As the day was pleasant,
Madame Valmonde drove over to L'Abri to see Desiree and the baby.
It made her laugh to think
of Desiree with a baby. Why, it seemed but yesterday
that Desiree was little more than a baby herself; when Monsieur in riding
through the gateway of Valmondé had found her lying asleep in the shadow
of the big stone pillar.
The little one awoke in
his arms and began to cry for "Dada." That was as much as she could do or
say. Some people thought she might have strayed there
of her own accord, for she was of the toddling age. The
prevailing belief was that she had been purposely left by a party of Texans,
whose canvas-covered wagon, late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton
Mais kept, just below the plantation. In time Madame
Valmondé abandoned every speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent
to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing
that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl
grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,--the idol of Valmondé.
It was no wonder, when she
stood one day against the stone pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep,
eighteen years before, that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there,
had fallen in love with her. That was the way all
the Aubignys fell in love, as if struck by a pistol shot.
The wonder was that he had not loved her before; for he had known
her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his
mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her
at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like
anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.
Monsieur Valmondé grew practical
and wanted things well considered: that is, the girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless. What did it matter
about a name when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from Paris, and contained himself
with what patience he could until it arrived; then they were married.
Madame Valmondé had not
seen Desiree and the baby for four weeks. When she
reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not
known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur Aubigny having married
and buried his wife in France, and she having loved her own land too well
ever to leave it. The roof came down steep and black
like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide galleries that encircled the yellow
stuccoed house. Big, solemn oaks grew close to it,
and their thick-leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it like a pall. Young Aubigny's rule was a strict one, too, and under
it his negroes had forgotten how to be gay, as they had been during the old
master's easy-going and indulgent lifetime.
The young mother was recovering
slowly, and lay full length, in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a
couch. The baby was beside her, upon her arm, where
he had fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse
woman sat beside a window fanning herself.
Madame Valmondé bent her
portly figure over Desiree and kissed her, holding her an instant tenderly
in her arms. Then she turned to the child.
"This is not the baby!"
she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the language spoken at Valmondé
in those days.
"I knew you would be astonished,"
laughed Desiree, "at the way he has grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails,--real
finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"
The woman bowed her turbaned
head majestically, "Mais si, Madame."
"And the way he cries,"
went on Desiree, "is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away
as La Blanche's cabin."
Madame Valmondé had never
removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to
the window that was lightest. She scanned the baby
narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to
gaze across the fields.
"Yes, the child has grown,
has changed," said Madame Valmondé, slowly, as she replaced it beside its
mother. "What does Armand say?"
Desiree's face became suffused
with a glow that was happiness itself.
"Oh, Armand is the proudest
father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his
name; though he says not,--that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn't true. I know
he says that to please me. And mamma," she added,
drawing Madame Valmondé's head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he
hasn't punished one of them--not one of them--since baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that
he might rest from work--he only laughed, and said Negrillon was a great
scamp. oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me."
What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened
Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature greatly. This
was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God.
But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns
since the day he fell in love with her.
When the baby was about
three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the conviction that there was
something in the air menacing her peace. It was at
first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting
suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off
neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then
a strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not ask
him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with
averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there, avoided
her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And
the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his dealings
with the slaves. Desiree was miserable enough to die.
She sat in her room, one
hot afternoon, in her peignoir, listlessly drawing through her fingers the
strands of her long, silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany
bed, that was like a sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La Blanche's little quadroon boys--half naked too--stood
fanning the child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Desiree's
eyes had been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving
to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her. She looked
from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again; over and
over. "Ah!" It was a cry that
she could not help; which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture
gathered upon her face.
She tried to speak to the
little quadroon boy; but no sound would come, at first. When
he heard his name uttered, he looked up, and his mistress was pointing to
the door. He laid aside the great, soft fan, and obediently
stole away, over the polished floor, on his bare tiptoes.
She stayed motionless, with
gaze riveted upon her child, and her face the picture of fright.
Presently her husband entered
the room, and without noticing her, went to a table and began to search among
some papers which covered it.
"Armand," she called to
him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. "Armand,"
she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards
him. "Armand," she panted once more, clutching his
arm, "look at our child. What does it mean? tell me."
He coldly but gently loosened
her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him. "Tell me what it means!" she cried despairingly.
"It means," he answered
lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not white."
A quick conception of all
that this accusation meant for her nerved her with unwonted courage to deny
it. "It is a lie; it is not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes are gray, Armand,
you know they are gray. And my skin is fair," seizing
his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,"
she laughed hysterically.
"As white as La Blanche's,"
he returned cruelly; and went away leaving her alone with their child.
When she could hold a pen
in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame Valmondé.
"My mother, they tell me
I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For God's sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I
shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy, and live."
The answer that came was
brief:
"My own Desiree: Come home
to Valmondé; back to your mother who loves you. Come
with your child."
When the letter reached
Desiree she went with it to her husband's study, and laid it open upon the
desk before which he sat. She was like a stone image:
silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold
eyes over the written words.
He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp with agonized
suspense.
"Yes, go."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I want you to go."
He thought Almighty God
had dealt cruelly and unjustly with him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying
Him back in kind when he stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious
injury she had brought upon his home and his name.
She turned away like one
stunned by a blow, and walked slowly towards the door, hoping he would call
her back.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.
He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Desiree went in search of
her child. Zandrine was pacing the sombre gallery
with it. She took the little one from the nurse's
arms with no word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked away,
under the live-oak branches.
It was an October afternoon;
the sun was just sinking. Out in the still fields
the negroes were picking cotton.
Desiree had not changed
the thin white garment nor the slippers which she wore. Her
hair was uncovered and the sun's rays brought a golden gleam from its brown
meshes. She did not take the broad, beaten road which
led to the far-off plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field,
where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her
thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the
reeds and willows that grew thick along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou;
and she did not come back again.
Some weeks later there was
a curious scene enacted at L'Abri. In the centre of the smoothly swept back
yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded
a view of the spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes
the material which kept this fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow,
with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon the pyre, which had already
been fed with the richness of a priceless layette. Then
there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too,
and embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of rare
quality.
The last thing to go was
a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings that Desiree had sent
to him during the days of their espousal. There was
the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it was not Desiree's; it was part of an old letter
from his mother to his father. He read it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband's
love:
--"But above all," she wrote,
"night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that
our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs
to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery."