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_ The French Church, properly the Church of Sainte-Agnes, stood
upon a hill. The high, narrow, red-brick building, with its tall
steeple and steep roof, could be seen for miles across the wheatfields,
though the little town of Sainte-Agnes was completely hidden away
at the foot of the hill. The church looked powerful and triumphant
there on its eminence, so high above the rest of the landscape,
with miles of warm color lying at its feet, and by its position and
setting it reminded one of some of the churches built long ago in
the wheat-lands of middle France.
Late one June afternoon Alexandra Bergson was driving along one
of the many roads that led through the rich French farming country
to the big church. The sunlight was shining directly in her face,
and there was a blaze of light all about the red church on the
hill. Beside Alexandra lounged a strikingly exotic figure in a
tall Mexican hat, a silk sash, and a black velvet jacket sewn with
silver buttons. Emil had returned only the night before, and his
sister was so proud of him that she decided at once to take him up
to the church supper, and to make him wear the Mexican costume he
had brought home in his trunk. "All the girls who have stands are
going to wear fancy costumes," she argued, "and some of the boys.
Marie is going to tell fortunes, and she sent to Omaha for a Bohemian
dress her father brought back from a visit to the old country.
If you wear those clothes, they will all be pleased. And you must
take your guitar. Everybody ought to do what they can to help
along, and we have never done much. We are not a talented family."
The supper was to be at six o'clock, in the basement of the church,
and afterward there would be a fair, with charades and an auction.
Alexandra had set out from home early, leaving the house to Signa
and Nelse Jensen, who were to be married next week. Signa had
shyly asked to have the wedding put off until Emil came home.
Alexandra was well satisfied with her brother. As they drove
through the rolling French country toward the westering sun and the
stalwart church, she was thinking of that time long ago when she
and Emil drove back from the river valley to the still unconquered
Divide. Yes, she told herself, it had been worth while; both Emil
and the country had become what she had hoped. Out of her father's
children there was one who was fit to cope with the world, who had
not been tied to the plow, and who had a personality apart from the
soil. And that, she reflected, was what she had worked for. She
felt well satisfied with her life.
When they reached the church, a score of teams were hitched in
front of the basement doors that opened from the hillside upon the
sanded terrace, where the boys wrestled and had jumping-matches.
Amedee Chevalier, a proud father of one week, rushed out and
embraced Emil. Amedee was an only son,--hence he was a very rich
young man,--but he meant to have twenty children himself, like
his uncle Xavier. "Oh, Emil," he cried, hugging his old friend
rapturously, "why ain't you been up to see my boy? You come
to-morrow, sure? Emil, you wanna get a boy right off! It's the
greatest thing ever! No, no, no! Angel not sick at all. Everything
just fine. That boy he come into this world laughin', and he been
laughin' ever since. You come an' see!" He pounded Emil's ribs
to emphasize each announcement.
Emil caught his arms. "Stop, Amedee. You're knocking the wind out
of me. I brought him cups and spoons and blankets and moccasins
enough for an orphan asylum. I'm awful glad it's a boy, sure
enough!"
The young men crowded round Emil to admire his costume and to tell
him in a breath everything that had happened since he went away.
Emil had more friends up here in the French country than down on
Norway Creek. The French and Bohemian boys were spirited and jolly,
liked variety, and were as much predisposed to favor anything new
as the Scandinavian boys were to reject it. The Norwegian and
Swedish lads were much more self-centred, apt to be egotistical
and jealous. They were cautious and reserved with Emil because he
had been away to college, and were prepared to take him down if he
should try to put on airs with them. The French boys liked a bit
of swagger, and they were always delighted to hear about anything
new: new clothes, new games, new songs, new dances. Now they
carried Emil off to show him the club room they had just fitted up
over the post-office, down in the village. They ran down the hill
in a drove, all laughing and chattering at once, some in French,
some in English.
Alexandra went into the cool, whitewashed basement where the women
were setting the tables. Marie was standing on a chair, building
a little tent of shawls where she was to tell fortunes. She sprang
down and ran toward Alexandra, stopping short and looking at her
in disappointment. Alexandra nodded to her encouragingly.
"Oh, he will be here, Marie. The boys have taken him off to show
him something. You won't know him. He is a man now, sure enough.
I have no boy left. He smokes terrible-smelling Mexican cigarettes
and talks Spanish. How pretty you look, child. Where did you get
those beautiful earrings?"
"They belonged to father's mother. He always promised them to me.
He sent them with the dress and said I could keep them."
Marie wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven cloth, a white bodice
and kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown curls,
and long coral pendants in her ears. Her ears had been pierced
against a piece of cork by her great-aunt when she was seven years
old. In those germless days she had worn bits of broom-straw, plucked
from the common sweeping-broom, in the lobes until the holes were
healed and ready for little gold rings.
