me, and his eyes lost their lustre
and his hair turned gray; and his hand shook as he held out the gourd and
spilled its contents ere I could reach them.
Sometimes another brought the water, and at sight of her I would tremble
and grow faint, and I had not the strength to reach for it. She would
look at me with eyes that laughed despite the resolution of the mouth.
Then the eyes would grow pitiful at my helplessness, and she would murmur
my name. There was some reason which I never fathomed why she could not
give me the water, and her own suffering seemed greater than mine because
of it. So great did it seem that I forgot my own and sought to comfort
her. Then she would go away, very slowly, and I would hear her calling
to me in the wind, from the stars to which I looked up from the prairie.
It was she, I thought, who ordered the world. Who, when women were lost
and men cried out in distress, came to them calmly, ministered to them
deftly.
Once--perhaps a score of times, I cannot tell--was limned on the ceiling,
where the cracks were, her miniature, and I knew what was coming and
shuddered and cried aloud because I could not stop it. I saw the narrow
street of a strange city deep down between high houses,--houses with
gratings on the lowest windows, with studded, evil-looking doors, with
upper stories that toppled over to shut out the light of the sky, with
slated roofs that slanted and twisted this way and that and dormers
peeping from them. Down in the street, instead of the King's white
soldiers, was a foul, unkempt rabble, creeping out of its damp places,
jesting, cursing, singing. And in the midst of the rabble a lady sat in
a cart high above it unmoved. She was the lady of the miniature. A
window in one of the jutting houses was flung open, a little man leaned
out excitedly, and I knew him too. He was Jean Baptiste Lenoir, and he
cried out in a shrill voice:--
"You must take off her ruff, citizens. You must take off her ruff!"
There came a blessed day when my thirst was gone, when I looked up at the
cracks in the ceiling and wondered why they did not change into horrors.
I watched them a long, long time, and it seemed incredible that they
should still remain cracks. Beyond that I would not go, into speculation
I dared not venture. They remained cracks, and I went to sleep thanking
God. When I awoke a breeze came in cool, fitful gusts, and on it the
scent of camellias. I thought of turning my head, and I remember
wondering for a long time over the expediency of this move. What would
happen if I did! Perhaps the visions would come back, perhaps my head
would come off. Finally I decided to risk it, and the first thing that I
beheld was a palm-leaf fan, moving slowly. That fact gave me food for
thought, and contented me for a while. Then I hit upon the idea that
there must be something behind the fan. I was distinctly pleased by this
astuteness, and I spent more time in speculation. Whatever it was, it
had a tantalizing elusiveness, keeping the fan between it and me. This
was not fair.
I had an inspiration. If I feigned to be asleep, perhaps the thing
behind the fan would come out. I shut my eyes. The breeze continued
steadily. Surely no human being could fan as long as that without being
tired! I opened my eyes twice, but the thing was inscrutable. Then I
heard a sound that I knew to be a footstep upon boards. A voice
whispered:--
"The delirium has left him."
Another voice, a man's voice, answered:--
"Thank God! Let me fan him. You are tired."
"I am not tired," answered the first voice.
"I do not see how you have stood it," said the man's voice. "You will
kill yourself, Madame la Vicomtesse. The danger is past now."
"I hope so, Mr. Temple," said the first voice. "Please go away. You may
come back in half an hour."
I heard the footsteps retreating. Then I said: "I am not asleep."
The fan stopped for a brief instant and then went on vibrating
inexorably. I was entranced at the thought of what I had done. I had
spoken, though indeed it seemed to have had no effect. Could it be that
I hadn't spoken? I began to be frightened at this, when gradually
something crept into my mind and drove the fear out. I did not grasp
what this was at first, it was like the first staining of wine on the
eastern sky to one who sees a sunrise. And then the thought grew even as
the light grows, tinged by prismatic colors, until at length a memory
struck into my soul like a shaft of light. I spoke her name,
unblushingly, aloud.
"Helene!"
The fan stopped. There was a silence that seemed an eternity as the palm
leaf trembled in her hand, there was an answer that strove tenderly to
command.
"Hush, you must not talk," she said.
Never, I believe, came such supreme happiness with obedience. I felt her
hand upon my brow, and the fan moved again. I fell asleep once more from
sheer weariness of joy. She was there, beside me. She had been there,
beside me, through it all, and it was her touch which had brought me back
to life.
I dreamed of her. When I awoke again her image was in my mind, and I let
it rest there in contemplation. But presently I thought of the fan,
turned my head, and it was not there. A great fear seized me. I looked
out of the open door where the morning sun threw the checkered shadows of
the honeysuckle on the floor of the gallery, and over the railing to the
tree-tops in the court-yard. The place struck a chord in my memory.
