Читать книгу Early Candlelight - Maud Hart Lovelace - Страница 16

IN one end of her long kitchen, under the westerly windows, Mme. Elmire kept a narrow little sofa. It was a convenient little sofa where she could nap with an eye on the dogs, a nose for the soup kettle, and an ear to M’sieu Page’s summons. She kept a wool couvre-pied, knitted in rainbow stripes, folded in readiness over its back, and often dropped down without removing her cap.

It was on this sofa, tucked under the couvre-pied, that the glory of her situation dawned on Deedee. Andy was all right. M’sieu Page himself had gone to him. For her own part she was rested, she was warm. Lifting her head to investigate the warmness, she discovered a great open fire. She lifted herself further, on one arm. A wet snow had begun, and the many-paned windows did not frame familiarity but were blanks of white. The kitchen, with its glowing fire, its rag rugs, its burnished pewter utensils, and Mme. Elmire stirring something in a kettle, was like a scene from one of Fronchet’s stories, foreign and mysterious.

“Mme. Elmire!”

“Yes, my child.”

“Do you suppose,” asked Deedee in the politest French Fronachet had taught her, “that I might look into M’sieu Page’s parlor?”

“Perhaps. If you wait until I can leave the pilau.”

Mme. Elmire would not by too ready a consent lessen the value of the privilege. Deedee dropped back to stare at the ceiling in bliss.

“M’sieu Page,” said Mme. Elmire, stirring slowly, “said that you were to stay here to dinner.”

“Truly?” cried Deedee. She sat up again, throwing back the couvre-pied. “Truly?”

“Yes, truly,” said Mme. Elmire.

She was an awesome figure as she stirred. This was not the small, plump, garrulous one who drank crust coffee in the DuGay cabin. Perhaps the starched mob cap made the difference? Perhaps the snowy apron? Perhaps the important little movements that she made as she stirred and sniffed and ground up pepper?

“I will set a table for you and me here by the fire,” she said.

When she had set the table, she opened a wash stand and told Deedee to wash. Deedee marveled silently at the china bowl and pitcher, at the fine white towel. She scrubbed with a will, although she had learned that the brown never came off. She shook out her loosened braids of shining, straight brown hair and rebraided them tightly, tying the red rags at the ends.

Mme. Elmire approved her with a nod. She was fond of the DuGay daughter, so bright-eyed and long-legged, so quiet even now, when most children would have been squealing. She offered her hand, and Deedee took it in a tight warm clasp as they passed into the next room.

A carpet oozed up between bare toes. But one had no time to examine the sensation. Heavens, what was this? Hunters in red coats galloped over the walls, foxes died and horns blew. At least, horns ought to be blowing; one could see the puffed cheeks of the blowers. Of course, Deedee told herself in an effort to be calm, this was just the paper of which she had heard. But she had not known it would be like this—covered with pictures. “I wish the boys could see it,” she said in a strained voice.

The red of the hunters’ coats was repeated in damask curtains. Below the paper ran gray painted wood, and a cupboard of this color, built into a corner, was filled with brightly patterned dishes. There was a long polished table, of the mahogany, said Mme. Elmire, inlaid with satinwood. It matched the slender-legged chairs, with their seats of shining horsehair, and the sideboard, which bore a decanter full of wine and two cut glass water jugs.

“And where,” asked Deedee tremulously, “where is the harpsichord?”

“In the parlor, naturally.”

“But what is this, then?”

“The dining room. This is where he eats.”

A room just for eating!

But the dining room was as nothing to the parlor which lay beyond. Deedee’s ecstasy almost overwhelmed her as they passed into that. And when Mme. Elmire released her hand suddenly, murmuring that she would set the pilau off the fire, Deedee was of half a mind to follow. To be alone in such a parlor!

It stretched across the front of the house. At one end was an alcove with books in a fall-front desk. At the other an open door showed a hall with stately stairs climbing. There were three windows which should have disclosed the walls and towers of Snelling—Jasper Page had placed his house to look up at the fort, its only companion in polite society, but these windows to-day were veiled in snow, shutting Deedee into strangeness. A strangeness of papered walls with urns and wreaths of flowers strewn upon them. A strangeness of striped green damask festooning the windows and covering also the chairs, footstools and sofas. There were mirrors to reflect it all. Deedee’s eyes grew bigger and browner.

