Dynasty of Death Page 9

  Madam Bouchard, in her hoarse, booming voice had replied: “A day or a year or a lifetime: they are all forever.” This had puzzled George no end, and only confirmed his contemptuous British opinion that all foreigners were mad when they were not thieves. And indeed, to many of the Newtowners the Bouchard family, with enormous Madam Bouchard and her wall-shaking voice, and Armand, with his sinuous quickness and shrill, piping tones, and Jacques, with his boxes of books and crippled leg and sweet beauty of face, and Eugene with his silences and sullennesses and suspicious glances, were entirely insane, or at the best, “touched.” Newtowners, however, understood Raoul, and were patronizingly or genuinely fond of him.

  Hilda Barbour would have found her condition much worse and more depressing in this new and bewildering land if it had not been for Madam Bouchard. One day, early in their acquaintance, the Frenchwoman had found Hilda weeping in slow and desperate silence by her fireplace. She guessed the cause immediately, and instead of extending sympathy and consolation she began to upbraid Hilda for not having started a garden. A home without a garden, she said hoarsely, was like a hearth without a fire, a body without a soul. Hilda must come at once, and she would give her some young plants. It was too late, now, for seedings. So Hilda, after sobbing protests, finally went to the Bouchard house, walked in the garden, helped Madam Bouchard with some small weeding, and felt rise within her her sturdy peasant love for the earth, which had, since her marriage to Joseph Barbour, been stifled by petty urban living. She returned home refreshed and almost happy, her apron full of small plants with the cool, wet earth clinging to their roots, and started her vegetable and flower garden. Madam Bouchard during the next few weeks taught Hilda tricks of Continental cooking, and as a consequence garlic-flavored, herb-touched and onion-seasoned dishes began to appear on the Barbour table, to everyone’s pleasure except Ernest’s. It was his tragedy, though he never suspected that it was a tragedy, that he had no palate whatsoever, and eating to him was a mere tasteless chore to be gotten over with as quickly as possible. It was a necessity, like breathing, and to him as automatic and casual. One ate to live, that was all. He also never acquired a taste for wine, though he later, seeing others’ pleasure and deciding that it was an art that enhanced the dignity of success, tried desperately to enjoy it. But though he suffered no ill effects from alcohol, and though he drank copious quantities in an effort to derive some pleasure from it, alcohol was a wry taste on his tongue and nothing else. So Hilda’s triumphant production of dishes foreign and exotic in taste aroused no enthusiasm or pleasure in the boy. He could not understand how any one could waste valuable time over a necessity that brought no enjoyment or profit.

  One day Hilda complained to her new friend of the impossibility of ever making a home in this vehement and starkly restless country. To which Madam Bouchard replied: “What does it matter where one lives, if one has one’s husband and one’s children, God, a fire, a roof, a few pots, a bunch of herbs, a warm bed and a garden? And peace?” And she added to herself, silently: “And the greatest of these is peace.” But Hilda, looking about her sadly at the ugly disorder and noise of Newtown, at the blazing unshaded light of the sun, at the flat, unfriendly faces of the people, at the hideousness of her little house, sighed. “One can,” said Madam Bouchard, “make a home anywhere.” And looked complacently at her magnificent vegetable-and-flower garden, and the strong walls of her house. But Hilda, whose happiness depended on old familiarity, on old friends, old tastes, old smells, old skies and old rains, could never understand this. She could endure all this strangeness for the sake of the reward of money, for she belonged to a race that must either have a familiar home or a strange success.

  Once Hilda told her brother-in-law, who liked her more than a little, but secretly, that she actually believed Madam Bouchard and her family and husband would not mind staying in America the rest of their lives. She spoke with affectionate contempt and with a shake of the head. George had sneered and laughed and had replied that it was nothing more than he had expected of these Frenchies, who had no decent country of their own in which to live, but had had to leave what miserable land they had possessed for the sake of their necks. To an Englishman, however, coming from a civilized country of order and intelligence and pleasantness, America was intolerable, fit only to be endured for the profits it offered.