When Emil came back from the village, he lingered outside on the
terrace with the boys. Marie could hear him talking and strumming
on his guitar while Raoul Marcel sang falsetto. She was vexed
with him for staying out there. It made her very nervous to hear
him and not to see him; for, certainly, she told herself, she was
not going out to look for him. When the supper bell rang and the
boys came trooping in to get seats at the first table, she forgot
all about her annoyance and ran to greet the tallest of the crowd,
in his conspicuous attire. She didn't mind showing her embarrassment
at all. She blushed and laughed excitedly as she gave Emil her
hand, and looked delightedly at the black velvet coat that brought
out his fair skin and fine blond head. Marie was incapable of being
lukewarm about anything that pleased her. She simply did not know
how to give a half-hearted response. When she was delighted, she
was as likely as not to stand on her tip-toes and clap her hands.
If people laughed at her, she laughed with them.
"Do the men wear clothes like that every day, in the street?" She
caught Emil by his sleeve and turned him about. "Oh, I wish I lived
where people wore things like that! Are the buttons real silver?
Put on the hat, please. What a heavy thing! How do you ever wear
it? Why don't you tell us about the bull-fights?"
She wanted to wring all his experiences from him at once, without
waiting a moment. Emil smiled tolerantly and stood looking down at
her with his old, brooding gaze, while the French girls fluttered
about him in their white dresses and ribbons, and Alexandra watched
the scene with pride. Several of the French girls, Marie knew, were
hoping that Emil would take them to supper, and she was relieved
when he took only his sister. Marie caught Frank's arm and dragged
him to the same table, managing to get seats opposite the Bergsons,
so that she could hear what they were talking about. Alexandra
made Emil tell Mrs. Xavier Chevalier, the mother of the twenty,
about how he had seen a famous matador killed in the bull-ring.
Marie listened to every word, only taking her eyes from Emil to
watch Frank's plate and keep it filled. When Emil finished his
account,--bloody enough to satisfy Mrs. Xavier and to make her
feel thankful that she was not a matador,--Marie broke out with
a volley of questions. How did the women dress when they went to
bull-fights? Did they wear mantillas? Did they never wear hats?
After supper the young people played charades for the amusement
of their elders, who sat gossiping between their guesses. All the
shops in Sainte-Agnes were closed at eight o'clock that night, so
that the merchants and their clerks could attend the fair. The
auction was the liveliest part of the entertainment, for the French
boys always lost their heads when they began to bid, satisfied that
their extravagance was in a good cause. After all the pincushions
and sofa pillows and embroidered slippers were sold, Emil precipitated
a panic by taking out one of his turquoise shirt studs, which every
one had been admiring, and handing it to the auctioneer. All the
French girls clamored for it, and their sweethearts bid against
each other recklessly. Marie wanted it, too, and she kept making
signals to Frank, which he took a sour pleasure in disregarding.
He didn't see the use of making a fuss over a fellow just because
he was dressed like a clown. When the turquoise went to Malvina
Sauvage, the French banker's daughter, Marie shrugged her shoulders
and betook herself to her little tent of shawls, where she began
to shuffle her cards by the light of a tallow candle, calling out,
"Fortunes, fortunes!"
The young priest, Father Duchesne, went first to have his fortune
read. Marie took his long white hand, looked at it, and then
began to run off her cards. "I see a long journey across water for
you, Father. You will go to a town all cut up by water; built on
islands, it seems to be, with rivers and green fields all about.
And you will visit an old lady with a white cap and gold hoops in
her ears, and you will be very happy there."
"Mais, oui," said the priest, with a melancholy smile. "C'est
L'Isle-Adam, chez ma mere. Vous etes tres savante, ma fille." He
patted her yellow turban, calling, "Venez donc, mes garcons! Il
y a ici une veritable clairvoyante!"
Marie was clever at fortune-telling, indulging in a light irony
that amused the crowd. She told old Brunot, the miser, that he
would lose all his money, marry a girl of sixteen, and live happily
on a crust. Sholte, the fat Russian boy, who lived for his stomach,
was to be disappointed in love, grow thin, and shoot himself from
despondency. Amedee was to have twenty children, and nineteen of
them were to be girls. Amedee slapped Frank on the back and asked
him why he didn't see what the fortune-teller would promise him.
But Frank shook off his friendly hand and grunted, "She tell my
fortune long ago; bad enough!" Then he withdrew to a corner and
sat glowering at his wife.
Frank's case was all the more painful because he had no one
in particular to fix his jealousy upon. Sometimes he could have
thanked the man who would bring him evidence against his wife.
