The Flower of the Chapdelaines. George Washington Cable
reminded him anew how definitely he had chosen not merely the simple but the solitary life. Yet now he turned toward Royal Street. But at the third or fourth step he faced about toward Chartres. The distance to the courthouse was the same either way, and its entrances were alike on both streets.
Thought he as he went the Chartres Street way: "If I go one more time by way of Royal I shall owe an abject apology, and yet to try to offer it would only make the matter worse."
He went grimly, glad to pay this homage of avoidance which would have been more to his credit paid a week or so earlier. His frequent failure to pay it had won him, each time, a glimpse of her and an itching fear that prying eyes were on him inside other balconied windows besides those of the unslender Mme. Castanado.
Temptation is a sly witch. Down at Conti Street, on the court-house's upper riverside corner, he paused to take in the charm of one of the most picturesque groups of old buildings in the vieux carré. But there, to gather in all the effect, one must turn, sooner or later, and include the upper side of Conti Street from Chartres to Royal; and as Chester did so, yonder, once more, coming from Bourbon and turning from Conti into Royal, there she was again, the avoided one!
Her black cupid was at her side, tiny even for nine years. They disappeared conversing together. With his heart in his throat Chester turned away, resumed his walk, and passed into the marble halls where justice dreamt she dwelt. Up and down one of these, little traversed so early, he paced, with a question burning in his breast, which every new sigh of mortification fanned hotter: Had she seen him?--this time? those other times? And did those Castanados suspect? Was that why Mme. Castanado had the grippe, and the manuscript was yet unread?
A voice spoke his name and he found himself facing the very black dealer in second-hand books.
"I was yonder at Toulouse Street," said Ovide Landry, "coming up-town, when I saw you at Conti coming down. I have another map of the old city for you. At that rate, Mr. Chester, you'll soon have as good a collection as the best."
The young man was pleased: "Does it show exactly where Maspero's Exchange stood?" he asked.
Ovide said come to the shop and see.
"I will, to-day; at six." Another man came up, "Ah, Mr. Castanado! How--how is your patient?"
"Madame"--the costumer smiled happily--"is once more well. I was looking for you. You didn't pass in Royal Street this morning."
[Ah, those eyes behind those windows behind those balconies!]
"No, I--oh! going, Landry? Good day. No, Mr. Castanado, I----"
"Madame hopes Mr. Chezter can at last, this evening, come at home for that reading."
"Mr. Castanado, I can't! I'm mighty sorry! My whole evening's engaged. So is to-morrow's. May I come the next evening after? … Thank you. … Yes, at seven. Just the three of us, of course? Yes."
III
Six o'clock found Chester in Ovide's bookshop.
Had its shelves borne law-books, or had he not needed for law-books all he dared spend, he might have known the surprisingly informed and refined shopman better. Ovide had long been a celebrity. Lately a brief summary of his career had appeared incidentally in a book, a book chiefly about others, white people. "You can't write a Southern book and keep us out," Ovide himself explained.
Even as it was, Chester had allowed himself that odd freedom with Landry which Southerners feel safe in under the plate armor of their race distinctions. Receiving his map he asked, as he looked along a shelf or two: "Have you that book that tells of you--as a slave? your master letting you educate yourself; your once refusing your freedom, and your being private secretary to two or three black lieutenant-governors?"
"I had a copy," Landry said, "but I've sold it. Where did you hear of it? From Réné Ducatel, in his antique-shop, whose folks 'tis mostly about?"
"Yes. An antique himself, in spirit, eh? Yet modern enough to praise you highly."
"H'mm! but only for the virtues of a slave."
Chester smiled round from the shelves: "I noticed that! I'm afraid we white folks, the world over, are prone to do that--with you-all."
"Yes, when you speak of us at all."
"Ducatel's opposite neighbor," Chester remarked, "is an antique even more interesting."
"Ah, yes! Castanado is antique only in that art spirit which the tourist trade is every day killing even in Royal Street."
"That's the worst decay in this whole decaying quarter," the young man said.
"And in all this deluge of trade spirit," Ovide continued, "the best dry land left of it--of that spirit of art--is----"
"Castanado's shop, I dare say."
"Castanado's and three others in that one square you pass every day without discovering the fact. But that's natural; you are a busy lawyer."
"Not so very. What are the other three?"
"First, the shop of Seraphine Alexandre, embroideries; then of Scipion Beloiseau, ornamental ironwork, opposite Mme. Seraphine and next below Ducatel--Ducatel, alas, he don't count; and third, of Placide La Porte, perfumeries, next to Beloiseau. That's all."
"Not the watchmaker on the square above?"
"Ah! distantly he's of them: and there was old Manouvrier, taxidermist; but he's gone--where the spirits of art and of worship are twin." Chester turned sharply again to the shelves and stood rigid. From an inner room, its glass door opened by Ovide's silver-spectacled wife, came the little black cupid and his charge. Ah, once more what perfection in how many points! As she returned to Ovide an old magazine, at last he heard her voice--singularly deep and serene. She thanked the bookman for his loan and, with the child, went out.
It disturbed the Southern youth to unbosom himself to a black man, but he saw no decent alternative: "Landry, I had not the faintest idea that that young lady was nearer than Castanado's shop!"
Ovide shook his head: "You seem yourself to forget that you are here by business appointment. And what of it if you have seen her, or she seen you, here--or anywhere?"
"Only this: that I've met her so often by pure--by chance, on that square you speak of, I bound for the court-house, she for I can't divine where--for I've never looked behind me!--that I've had to take another street to show I'm a gentleman. This very morn'--oh!--and now! here! How can I explain--or go unexplained?"
Ovide lifted a hand: "Will you leave that to my wife, so unlearned yet so wise and good? For the young lady's own sake my wife, without explaining, will see that you are not misjudged."
"Good! Right! Any explanation would simply belie itself. Yes, let her do it! But, Landry----"
"Yes?"
"For heaven's sake don't let her make me out a goody-goody. I haven't got this far into life without making moral mistakes, some of them huge. But in this thing--I say it only to you--I'm making none. I'm neither a marrying man, a villain, nor an ass."
Ovide smiled: "My wife can manage that. Maybe it's good you came here. It may well be that the young lady herself would be glad if some one explained her to you."
"Hoh! does an angel need an explanation?"
"I should say, in Royal Street, yes."
"Then for mercy's sake give it! right here! you! come!" The youth laughed. "Mercy to me, I mean. But--wait! Tell me; couldn't Castanado have given it, as easily as you?"
"You never gave Castanado this chance."
"How do you know that? Oh, never mind, go ahead--full speed."