Then my eyes wandered back into the room. There was a polished dresser,
a crucifix and a prie-dieu in the corner, a fauteuil, and another chair
at my bed. The floor was rubbed to an immaculate cleanliness, stained
yellow, and on it lay clean woven mats. The room was empty!
I cried out, a yellow and red turban shot across the window, and I beheld
in the door the spare countenance of the faithful Lindy.
"Marse Dave," she cried, "is you feelin' well, honey?"
"Where am I, Lindy?" I asked.
Lindy, like many of her race, knew well how to assume airs of importance.
Lindy had me down, and she knew it.
"Marse Dave," she said, "doan yo' know better'n dat? Yo' know yo' ain't
ter talk. Lawsy, I reckon I wouldn't be wuth pizen if she was to hear I
let yo' talk."
Lindy implied that there was tyranny somewhere.
"She?" I asked, "who's she?"
"Now yo' hush, Marse Dave," said Lindy, in a shrill whisper, "I ain't
er-gwine ter git mixed up in no disputation. Ef she was ter hear me
er-disputin' wid yo', Marse Dave, I reckon I'd done git such er
tongue-lashin'--" Lindy looked at me suspiciously. "Yo'-er allus was
powe'rful cute, Marse Dave."
Lindy set her lips with a mighty resolve to be silent. I heard some one
coming along the gallery, and then I saw Nick's tall figure looming up
behind her.
"Davy," he cried.
Lindy braced herself up doggedly.
"Yo' ain't er-gwine to git in thar nohow, Marse Nick," she said.
"Nonsense, Lindy," he answered, "I've been in there as much as you have."
And he took hold of her thin arm and pulled her back.
"Marse Nick!" she cried, terror-stricken, "she'll done fin' out dat
you've been er-talkin'."
"Pish!" said Nick with a fine air, "who's afraid of her?"
Lindy's face took on an expression of intense amusement.
"Yo' is, for one, Marse Nick," she answered, with the familiarity of an
old servant. "I done seed yo' skedaddle when she comed."
"Tut," said Nick, grandly, "I run from no woman. Eh, Davy?" He pushed
past the protesting Lindy into the room and took my hand.
"Egad, you have been near the devil's precipice, my son. A three-bottle
man would have gone over." In his eyes was all the strange affection he
had had for me ever since ave had been boys at Temple Bow together.
"Davy, I reckon life wouldn't have been worth much if you'd gone."
I did not answer. I could only stare at him, mutely grateful for such an
affection. In all his wild life he had been true to me, and he had clung
to me stanchly in this, my greatest peril. Thankful that he was here, I
searched his handsome person with my eyes. He was dressed as usual, with
care and fashion, in linen breeches and a light gray coat and a filmy
ruffle at his neck. But I thought there had come a change into his face.
The reckless quality seemed to have gone out of it, yet the spirit and
daring remained, and with these all the sweetness that was once in his
smile. There were lines under his eyes that spoke of vigils.
"You have been sitting up with me," I said.
"Of course," he answered patting my shoulder. "Of course I have. What
did you think I would be doing?"
"What was the matter with me?" I asked.
"Nothing much," he said lightly, "a touch of the sun, and a great deal of
overwork in behalf of your friends. Now keep still, or I will be getting
peppered."
I was silent for a while, turning over this answer in my mind. Then I
said:--
"I had yellow fever."
He started.
"It is no use to lie to you," he replied; "you're too shrewd."
I was silent again for a while.
"Nick," I said, "you had no right to stay here. You have--other
responsibilities now."
He laughed. It was the old buoyant, boyish laugh of sheer happiness, and
I felt the better for hearing it.
"If you begin to preach, parson, I'll go; I vow I'll have no more
sermonizing. Davy," he cried, "isn't she just the dearest, sweetest,
most beautiful person in the world?"
"Where is she?" I asked, temporizing. Nick was not a subtle person, and
I was ready to follow him at great length in the praise of Antoinette.
"I hope she is not here."
"We made her go to Les Iles," said he.
"And you risked your life and stayed here without her?" I said.
"As for risking life, that kind of criticism doesn't come well from you.
And as for Antoinette," he added with a smile, "I expect to see something
of her later on."
"Well," I answered with a sigh of supreme content, "you have been a fool
all your life, and I hope that she will make you sensible."
"You never could make me so," said Nick, "and besides, I don't think
you've been so damned sensible yourself."
We were silent again for a space.
