Pamela Morsi (14 page)

But she already cared for Laron. She already
wanted to marry him. Armand had to make sure that she did.

"Will you be holding court upon your porch
this day?" he asked her directly, referring to the accepted
practice of receiving gentlemen callers on Sunday afternoons.

She lowered her lashes. It was a pretty
gesture, one that on another female might indicate shyness, but
everyone knew that with Mademoiselle Gaudet it was flirtation. "I
do hope so," she said. "A young lady would be bereft should she sit
Sunday upon her porch alone."

"As if such a calamity could ever befall you,
mamselle," Granger piped in effusively. "I intend to spend a
pleasant hour in your company, if you please."

"And myself also," Placide added. "I would
not enjoy Sunday did it not include you, Mademoiselle Gaudet."

Aida blushed prettily. "You are always
welcome," she told them. "I will be there and my dear friend Ruby
has agreed to come and sit with me."

"Ah Ruby!" Granger exclaimed. He glanced
toward Armand. "Dear Ruby, she is such a sweet thing and so
devout."

Marchand was also gazing pointedly in
Armand's direction. "Yes, Ruby is not so tall as some of the ladies
and would make a fine wife for any man."

Armand felt his face flame with embarrassment
and humiliation. Did they think he was setting a tendre for Ruby?
Armand would readily admit that he was shorter than any man on
Prairie l'Acadie, but lack of height did not mean desperation.

"I assume that Laron will be there," Armand
explained quickly. "I need to speak with him about a personal
concern."

"Of course my fiancé will be there," Aida
assured him. "I should be quite put out if he were to neglect
me."

"And he would be quite the fool to do so,"
Granger said.

"But he is already quite the fool to have
delayed the wedding for so long," Placide blurted out.

Aida visibly paled.

Guiltily, as it were more his fault than his
friend's, Armand came to her rescue. "You are the fool, Marchand,
if you think it is Laron who puts off this wedding. Of course it is
Mademoiselle Gaudet who hesitates to tie herself to such a knave as
Boudreau."

Placide shifted his feet.

Aida glanced at Armand, grateful. He smiled
back broadly. "I admit my friend is a knave," he told her. "But I
speak highly of him just the same." Armand gave the other two men a
long look. "He is the best of knaves at least."

Aida giggled out loud.

Armand found himself more than a little
pleased that he'd eased over Placide's gaffe. Now if he could only
undo the thoughtless words that he himself had spoken, the much
more serious ones that put the happiness of his own brother and
this lovely young woman in jeopardy.

The porch at the home of Aida Gaudet was
crowded. Ignace Granger and Placide Marchand were in attendance,
each trying to outdo the other with gracious compliments and clever
conversation. Pierre Babin had brought both Ruby and her mother and
seemed to be enjoying himself.

Hippolyte Arceneaux and his wife had been
poling by on their way to visit their grandchildren when Madame
Arceneaux spotted Madame Babin on the porch. Nothing would do but
for her to drop in for a bit of gossip. Hippolyte had been sent
ahead to tell his daughter-in-law why they were late. He returned
shortly with the young Madame Arceneaux, her husband Francois, and
her two little sons.

The older women were interested in the
babies. Francois was interested in Jesper's grain mill. Jesper was
interested in explaining its operation at great length. And
Hippolyte had no hesitation about offering his two cents' worth of
advice on any subject.

The younger men, Placide, Ignace, and Pierre,
were chagrined by the topic of conversation and tried valiantly to
turn it to more frivolous banter suited for

Sunday afternoon. When that proved
impossible, the two merely commenced a rival conversation.

That worked for a while, but ultimately in
order to be heard over Jesper Gaudet, the younger men spoke up a
bit. Then Hippolyte, fearing that Francois and Jesper would not
concede his point, raised the level of his voice also. That caused
Placide and Ignace to speak even louder. The babies began to wail
and the mother and grandmother began to coo. The crying woke
Jesper's old dog, who set up a howl. Within minutes the Gaudet
front porch became as noisy and confusing as the Tower of
Babel.