  Hilda had expected Joseph’s smile and understanding, and it seemed odd to her that when she turned to meet his eyes he was not looking at her, but was regarding George with a most unpleasant expression. His neck had a way of turning crimson when he was either angered or agitated, and though he said nothing Hilda saw, to her surprise, that that neck was a bright and congested red. For some reason this obscurely annoyed her, and for some time thereafter she patronized Madam Bouchard. The only dissatisfaction about this, however, was that Madam Bouchard did not appear to know she was being patronized.

  Hilda saw little of her sister-in-law, Daisy, who was building up a little social set of her own from which Hilda was naturally excluded. Daisy was already beginning to talk of moving over to Oldtown, and Hilda, when she heard this, set her lips obstinately and vowed that she would never move over to Oldtown, no, not even if Joseph made himself fifty thousand pounds.

  CHAPTER VII

  It had been an extremely bad winter, but spring had come at last with a warmth and expansiveness that was like a woman who laughs as she reminiscently shakes her head over a past ordeal.

  Here by the river it was simultaneously warm and coolly fresh, for the sun was pouring down in a yellow flood like a cataract and the air, blowing in from the water, still had the chill of frost in its new stimulation. An outward curve of land hid the scarred banks of Newtown, and because of the green fog in the thick clump of willows on that curve even the crowding shacks and ugly warehouses were hidden. Traffic on the river was very slow today, so that the river was a flowing stream of empty bright silver under a sky drenched with light. The banks were still sheets of wet and glistening brownish-red mud, in which bending willows, white and slender and newly green, were fragilely rooted. The opposite shore seemed greener and brighter than this, for the timber had hardly been touched and the trees were taller and more crowded. The tall weeds along the river bank were old weeds, brown and wispy and dead, but tenacious like ancient women; through the dead dryness of these the water shone like liquid quicksilver, restless and moving, and between their ranks the new young reeds were growing: slender green fire.

  So brilliant were the air and the water and the awakening earth that one hardly noticed the radiant silence. The birds had returned, and they called in lonely sweetness from tree to tree, as if trying to recall old memories and old friends. Occasionally, with a soft flutter of wings, they blew against the sky, vivid streaks of crimson or fiery blue or shining black. They flashed down to the water, whirled in a spiral upwards, shrilled intensely, vanished into the green shadows of the trees. The water sucked at the banks, muttered to itself, bubbled, eddied, swept on.

  The banks sloped upwards, and on the higher reaches of ground flat rocks warmed themselves in the sun and the earth was dryer. Too, grass was pushing up between the rocks and there was a piercing scent of stirring life in the air. It was to this place that Martin brought little Dorcas every fine spring day. He liked to sit sunning himself on the flat gray rocks while she tumbled busily and seriously on the new grass and gathered tiny wildflowers in the cooler shadows of the fringe of trees. Her rough homemade coat came down to her bustling feet and her small face was entirely hidden in the depths of a huge bonnet. Down her back crept a few silken tendrils of golden hair, movingly sweet to young Martin, whose eyes hardly left the child for a moment.

  Almost every day when pain and disability allowed, Jacques Bouchard joined Martin on the stones by the river. Sometimes, as Martin and little Dorcas went down the road they would hear Jacques’ clear thin hail, and they would wait for him as he came swinging and hobbling along on his crutches, his eager fair face thrust ahead of
him like something alive that was tugging futilely to leave the maimed body behind. There he would come, stumbling over the rutty road, his soft brown mane bobbing on his twisted shoulders, his almost useless feet bent grotesquely, his shadow dancing violently about him. But more often Martin would arrive alone with Dorcas on the rocks, for he could never be sure that Jacques would join him. Then he would hear his name called and Jacques would appear, laughing and panting, struggling among the stones down to the rocks. Martin never made the painful mistake of offering to assist the crippled youth, though so understanding was Jacques Bouchard, so subtle of sympathy, that he would merely have smiled wryly at the younger boy and accepted the assistance. Jacques had no false delicacies; he was too intelligent to feel offense at anything.

