At Fault (3 page)

"Gracious! and who was old McFarlane?"

"The meanest w'ite man thet ever lived, seems like. Used to own this
place long befo' the Lafirmes got it. They say he's the person that
Mrs. W'at's her name wrote about in Uncle Tom's Cabin."

"Legree? I wonder if it could be true?" Melicent asked with interest.

"Thet's w'at they all say: ask any body."

"You'll take me to his grave, won't you Grégoire," she entreated.

"Well, not this evenin'—I reckon not. It'll have to be broad day, an'
the sun shinin' mighty bright w'en I take you to ole McFarlane's
grave."

They had retraced their course and again entered the bayou, from which
the light had now nearly vanished, making it needful that they watch
carefully to escape the hewn logs that floated in numbers upon the
water.

"I didn't suppose you were ever sad, Grégoire," Melicent said gently.

"Oh my! yes;" with frank acknowledgment. "You ain't ever seen me w'en
I was real lonesome. 'Tain't so bad sence you come. But times w'en I
git to thinkin' 'bout home, I'm boun' to cry—seems like I can't he'p
it."

"Why did you ever leave home?" she asked sympathetically.

"You see w'en father died, fo' year ago, mother she went back to
France, t'her folks there; she never could stan' this country—an'
lef' us boys to manage the place. Hec, he took charge the firs' year
an' run it in debt. Placide an' me did'n' have no betta luck the naxt
year. Then the creditors come up from New Orleans an' took holt.
That's the time I packed my duds an' lef'."

"And you came here?"

"No, not at firs'. You see the Santien boys had a putty hard name in
the country. Aunt Thérèse, she'd fallen out with father years ago
'bout the way, she said, he was bringin' us up. Father, he wasn't the
man to take nothin' from nobody. Never 'lowed any of us to come down
yere. I was in Texas, goin' to the devil I reckon, w'en she sent for
me, an' yere I am."

"And here you ought to stay, Grégoire."

"Oh, they ain't no betta woman in the worl' then Aunt Thérèse, w'en
you do like she wants. See 'em yonda waitin' fur us? Reckon they
thought we was drowned."

When Melicent came to visit her brother, Mrs. Lafirme persuaded him to
abandon his uncomfortable quarters at the mill and take up his
residence in the cottage, which stood just beyond the lawn of the big
house. This cottage had been furnished
de pied en cap
many years
before, in readiness against an excess of visitors, which in days gone
by was not of infrequent occurrence at Place-du-Bois. It was
Melicent's delighted intention to keep house here. And she foresaw no
obstacle in the way of procuring the needed domestic aid in a place
which was clearly swarming with idle women and children.

"Got a cook yet, Mel?" was Hosmer's daily enquiry on returning home,
to which Melicent was as often forced to admit that she had no cook,
but was not without abundant hope of procuring one.

Betsy's Aunt Cynthy had promised with a sincerity which admitted not
of doubt, that "de Lord willin' " she would "be on han' Monday, time
to make de mornin' coffee." Which assurance had afforded Melicent a
Sunday free of disturbing doubts concerning the future of her
undertaking. But who may know what the morrow will bring forth? Cynthy
had been "tuck sick in de night." So ran the statement of the wee
pickaninny who appeared at Melicent's gate many hours later than
morning coffee time: delivering his message in a high voice of
complaint, and disappearing like a vision without further word.

Uncle Hiram, then called to the breach, had staked his patriarchal
honor on the appearance of his niece Suze on Tuesday. Melicent and
Thérèse meeting Suze some days later in a field path, asked the cause
of her bad faith. The girl showed them all the white teeth which
nature had lavished on her, saying with the best natured laugh in the
world: "I don' know how come I didn' git dere Chewsday like I
promise."

If the ladies were not disposed to consider that an all-sufficient
reason, so much the worse, for Suze had no other to offer.

From Mose's wife, Minervy, better things might have been expected. But
after a solemn engagement to take charge of Melicent's kitchen on
Wednesday, the dusky matron suddenly awoke to the need of "holpin'
Mose hoe out dat co'n in the stiff lan."