Aida sat beside Ruby on a long wash bench,
smiling occasionally at Ignace and Placide. Their attempt at
conversing about more simple subjects was certainly commendable
when compared to the behavior of Armand Sonnier. He sat on the
steps, serious and silent, his back propped against the porch,
gazing out at the river.

He was obviously disgruntled. Aida watched
him out of the corner of her eye with distress. He was not one of
her admirers, that was clear. Unlike younger, less learned fellows
like Marchand and Granger, he undoubtedly found her silly and
boring. Everyone knew he was the smartest man on the river, and he
had come there to speak with Laron Boudreau. She had told him that
her fiancé would be there, but he was not.

Sitting amid the near-deafening clamor, Aida
pretended that she was not concerned. She pretended she was not
embarrassed. Or even humiliated. She pretended that a fiancé’s
failure to appear on Sunday afternoon was not unusual.

Deliberately she smiled her little half-smile
at the young men. She was dressed as prettily as was permitted for
a Sunday on the porch. And she had managed, after nearly a
half-hour of struggling, to get her hair to hang in one long thick
black curl down her shoulder. It was not altogether proper, but so
far none of the women had commented on it. Of course they had
another juicy bit of gossip to chew upon. Laron's absence.

Aida held Ruby's hand, as much to give the
other girl courage among the company as to take some for herself.
She flirted, tittered, and giggled at moments that seemed
appropriate. Purposefully she tried not to think about the only
thing that she could think about. Laron had not shown up.

This was not the first time that he had
failed to sit Sunday on her porch. There had been other Sundays,
however rare, when he had failed to appear. She had not been happy
then. And she was not happy now.

She knew her father would be asking questions
later. Madame Arceneaux and Madame Babin would be whispering the
fact to anyone willing to take a half-minute to listen. And somehow
Father Denis would find a way to blame her. But worse than his mere
absence was the gossip, brought to the Gaudet porch with some
embarrassment by Francois, that Laron Boudreau was down on the
river somewhere. And that he was drinking. Unusual behavior
indeed—and especially for a supposedly besotted bridegroom.

She smiled. She laughed. She entertained her
guests. But inside, Aida Gaudet's stomach twisted and churned. She
surreptitiously laid a soothing hand against the raw, burning pain.
It wouldn't do to show her discomfort. Young ladies took to their
beds when they were not feeling well. But if she took to her bed,
everyone would think she was wretched over Laron. They would all
think that she was sorrowing and fearful that he no longer wanted
to marry her. They would all think that she suspected him and the
German widow.

Aida laughed lightly and shook her head,
casually calling attention to the one long thick black curl hanging
down her shoulder.

"Oh you silly farceur! What a joker you are!"
she exclaimed, tapping Ignace lightly on the sleeve with her fan.
"How can a woman know when you are telling her the truth or when
you are fooling her?"

Ignace didn't get a chance to answer.

"Walk out with me."

The words came abruptly from the mouth of
Armand Sonnier.

Every voice on the porch was suddenly
silenced.

For a moment Aida eyed Armand with disbelief.
Armand Sonnier wanted to walk out with her? Then reality set it. It
was a poor choice of words. She cast a quick warning glance to her
father. Please don't say anything, her eyes begged silently.
Please, please.

Armand, of course, hadn't meant he wanted her
to "walk out with him" as in walk alone so he could sweet-talk her,
but simply that he wanted a private word. Belatedly he realized
what he'd said and appeared almost as dumbstruck as those sitting
on the porch.

"Of course, Monsieur Sonnier," Aida answered
lightly, rising to her feet. "I do not believe that I have shown
you my herb garden. And I am sure, being as close to Madame Landry
as you are, you must surely have a great interest in cultured
plants."

He must wish to discuss Laron, Aida thought
to herself. It must be that he wished to discuss his friend.
Otherwise she was certain that Armand Sonnier would not have made
such a suggestion.

She rose to her feet and he offered her
hand.

"If I do say so myself, monsieur," she
continued brightly, "I have a way with gardening."

Determinedly she allowed him to lead her down
the steps. She refused to look behind her at their audience as she
took his arm and strolled beside him. She began to chatter.

"It's . . . it's a lovely day," she said.

"Hmmm? Oh yes," he said.