"Davy," he asked, "do you remember what I said when you had that
miniature here?"
"You said a great many things, I believe."
"I told you to consider carefully the masterful features of that lady,
and to thank God you hadn't married her. I vow I never thought she'd
turn up. Upon my oath I never thought I should be such a blind slave as
I have been for the last fortnight. Faith, Monsieur de St. Gre is a
strong man, but he was no more than a puppet in his own house when he
came back here for a day. That lady could govern a province,--no, a
kingdom. But I warrant you there would be no climbing of balconies in
her dominions. I have never been so generalled in my life."
I had no answer for these comments.
"The deuce of it is the way she does it," he continued, plainly bent on
relieving himself. "There's no noise, no fuss; but you must obey, you
don't know why. And yet you may flay me if I don't love her."
"Love her!" I repeated.
"She saved your life," said Nick; "I don't believe any other woman could
have done it. She hadn't any thought of her own. She has been here, in
this room, almost constantly night and day, and she never let you go.
The little French doctor gave you up--not she. She held on. Cursed if I
see why she did it."
"Nor I," I answered.
"Well," he said apologetically, "of course I would have done it, but you
weren't anything to her. Yes, egad, you were something to be
saved,--that was all that was necessary. She had you brought back
here--we are in Monsieur de St. Gre's house, by the way--in a litter, and
she took command as though she had nursed yellow fever cases all her
life. No flurry. I said that you were in love with her once, Davy, when
I saw you looking at the portrait. I take it back. Of course a man
could be very fond of her," he said, "but a king ought to have married
her. As for that poor Vicomte she's tied up to, I reckon I know the
reason why he didn't come to America. An ordinary man would have no
chance at all. God bless her!" he cried, with a sudden burst of feeling,
"I would die for her myself. She got me out of a barrel of trouble with
his Excellency. She cared for my mother, a lonely outcast, and braved
death herself to go to her when she was dying of the fever. God bless
her!"
Lindy was standing in the doorway.
"Lan' sakes, Marse Nick, yo' gotter go," she said.
He rose and pressed my fingers. "I'll go," he said, and left me. Lindy
seated herself in the chair. She held in her hand a bowl of beef broth.
From this she fed me in silence, and when she left she commanded me to
sleep informing me that she would be on the gallery within call.
But I did not sleep at once. Nick's words had brought back a fact which
my returning consciousness had hitherto ignored. The birds sang in the
court-yard, and when the breeze stirred it was ever laden with a new
scent. I had been snatched from the jaws of death, my life was before
me, but the happiness which had thrilled me was gone, and in my weakness
the weight of the sadness which had come upon me was almost unbearable.
If I had had the strength, I would have risen then and there from my bed,
I would have fled from the city at the first opportunity. As it was, I
lay in a torture of thought, living over again every part of my life
which she had touched. I remembered the first long, yearning look I had
given the miniature at Madame Bouvet's. I had not loved her then. My
feeling rather had been a mysterious sympathy with and admiration for
this brilliant lady whose sphere was so far removed from mine. This was
sufficiently strange. Again, in the years of my struggle for livelihood
which followed, I dreamed of her; I pictured her often in the midst of
the darkness of the Revolution. Then I had the miniature again, which
had travelled to her, as it were, and come back to me. Even then it was
not love I felt but an unnamed sentiment for one whom I clothed with
gifts and attributes I admired: constancy, an ability to suffer and to
hide, decision, wit, refuge for the weak, scorn for the false. So I
named them at random and cherished them, knowing that these things were
not what other men longed for in women. Nay, there was another quality
which I believed was there--which I knew was there--a supreme tenderness
that was hidden like a treasure too sacred to be seen.
I did not seek to explain the mystery which had brought her across the
sea into that little garden of Mrs. Temple's and into my heart. There
she was now enthroned, deified; that she would always be there I
accepted. That I would never say or do anything not in consonance with
her standards I knew. That I would suffer much I was sure, but the lees
of that suffering I should hoard because they came from her.
What might have been I tried to put away. There was the moment, I
thought, when our souls had met in the little parlor in the Rue Bourbon.
I should never know. This I knew--that we had labored together to bring
happiness into other lives.
Then came another thought to appall me. Unmindful of her own safety, she
had nursed me back to life through all the horrors of the fever. The
doctor had despaired, and I knew that by the very force that was in her
she had saved me. She was here now, in this house, and presently she
would be coming back to my bedside. Painfully I turned my face to the
wall in a torment of humiliation--I had called her by her name. I would
see her again, but I knew not whence the strength for that ordeal was to
come.
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