Thérèse, seeing that the girl was really eager to play in the brief
role of housekeeper had used her powers, persuasive and authoritative,
to procure servants for her, but without avail. She herself was not
without an abundance of them, from the white-haired Hiram, whose
position on the place had long been a sinecure, down to the little
brown legged tot Mandy, much given to falling asleep in the sun, when
not chasing venturesome poultry off forbidden ground, or stirring
gentle breezes with an enormous palm leaf fan about her mistress
during that lady's after dinner nap.

When pressed to give a reason for this apparent disinclination of the
negroes to work for the Hosmers, Nathan, who was at the moment being
interviewed on the front veranda by Thérèse and Melicent, spoke out.

"Dey 'low 'roun' yere, dat you's mean to de black folks, ma'am: dat
what dey says—I don' know me."

"Mean," cried Melicent, amazed, "in what way, pray?"

"Oh, all sort o' ways," he admitted, with a certain shy brazenness;
determined to go through with the ordeal.

"Dey 'low you wants to cut de little gals' plaits off, an' sich—I
don' know me."

"Do you suppose, Nathan," said Thérèse attempting but poorly to hide
her amusement at Melicent's look of dismay, "that Miss Hosmer would
bother herself with darkies' plaits?"

"Dat's w'at I tink m'sef. Anyways, I'll sen' Ar'minty 'roun'
to-morrow, sho."

Melicent was not without the guilty remembrance of having one day
playfully seized one of the small Mandy's bristling plaits, daintily
between finger and thumb, threatening to cut them all away with the
scissors which she carried. Yet she could not but believe that there
was some deeper motive underlying this systematic reluctance of the
negroes to give their work in exchange for the very good pay which she
offered. Thérèse soon enlightened her with the information that the
negroes were very averse to working for Northern people whose speech,
manners, and attitude towards themselves were unfamiliar. She was
given the consoling assurance of not being the only victim of this
boycott, as Thérèse recalled many examples of strangers whom she knew
to have met with a like cavalier treatment at the darkies' hands.

Needless to say, Araminty never appeared.

Hosmer and Melicent were induced to accept Mrs. Lafirme's generous
hospitality; and one of that lady's many supernumeraries was detailed
each morning to "do up" Miss Melicent's rooms, but not without the
previous understanding that the work formed part of Miss T'rèse's
system.

Nothing which had happened during the year of his residence at
Place-du-Bois had furnished Hosmer such amusement as these
misadventures of his sister Melicent, he having had no like experience
with his mill hands.

It is not unlikely that his good humor was partly due to the
acceptable arrangement which assured him the daily society of Thérèse,
whose presence was growing into a need with him.

When Grégoire said to Melicent that there was no better woman in the
world than his Aunt Thérèse, "W'en you do like she wants," the
statement was so incomplete as to leave one in uncomfortable doubt of
the expediency of venturing within the influence of so exacting a
nature. True, Thérèse required certain conduct from others, but she
was willing to further its accomplishment by personal efforts, even
sacrifices—that could leave no doubt of the pure unselfishness of her
motive. There was hardly a soul at Place-du-Bois who had not felt the
force of her will and yielded to its gentle influence.

The picture of Joçint as she had last seen him, stayed with her, till
it gave form to a troubled desire moving her to see him again and
speak with him. He had always been an unruly subject, inclined to a
surreptitious defiance of authority. Repeatedly had he been given work
on the plantation and as many times dismissed for various causes.
Thérèse would have long since removed him had it not been for his old
father Morico, whose long life spent on the place had established a
claim upon her tolerance.

In the late afternoon, when the shadows of the magnolias were
stretching in grotesque lengths across the lawn, Thérèse stood waiting
for Uncle Hiram to bring her sleek bay Beauregard around to the front.
The dark close fitting habit which she wore lent brilliancy to her
soft blonde coloring; and there was no mark of years about her face or
figure, save the settling of a thoughtful shadow upon the eyes, which
joys and sorrows that were past and gone had left there.