He had discharged a good farm-boy, Jan Smirka, because he thought
Marie was fond of him; but she had not seemed to miss Jan when
he was gone, and she had been just as kind to the next boy. The
farm-hands would always do anything for Marie; Frank couldn't find
one so surly that he would not make an effort to please her. At
the bottom of his heart Frank knew well enough that if he could once
give up his grudge, his wife would come back to him. But he could
never in the world do that. The grudge was fundamental. Perhaps
he could not have given it up if he had tried. Perhaps he got more
satisfaction out of feeling himself abused than he would have got
out of being loved. If he could once have made Marie thoroughly
unhappy, he might have relented and raised her from the dust. But
she had never humbled herself. In the first days of their love
she had been his slave; she had admired him abandonedly. But the
moment he began to bully her and to be unjust, she began to draw
away; at first in tearful amazement, then in quiet, unspoken disgust.
The distance between them had widened and hardened. It no longer
contracted and brought them suddenly together. The spark of her
life went somewhere else, and he was always watching to surprise
it. He knew that somewhere she must get a feeling to live upon,
for she was not a woman who could live without loving. He wanted
to prove to himself the wrong he felt. What did she hide in her
heart? Where did it go? Even Frank had his churlish delicacies;
he never reminded her of how much she had once loved him. For that
Marie was grateful to him.
While Marie was chattering to the French boys, Amedee called Emil
to the back of the room and whispered to him that they were going
to play a joke on the girls. At eleven o'clock, Amedee was to go
up to the switchboard in the vestibule and turn off the electric
lights, and every boy would have a chance to kiss his sweetheart
before Father Duchesne could find his way up the stairs to turn the
current on again. The only difficulty was the candle in Marie's
tent; perhaps, as Emil had no sweetheart, he would oblige the boys
by blowing out the candle. Emil said he would undertake to do
that.
At five minutes to eleven he sauntered up to Marie's booth, and
the French boys dispersed to find their girls. He leaned over the
card-table and gave himself up to looking at her. "Do you think
you could tell my fortune?" he murmured. It was the first word he
had had alone with her for almost a year. "My luck hasn't changed
any. It's just the same."
Marie had often wondered whether there was anyone else who could
look his thoughts to you as Emil could. To-night, when she met his
steady, powerful eyes, it was impossible not to feel the sweetness
of the dream he was dreaming; it reached her before she could shut
it out, and hid itself in her heart. She began to shuffle her
cards furiously. "I'm angry with you, Emil," she broke out with
petulance. "Why did you give them that lovely blue stone to sell?
You might have known Frank wouldn't buy it for me, and I wanted it
awfully!"
Emil laughed shortly. "People who want such little things surely
ought to have them," he said dryly. He thrust his hand into the
pocket of his velvet trousers and brought out a handful of uncut
turquoises, as big as marbles. Leaning over the table he dropped
them into her lap. "There, will those do? Be careful, don't let
any one see them. Now, I suppose you want me to go away and let
you play with them?"
Marie was gazing in rapture at the soft blue color of the stones.
"Oh, Emil! Is everything down there beautiful like these? How
could you ever come away?"
At that instant Amedee laid hands on the switchboard. There was a
shiver and a giggle, and every one looked toward the red blur that
Marie's candle made in the dark. Immediately that, too, was gone.
Little shrieks and currents of soft laughter ran up and down the
dark hall. Marie started up,--directly into Emil's arms. In the
same instant she felt his lips. The veil that had hung uncertainly
between them for so long was dissolved. Before she knew what she
was doing, she had committed herself to that kiss that was at once
a boy's and a man's, as timid as it was tender; so like Emil and
so unlike any one else in the world. Not until it was over did
she realize what it meant. And Emil, who had so often imagined
the shock of this first kiss, was surprised at its gentleness and
naturalness. It was like a sigh which they had breathed together;
almost sorrowful, as if each were afraid of wakening something in
the other.
When the lights came on again, everybody was laughing and shouting,
and all the French girls were rosy and shining with mirth. Only
Marie, in her little tent of shawls, was pale and quiet. Under her
yellow turban the red coral pendants swung against white cheeks.
Frank was still staring at her, but he seemed to see nothing. Years
ago, he himself had had the power to take the blood from her cheeks
like that. Perhaps he did not remember--perhaps he had never
noticed! Emil was already at the other end of the hall, walking
about with the shoulder-motion he had acquired among the Mexicans,
studying the floor with his intent, deep-set eyes. Marie began to
take down and fold her shawls. She did not glance up again. The
young people drifted to the other end of the hall where the guitar
was sounding. In a moment she heard Emil and Raoul singing:--
"Across the Rio Grand-e There lies a sunny land-e, My bright-eyed
Mexico!"
Alexandra Bergson came up to the card booth. "Let me help you,
Marie. You look tired."
She placed her hand on Marie's arm and felt her shiver. Marie
stiffened under that kind, calm hand. Alexandra drew back, perplexed
and hurt.
There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the
fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot
feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy
of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain. _
Read next: PART IV - The White Mulberry Tree: Chapter 2
Read previous: PART III - Winter Memories: Chapter 2
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