She tiptoed across to the harpsichord. It had been swathed in brown sacking when she had seen it at the landing. Now it stood revealed in glory, a mountain scene painted on its top. She tiptoed back to the mantel. The gilded clock was flanked by two small china men. With another passionate wish for her brothers, Deedee identified them: George Washington and Lafayette. She looked up to the ceiling. A shower of crystal drops concealed a circle of tall white candles. She had never seen such candles. She was staring up at them, entranced, when the outer door swung open and M’sieu Page came in with Mrs. Boles.

They were powdered with snow and both of them were laughing. M’sieu Page’s laugh made him momentarily lose majesty, brought him surprisingly to an age with Narcisse. Mrs. Boles’ cheeks were as pink as her pink velvet bonnet, overladen with plumes. A short fur cape was laid about her wide sleeves, and she carried a tiny muff. Her small silken slippers were wet with snow.

“Such slippers!” M’sieu Page was saying as they came in. “Mowrie ought to forbid them.”

Eva Boles looked down at her feet and her expression changed. “Does he even know I wear them?” she asked bitterly.

Deedee swiftly memorized the scrap of conversation. It wasn’t exactly clear, but she could ponder it later.

M’sieu Page caught sight of her and crossed the room quickly. “Andy is all right, my dear. Mrs. Boles was with him, and had the blood staunched when I arrived. I bandaged him a bit, and now he’s fit as a fiddle. I thought she’d better have a look at you, too.”

“I’m all right, thank you, sir,” answered Deedee, stiffening. In spite of the kindness in M’sieu Page’s eyes, she felt a roll of anger like thick dark smoke. Mrs. Boles had not cared about Andy, no matter what she had done.

“I’m glad,” said Mrs. Boles, smiling at her. Yet she knew, Deedee thought, that she was disliked.

“You’re looking much better,” said Jasper Page. He turned up her face with his hand. “See here, I don’t even know your name.”

“Delia,” said Deedee.

“You’re staying to dinner, aren’t you, Delia?”

“Yes, sir.”

He swung about, looking youthfully pleased with himself. “Well, I think that Mrs. Boles had better stay to chaperone you.”

Chaperone! There was a word with which one must make acquaintance at the earliest opportunity. Whatever it meant, to chaperone, Mrs. Boles liked to do it.

“Really, Mr. Page, I couldn’t, I’m afraid.”

But M’sieu Page’s spirits carried everything before them. “Nonsense,” he said, taking out his big watch. “It’s three o’clock. When you come to my house on an errand of mercy at precisely the dinner hour, you may surely eat some dinner.” He crossed the room and pulled a cord, setting a bell ringing.

“Mrs. Boles and Delia are taking dinner with me,” he told Mme. Elmire.

Mme. Elmire shot a startled look at Deedee. “I have a table set for the little one in the kitchen with me, m’sieu,” she ventured.

“No,” said M’sieu Page. “She’ll eat in the dining room.”

M’sieu Page excused himself. He wouldn’t dress, he said, but he would like to brush up. Mme. Elmire took the cape and muff and bonnet, and Mrs. Boles went to the nearest mirror, a gilded mirror with the American eagle spreading its wings at the top. Deedee watched silently, her brown feet planted a hostile space apart.

Mrs. Boles had light green eyes, round cheeks which one longed to touch with one’s finger, and a mouth like a sweet prim posy. She had fair hair, twisted high on her head in the fashionable bowknot. The trying lines of this were not much softened by the small cap nestling at its base, or the bunches of little curls hanging at her temples. But she was pretty enough to overcome even a bowknot. She was very pretty.

And this prettiness, Deedee discovered, lay partly in her neatness. Every hair of her head, every ribbon of her cap, every fold of her striped silk dress, lay in its place. Her fichu was the whitest thing Deedee had ever seen, and it crossed precisely at the buckle of her belt. Although she was already perfect, she continued to work before the mirror. She reset the pins of her hair with the most absorbed attention. She picked out her great sleeves, which extended like wings on their hidden cushions, amusingly emphasizing the smallness of her waist. She shook out her dainty ankle-length skirts, and reached into her reticule for a large, fine, snowy handkerchief at which she sniffed critically.

“I think you could enjoy looking at the books,” she said, noting the child’s scrutiny.