  They would sit together on the rocks in peace and almost complete silence, after Jacques had recovered his painful breath. There was a remarkable similarity between the fourteen-year-old youth and the ten-year-old boy. Both had the same singular sweetness of expression, though where Martin’s was touched with confused sadness Jacques’ was quiet with peace. Their eyes were both gentle and deep, but Martin’s were troubled and Jacques’ were tranquil and steadfast. Martin was concerned painfully with the incomprehensible problems of existence, but Jacques appeared to have withdrawn and accepted his withdrawal. In their similarity, their instinctive sympathy for each other, they were a strange young pair in the rough boisterousness of Newtown, for one would never belong and the other had never belonged.

  There had never been any strangeness or shyness between them. Instantly, upon meeting, they seemed to have gone to each other across the space of floor that divided them in the Bouchard house. They had not seen each other for several weeks afterwards, but young Martin had felt comforted and sustained through the tormented days of first readjustment. They had met again at Christmas in the Bouchard house, and Martin, almost immediately on entering the big dim room with its conflagration of blazing red fire on the hearth, had gone to the chimney corner where Jacques was sitting toasting new bread. He had sat down on a stool near the older boy, and they had not spoken. But each time their eyes met they smiled. It was strange that the crippled Jacques seemed to be the protector and the shelterer, and Martin, young and straight, was the protected and the sheltered, the hider in the shadow of one who was strong and calm. All about them was the vigorous confusion of holiday, the shrieks of the younger children, the boisterous voices of the men, Madam Bouchard’s booming tones that made the objects on the mantelpiece rattle. Chairs scraped, were drawn around the fire in a comfortable semicircle, nuts were cracked, hot spiced wine and whiskey drunk, rich dark cake was passed, the two crying little girls were comforted, voices mingled, laughed, contradicted, roared. But Martin and Jacques sat in a shining little pool of silence, smiling at each other. Over the hubbub, the clink of glasses, the snapping of the logs on the hearth, only these two heard the hissing of the fine dry snow on the board window sills, the roaring of the wind down the chimney.

  There were no schools in the section of Newtown where the Barbour and Bouchard families lived, for they were situated on the outskirts of the young city. Moreover, what few schools there were were sketchily staffed, and demanded fees. The newer people in the town were not interested in education for their children, and though Joseph uneasily thought of it in connection with Martin and young Florabelle, he was too engrossed in the desperate struggle to get a foothold to give it concentrated consideration. He had heard of some vague project of building a school in his section, and had contented himself with it. After all, he thought, Martin knew twice as much as lads his own age, in fact, he knew too much for his own happiness and comfort. And the little lass hardly needed a school yet; the less women knew the better, anyway.

  And so it happened, very gradually, that winter, that Martin came almost every day through snow and sleet and howling wind and fog and rain to the Bouchard house, where Jacques would be waiting for him with books in both English and French. There by the fire they would sit, gravely reading aloud to each other, gravely discussing. Twice a month newspapers from New York and Philadelphia arrived by stage, and together the two boys would read every item, discuss every event. The question of slavery absorbed them, filled them with pity and terror and indignation. Sometimes they could scarcely speak from horror, and their eyes would well over with tears. The State had reluctantly enacted a law whereby it returned runaway slaves on the way to Canada, and each harrowing and heart-breaking episode seemed to strike at the boys with personal anguish.