She glanced over at him. He was gazing off
into the distance, obviously lost in thought. His light brown hair
was not slicked down with sweet grease like that of the other young
men. It had a tousled, wind-blown look that was attractive in a
sort of disheveled way.

"It's neither too hot nor too cold," she
continued. "It seems that this might be the best weather that we've
had in several months."

He nodded.

"But of course winter is coming," Aida
rattled on. "Why, the sky this morning looked like bad weather
heading our way soon."

She heard herself prattling aimlessly, but
couldn't seem to stop. The late-afternoon sun threw their long lazy
shadows along the grass as they walked. The cool slick grass under
her bare feet was soothing; still her heart fluttered
nervously.

Armand Sonnier was Laron's best friend. He
was also without doubt the smartest man in the parish. What in the
world could she have to say to him that would be interesting or
entertaining? He probably spent his days thinking about things that
she could never understand. Talking about things she'd never heard
of and shaking his head in pity at foolish young women who have
nothing more to recommend them than a pretty face and spend half an
hour fixing a long thick curl of black hair.

"Of course, I love winter almost as much as
fall," she told him. "All the seasons have their own specialness, I
suppose. I love the prairies in springtime when they are full of
wildflowers. The bayou is at its best in summer when the hyacinth
and lilies bloom on the water. In autumn the leaves on the trees
change to red, yellow, and gold. And in the winter, well I suppose
that it's the absence of all that beauty that makes us recall it
with such wonder."

Armand stopped still and turned to look at
her. His blue eyes studied her intensely. He was no taller than she
was. And it was strange, unusual, to look a man straight in the
eye, just as if ... as if he were someone just like her.

Aida flushed and glanced away. Of course he
was nothing like her. He was a literate man. Her own father counted
on him in trading with the Creoles and Americaines and he was the
judge, the representative of the state of Louisiana in the parish.
He was not at all like her.

"And winter is nice also because there is
much time for dances and fais-dodo and get-togethers," she
added.

He nodded and remained silent, his expression
still pensive.

What was he thinking? Aida couldn't help
wondering that. When he kept his silence for so long was his mind
a blank or was he having an involved conversation with himself? A
conversation about truth or religion or life? Did he agree with
himself? Or were arguments going on in his head? Aida could only
imagine. Momentarily she floundered as she sought for another topic
for conversation. The weather had been stretched about as far as it
would go. Had it been Ignace or Placide, she would have merely
talked about herself. Somehow she didn't think that Monsieur
Sonnier would be interested. With him she could not get away with a
pretense of frivolity. He knew her too well.

Armand was so smart, so serious, so sober. Of
course it was quite true that he could tell a good joke. But he
never seemed to feel like laughing when he was with her. He must
consider her a silly scatter-brain. Most of the Acadian men liked
her silliness. Armand Sonnier obviously did not.

It was unfortunate that he was not more like
his older brother, Jean Baptiste. She remembered how charming he
was at the fais-dodo when he helped her with her shoes.

"How is your brother?" she asked, delighted
with herself at coming up with such an agreeable subject. She liked
Jean Baptiste, and Armand obviously cared about his brother.
Exchanging views on their mutual regard for him would be easier
than discussing the weather.

To her surprise Armand's expression took on a
guarded, almost hostile look.

"He is well," he said. There was a gruffness
to his voice that discouraged her.

Aida was unsure.

"He's a very good dancer," she said. "He
partners me at nearly every fais-dodo. I always feel like I'm
simply floating on his arm."

"Laron is the best dancer on the river,"
Armand stated flatly.

"Why yes, I know that he is," Aida admitted.
"But perhaps I am partial in my judgment. Your brother is very
good, too. I remember watching him dance with Felicite at their
wedding. I was so envious. She was so lovely and I was so very
young and gauche."

"But that's all changed now, hasn't it?"
Armand said. He was looking at her so sternly that she was
confused. His words were, she assumed, meant as a compliment. She
was no longer so young and gauche. She was the most beautiful woman
on the Vermilion River and everyone knew it. Still, he said it in
such a way that made it sound almost as if he were angry at her for
growing up and being pretty.