Books meant nothing to Deedee, but she went and stood before them. In a few minutes M’sieu Page returned. He was still in buckskins, but his cheeks were ruddy from cold water, his light hair and whiskers smoothly brushed. The Canadian men at the Entry wore beards which concealed all of their faces but their teeth and eyes. M’sieu Page’s fresh and handsome countenance held Deedee’s gaze. But M’sieu Page, with out regarding her, went straight to Mrs. Boles.

They talked together in low but perfectly audible tones. Mrs. Boles said, “I’ve been wanting to speak to you alone. I don’t know what to do. He drinks continually.”

M’sieu Page answered in a troubled voice that the frontier was hard on a man.

“It isn’t hard on you,” said Eva Boles, looking up at him with her pretty light green eyes. She sighed. “I wish that the Major had your ideas.”

“See here,” protested Jasper Page, embarrassed, “Mowrie’s a splendid chap. No doubt he has his own ideas. And he has you.”

“Yes,” said Eva Boles. “He has me.” Her tone added, “And much he cares.” She took out her handkerchief.

M’sieu Page jumped up and walked over to Deedee.

Deedee was sorry for him. “I know my letters,” she offered briskly. She was the only child she knew who had this accomplishment, and she thought it interesting. She lifted down a brown leather-bound volume and opened it in the middle. But to her discomfiture, the letters on the page were unfamiliar. She looked at M’sieu Page.

He said consolingly, “That book is written in Greek, Delia. These are mostly in Greek and Latin. But there are some in French, and a few in English.” He turned to Mrs. Boles. “May I lend you something to read?”

“No, thank you. I’m not at all clever, you know.”

“I’ve Cooper and Scott, and Miss Sedgwick?”

“I don’t read novels,” she answered, smiling gently.

“Poetry? Here is Lord Byron.”

She did not answer. She merely turned her head away in the meekest of rebukes.

“Perhaps he isn’t exactly a lady’s poet,” said Jasper Page amusedly.

Mme. Elmire came in to announce dinner. Her black eyes snapped at Deedee’s toes. Deedee found that funny, and her mouth began to curve into its smile. Since M’sieu Page and Mrs. Boles had come, she had been too perplexed to be happy, but now she remembered her bliss.

Sitting at the white and glittering table, she recaptured it completely. With shining eyes but with her usual slow, unhurried manner, she examined the two-tined silver fork. She held her red goblet up to the light to see the world turn rosy. She studied the picture of a farmyard on her plate.

Mme. Elmire gave them each a bowl of soup. It was good soup, and Deedee was enjoying hers when she noticed a pause in the conversation going on between her elders. She looked up to find them smiling at her. What was the matter, she wondered, putting down her spoon? After a moment they continued to eat; observing them, she discovered that they gave none of the noisy smacks of enjoyment which accompanied a meal in the DuGay cabin. Well, then, neither would she. It wasn’t so hard to take soup quietly.

They resumed their conversation. Slowly it came to Deedee that Mowrie was Major Boles. Major Boles was a favorite with the children. He threw potatoes into the air and shot them as they fell, to display his prowess for their delight.

Mrs. Boles was saying, “He goes off with Captain Frenshaw . . .”

That reminded Deedee. “Has the baby come?” she inquired, lifting concerned eyes.

Mrs. Boles put down her spoon. She turned her head away.

“You mean,” asked M’sieu Page, growing red, “Mrs. Frenshaw?”

“Mrs. Frenshaw’s baby. Ma was with her, you know. She was hollering pretty bad when I was there.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said gravely. “No, there’s no news.”

Mme. Elmire came in and took out the empty soup plates. Deedee started to help her, but M’sieu Page said, “Wait a minute, Delia. We’re going to have pilau.”

He started to talk about the birds he had shot the day before. They were partridges, and Mme. Elmire always cooked them in a pilau. Gradually Mrs. Boles brought her face around to the table.

The pilau was followed by crackers and tea. Deedee wondered why it had not all been placed on the table at once. But she wondered more why Mrs. Boles had acted so about Mrs. Frenshaw. Finally she took advantage of a pause to state slowly, “You were there when she hollered.”

Mrs. Boles put up her handkerchief as though she were about to swoon. “Mr. Page,” she said faintly, “really . . .”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Boles,” said M’sieu Page, and putting down the saucer from which he was elegantly sipping his tea, he threw back his handsome head and laughed aloud.