Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life by George Washington Cable
CHAPTER XII.
THE MOTHER BIRD.
One afternoon, some three weeks after Capitaine Lemaitre had called onMadame Delphine, the priest started to make a pastoral call and hadhardly left the gate of his cottage, when a person, overtaking him,plucked his gown:
"Pere Jerome"--
He turned.
The face that met his was so changed with excitement and distress thatfor an instant he did not recognize it.
"Why, Madame Delphine"--
"Oh, Pere Jerome! I wan' see you so bad, so bad! _Mo oule ditquic'ose_,--I godd some' to tell you."
The two languages might be more successful than one, she seemed tothink.
"We had better go back to my parlor," said the priest, in their nativetongue.
They returned
Madame Delphine's very step was altered,--nervous and inelastic. Sheswung one arm as she walked, and brandished a turkey-tail fan.
"I was glad, yass, to kedge you," she said, as they mounted the front,outdoor stair; following her speech with a slight, unmusical laugh, andfanning herself with unconscious fury.
"_Fe chaud_," she remarked again, taking the chair he offered andcontinuing to ply the fan.
Pere Jerome laid his hat upon a chest of drawers, sat down opposite her,and said, as he wiped his kindly face:
"Well, Madame Carraze?"
Gentle as the tone was, she started, ceased fanning, lowered the fan toher knee, and commenced smoothing its feathers.
"Pere Jerome"--She gnawed her lip and shook her head.
"Well?"
She burst into tears.
The priest rose and loosed the curtain of one of the windows. He did itslowly--as slowly as he could, and, as he came back, she lifted her facewith sudden energy, and exclaimed:
"Oh, Pere Jerome, de law is brogue! de law is brogue! I brogue it! 'Twasme! 'Twas me!"
The tears gushed out again, but she shut her lips very tight, and dumblyturned away her face. Pere Jerome waited a little before replying; thenhe said, very gently:
"I suppose dad muss 'ave been by accyden', Madame Delphine?"
The little father felt a wish--one which he often had when weeping womenwere before him--that he were an angel instead of a man, long enough topress the tearful cheek upon his breast, and assure the weeper God wouldnot let the lawyers and judges hurt her. He allowed a few moments moreto pass, and then asked:
"_N'est-ce-pas_, Madame Delphine? Daz ze way, ain't it?'
"No, Pere Jerome, no. My daughter--oh, Pere Jerome, I bethroath my lill'girl--to a w'ite man!" And immediately Madame Delphine commencedsavagely drawing a thread in the fabric of her skirt with one tremblinghand, while she drove the fan with the other. "Dey goin' git marry."
On the priest's face came a look of pained surprise. He slowly said:
"Is dad possib', Madame Delphine?"
"Yass," she replied, at first without lifting her eyes; and then again,"Yass," looking full upon him through her tears, "yaas, 'tis tru'."
He rose and walked once across the room, returned, and said, in theCreole dialect:
"Is he a good man--without doubt?"
"De bez in God's world!" replied Madame Delphine, with a rapturoussmile.
"My poor, dear friend," said the priest, "I am afraid you are beingdeceived by somebody."
There was the pride of an unswerving faith in the triumphant tone andsmile with which she replied, raising and slowly shaking her head:
"Ah-h, no-o-o, Miche! Ah-h, no, no! Not by Ursin Lemaitre-Vignevielle!"
Pere Jerome was confounded. He turned again, and, with his hands at hisback and his eyes cast down, slowly paced the floor.
"He _is_ a good man," he said, by and by, as if he thought aloud. Atlength he halted before the woman "Madame Delphine"--
The distressed glance with which she had been following his steps waslifted to his eyes.
"Suppose dad should be true w'at doze peop' say 'bout Ursin."
"_Qui ci ca_? What is that?" asked the quadroone, stopping her fan.
"Some peop' say Ursin is crezzie."
"Ah, Pere Jerome!" She leaped to her feet as if he had smitten her, andputting his words away with an outstretched arm and wide-open palm,suddenly lifted hands and eyes to heaven, and cried: "I wizh to God--_Iwizh to God_--de whole worl' was crezzie dad same way!" She sank,trembling, into her chair. "Oh, no, no," she continued, shaking herhead, "'tis not Miche Vignevielle w'at's crezzie." Her eyes lighted withsudden fierceness. "'Tis dad _law_! Dad _law_ is crezzie! Dad law is afool!"
A priest of less heart-wisdom might have replied that the law is--thelaw; but Pere Jerome saw that Madame Delphine was expecting this veryresponse. Wherefore he said, with gentleness:
"Madame Delphine, a priest is not a bailiff, but a physician. How can Ihelp you?"
A grateful light shone a moment in her eyes, yet there remained apiteous hostility in the tone in which she demanded:
"_Mais, pou'quoi ye, fe cette mechanique la?_"--What business had theyto make that contraption?
His answer was a shrug with his palms extended and a short, disclamatory"Ah." He started to resume his walk, but turned to her again and said:"Why did they make that law? Well, they made it to keep the two racesseparate."
Madame Delphine startled the speaker with a loud, harsh, angry laugh.Fire came from her eyes and her lip curled with scorn.
"Then they made a lie, Pere Jerome! Separate! No-o-o! They do notwant to keep us separated; no, no! But they _do_ want to keep usdespised!" She laid her hand on her heart, and frowned upward withphysical pain. "But, very well! from which race do they want tokeep my daughter separate? She is seven parts white! The law didnot stop her from being that; and now, when she wants to be a whiteman's good and honest wife, shall that law stop her? Oh, no!" Sherose up. "No; I will tell you what that law is made for. It is madeto--punish--my--child--for--not--choosing--her--father! Pere Jerome--myGod, what a law!" She dropped back into her seat. The tears came in aflood, which she made no attempt to restrain.
"No," she began again--and here she broke into English--"fo' me I don'kyare; but, Pere Jerome,--'tis fo' dat I came to tell you,--dey _shallnot_ punizh my daughter!" She was on her feet again, smiting her heavingbosom with the fan. "She shall marrie oo she want!"
Pere Jerome had heard her out, not interrupting by so much as a motionof the hand. Now his decision was made, and he touched her softly withthe ends of his fingers.
"Madame Delphine, I want you to go at 'ome Go at 'ome."
"Wad you goin' mague?" she asked.
"Nottin'. But go at 'ome. Kip quite; don put you'se'f sig. I goin' seeUrsin. We trah to figs dat aw fo' you."
"You kin figs dad!" she cried, with a gleam of joy.
"We goin' to try, Madame Delphine. Adieu!"
He offered his hand. She seized and kissed it thrice, covering it withtears, at the same time lifting up her eyes to his and murmuring:
"De bez man God evva mague!"
At the door she turned to offer a more conventional good-by; but he wasfollowing her out, bareheaded. At the gate they paused an instant, andthen parted with a simple adieu, she going home and he returning for hishat, and starting again upon his interrupted business.
* * * * *
Before he came back to his own house, he stopped at the lodgings ofMonsieur Vignevielle, but did not find him in.
"Indeed," the servant at the door said, "he said he might not return forsome days or weeks."
So Pere Jerome, much wondering, made a second detour toward theresidence of one of Monsieur Vignevielle's employes.
"Yes," said the clerk, "his instructions are to hold the business, asfar as practicable, in suspense, during his absence. Every thing is inanother name." And then he whispered:
"Officers of the Government looking for him. Information got from someof 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