  To Madam Bouchard, who was not seriously touched by anything or any one outside her household, this seemed touchingly amusing. She had a cousin in Quebec and she said, comfortably, that this cousin complained of the most monstrous winters and subsequent hardships, and she could hardly believe it much of a misfortune if a runaway black were prevented from reaching that desolate land. It was without result, except for a tender smile at his vehemence, that Jacques argued passionately with her as to the merits of freedom, and the injustice of one man owning another’s body, no matter the color. She would listen, nodding indulgently, as he related history after history of torture and death and agony, and she would think to herself: “Mon petit looks quite well today. How his eyes shine and how bright is his color!” She had no affection to spare for any one but those of her flesh and her arms, yet because he was such a companion for Jacques, and seemed to arouse him so vividly, she felt something quite close to affection for Martin. She spoke to him warmly and solicitously, hovered over him with more than her ordinary hospitality, cherished him, scolded him, tied the muffler firmly about his neck when he was leaving. Her beautiful eyes melted upon him, and she would pat his thin warm cheek with her great hand. She spoke to Hilda of young Martin, and her immense broad face would beam with gratitude so brightly that Hilda would tell Joseph that Madam Bouchard had the largest and tenderest heart in the world for children. However, had Martin begun to annoy and bore Jacques, Madam Bouchard would have been outraged and inflamed, and her affection for Martin would have turned to the most savage and ferocious hatred. She would have treated him no longer as a child, remembering that she was a woman and a mother, but as an enemy that she would fight and destroy. In fact, quickly discovering that Ernest Barbour was repellent to Jacques, that Jacques instinctively disliked and despised him, she could never spare a word of the slightest courtesy for him, could scarcely endure him. On the infrequent occasions when he reluctantly accompanied his father to the Bouchard house the usually voluble woman would relapse into passionate and menacing silence, though she liked and admired Joseph both for his wit and looks. She would push her chair far back from the fire, overflowing it with her immense bulk, and in the mingled sharp shadows of firelight and darkness her face and blazing eyes would be fixed with unrelenting hatred upon the uncomfortable Ernest (who pretended to be oblivious to all this). Her hands would clench and unclench upon her gigantic thighs, her breath would be loud and panting. It never occurred to her that all this was enormously ridiculous or entirely out of proportion: where her affections were concerned Madam Bouchard was humorless, and a tiger.

  “Madam B. doesn’t like you, lad, and that’s certain,” Joseph had once said to Ernest, with huge enjoyment. Ernest, who was uncomfortable over the woman’s attitude only because her vehement and passionate malignancy forced itself by sheer electricity into his preoccupied consciousness, had shrugged. Had he studied the situation his intelligence would easily have guessed the cause of such absurd hatred, but he never spared any thoughts in idle or subtle speculations that had nothing to do with the terrible drive within him.

  Martin, with the simplicity of a child, had responded with shy gratitude to Madam Bouchard’s exuberant affection. He thought her the kindest and most comfortable of women. Until a certain day. On that particular cold dark winter day Jacques was suffering from a cold. Also, his leg was bothering him severely. Madam Bouchard, watching so fiercely, saw that today even Martin was tiring and distracting to the
tortured Jacques, but instead of gently suggesting to the child that he leave and return another day when his friend was better, she pounced on the frightened boy with the savagery of a tigress, thrust his arms into his coat, muttered malignantly under her breath at him as she buttoned the garment, and glared at him so ferociously with her flaming eyes that he became petrified with a purely physical terror. It seemed to him that the very air about her became saturated with a wild and animal odor, such as jungle beasts exhale when infuriated and prepared to destroy. He returned home, and for days was torn between his bitter longing to see Jacques and his active terror of Madam Bouchard. He was firmly convinced that she would annihilate him should he appear again, and was entirely innocent of what had precipitated that monstrous performance. It was not until Jacques had sent Raoul with repeated entreaties that Martin return to the Bouchard house, and then with quakings. But Madam Bouchard received him with such jubilation and affection, such loving scoldings and round upbraidings for his neglect, that he was stunned with amazement and almost convinced that he had dreamt that dark winter afternoon. However, he never again trusted her, was never at ease in her presence, but always watched apprehensively out of the corner of his eye for an imminent explosion. So when spring arrived and Jacques could join him on the river bank he was utterly grateful and relieved.

  There they would sit upon the rocks, laughing tenderly at little Dorcas’ blundering small feet, comforting her when she fell and wept, playing with her as they would play with a pup, pulling green blades of grass between their fingers, idly talking, sinking into sun-intoxicated and drowsy silences, watching the bright rush of the river, yawning, sighing, humming. There was no barrier of age between them; they were timeless for each other.