The Grandissimes Part 53

She received a missive. It was long, like an official doc.u.ment; it bore evidence of having been carried for some hours in a coat-pocket, and was folded in one of those old, troublesome ways in use before the days of envelopes. Aurora pulled it open.

"It is all figures; light a candle."

The candle was lighted by Clotilde and held over Aurora's shoulder; they saw a heading and footing more conspicuous than the rest of the writing.

The heading read:

"_Aurora and Clotilde Nancanou, owners of Fausse Riviere Plantation, in account with Honore Grandissime_."

The footing read:

_ "Balance at credit, subject to order of Aurora and Clotilde Nancanou, $105,000.00_."

The date followed:

"_March_ 9, 1804."

and the signature:

"_H. Grandissime_."

A small piece of torn white paper slipped from the account to the floor.

Clotilde's eye followed it, but Aurora, without acknowledgement of having seen it, covered it with her foot.

In the morning Aurora awoke first. She drew from under her pillow this slip of paper. She had not dared look at it until now. The writing on it had been roughly scratched down with a pencil. It read:

"_Not for love of woman, but in the name of justice and the fear of G.o.d_."

"And I was so cruel," she whispered.

Ah! Honore Grandissime, she was kind to that little writing! She did not put it back under her pillow; she _kept it warm_, Honore Grandissime, from that time forth.

CHAPTER XLIV

BAD FOR CHARLIE KEENE

On the same evening of which we have been telling, about the time that Aurora and Clotilde were dropping their last tear of joy over the doc.u.ment of rest.i.tution, a noticeable figure stood alone at the corner of the rue du Ca.n.a.l and the rue Chartres. He had reached there and paused, just as the brighter glare of the set sun was growing dim above the tops of the cypresses. After walking with some rapidity of step, he had stopped aimlessly, and laid his hand with an air of weariness upon a rotting China-tree that leaned over the ditch at the edge of the unpaved walk.

"Setting in cypress," he murmured. We need not concern ourselves as to his meaning.

One could think aloud there with impunity. In 1804, Ca.n.a.l street was the upper boundary of New Orleans. Beyond it, to southward, the open plain was dotted with country-houses, brick-kilns, clumps of live-oak and groves of pecan. At the hour mentioned the outlines of these objects were already darkening. At one or two points the sky was reflected from marshy ponds. Out to westward rose conspicuously the old house and willow-copse of Jean Poquelin. Down the empty street or road, which stretched with arrow-like straightness toward the northwest, the draining-ca.n.a.l that gave it its name tapered away between occasional overhanging willows and beside broken ranks of rotting palisades, its foul, crawling waters blus.h.i.+ng, gilding and purpling under the swiftly waning light, and ending suddenly in the black shadow of the swamp. The observer of this dismal prospect leaned heavily on his arm, and cast his glance out along the beautified corruption of the ca.n.a.l. His eye seemed quickened to detect the smallest repellant details of the scene; every cypress stump that stood in, or overhung, the slimy water; every ruined indigo-vat or blasted tree, every broken thing, every bleached bone of ox or horse--and they were many--for roods around. As his eye pa.s.sed them slowly over and swept back again around the dreary view, he sighed heavily and said: "Dissolution," and then again--"Dissolution! order of the day--"

A secret overhearer might have followed, by these occasional exclamatory utterances, the course of a devouring trouble prowling up and down through his thoughts, as one's eye tracks the shark by the occasional cutting of his fin above the water.

He spoke again:

"It is in such moods as this that fools drown themselves."

His speech was French. He straightened up, smote the tree softly with his palm, and breathed a long, deep sigh--such a sigh, if the very truth be told, as belongs by right to a lover. And yet his mind did not dwell on love.

He turned and left the place; but the trouble that was plowing hither and thither through the deep of his meditations went with him. As he turned into the rue Chartres it showed itself thus:

"Right; it is but right;" he shook his head slowly--"it is but right."

In the rue Douane he spoke again:

"Ah! Frowenfeld"--and smiled unpleasantly, with his head down.

And as he made yet another turn, and took his meditative way down the city's front, along the blacksmith's shops in the street afterward called Old Levee, he resumed, in English, and with a distinctness that made a staggering sailor halt and look after him:

"There are but two steps to civilization, the first easy, the second difficult; to construct--to reconstruct--ah! there it is! the tearing down! The tear'--"

He was still, but repeated the thought by a gesture of distress turned into a slow stroke of the forehead.

"Monsieur Honore Grandissime," said a voice just ahead.

"_Eh, bien_?"

At the mouth of an alley, in the dim light of the streep lamp, stood the dark figure of Honore Grandissime, f.m.c., holding up the loosely hanging form of a small man, the whole front of whose clothing was saturated with blood.

"Why, Charlie Keene! Let him down again, quickly--quickly; do not hold him so!"

"Hands off," came in a ghastly whisper from the shape.

"Oh, Chahlie, my boy--"

"Go and finish your courts.h.i.+p," whispered the doctor.

"Oh Charlie, I have just made it forever impossible!"

"Then help me back to my bed; I don't care to die in the street."

CHAPTER XLV

MORE REPARATION

"That is all," said the fairer Honore, outside Doctor Keene's sick-room about ten o'clock at night. He was speaking to the black son of Clemence, who had been serving as errand-boy for some hours. He spoke in a low tone just without the half-open door, folding again a paper which the lad had lately borne to the apothecary of the rue Royale, and had now brought back with Joseph's answer written under Honore's inquiry.

"That is all," said the other Honore, standing partly behind the first, as the eyes of his little menial turned upon him that deprecatory glance of inquiry so common to slave children. The lad went a little way down the corridor, curled up upon the floor against the wall, and was soon asleep. The fairer Honore handed the darker the slip of paper; it was received and returned in silence. The question was:

"_Can you state anything positive concerning the duel_?"