As she rode by the cottage, Melicent came out on the porch to wave a
laughing good-bye. The girl was engaged in effacing the simplicity of
her rooms with certain bizarre decorations that seemed the promptings
of a disordered imagination. Yards of fantastic calico had been
brought up from the store, which Grégoire with hammer and tacks was
amiably forming into impossible designs at the prompting of the girl.
The little darkies had been enlisted to bring their contributions of
palm branches, pine cones, ferns, and bright hued bird wings—and a
row of those small recruits stood on the porch, gaping in wide-mouthed
admiration at a sight that stirred within their breasts such remnant
of savage instinct as past generations had left there in dormant
survival.

One of the small audience permitted her attention to be drawn for a
moment from the gorgeous in-door spectacle, to follow the movements of
her mistress.

"Jis' look Miss T'rèse how she go a lopin' down de lane. Dere she
go—dere she go—now she gone," and she again became contemplative.

Thérèse, after crossing the railroad, for a space kept to the brow of
the hill where stretched a well defined road, which by almost
imperceptible degrees led deeper and always higher into the woods.
Presently, leaving this road and turning into a bridle path where an
unpracticed eye would have discovered no sign of travel, she rode on
until reaching a small clearing among the pines, in the center of
which stood a very old and weather beaten cabin.

Here she dismounted, before Morico knew of her presence, for he sat
with his back partly turned to the open door. As she entered and
greeted him, he arose from his chair, all trembling with excitement at
her visit; the long white locks, straggling and unkept, falling about
his brown visage that had grown old and weather beaten with his cabin.
Sinking down into his seat—the hide covered chair that had been worn
smooth by years of usefulness—he gazed well pleased at Thérèse, who
seated herself beside him.

"Ah, this is quite the handsomest you have made yet, Morico," she said
addressing him in French, and taking up the fan that he was curiously
fashioning of turkey feathers.

"I am taking extra pains with it," he answered, looking complacently
at his handiwork and smoothing down the glossy feathers with the ends
of his withered old fingers. "I thought the American lady down at the
house might want to buy it."

Thérèse could safely assure him of Melicent's willingness to seize on
the trophy.

Then she asked why Joçint had not been to the house with news of him.
"I have had chickens and eggs for you, and no way of sending them."

At mention of his son's name, the old man's face clouded with
displeasure and his hand trembled so that he was at some pains to
place the feather which he was at the moment adding to the widening
fan.

"Joçint is a bad son, madame, when even you have been able to do
nothing with him. The trouble that boy has given me no one knows; but
let him not think I am too old to give him a sound drubbing."

Joçint meanwhile had returned from the mill and seeing Thérèse's horse
fastened before his door, was at first inclined to skulk back into the
woods; but an impulse of defiance moved him to enter, and gave to his
ugly countenance a look that was far from agreeable as he mumbled a
greeting to Thérèse. His father he did not address. The old man looked
from son to visitor with feeble expectancy of some good to come from
her presence there.

Joçint's straight and coarse black hair hung in a heavy mop over his
low retreating forehead, almost meeting the ill-defined line of
eyebrow that straggled above small dusky black eyes, that with the
rest of his physique was an inheritance from his Indian mother.

Approaching the safe or
garde manger
, which was the most prominent
piece of furniture in the room, he cut a wedge from the round loaf of
heavy soggy corn bread that he found there, added a layer of fat pork,
and proceeded to devour the unpalatable morsel with hungry relish.

"That is but poor fare for your old father, Joçint," said Thérèse,
looking steadily at the youth.

"Well, I got no chance me, fu' go fine nuttin in de 'ood" (woods), he
answered purposely in English, to annoy his father who did not
understand the language.

"But you are earning enough to buy him something better; and you know
there is always plenty at the house that I am willing to spare him."

"I got no chance me fu' go to de 'ouse neider," he replied
deliberately, after washing down the scant repast with a long draught
from the tin bucket which he had replenished at the cistern before
entering. He swallowed the water regardless of the "wiggles" whose
presence was plainly visible.

"What does he say?" asked Morico scanning Thérèse's face appealingly.

"He only says that work at the mill keeps him a good deal occupied,"
she said with attempted carelessness.