Lazarre | Page 8

adorn it. You felt glad that nothing shaded the
benevolence of his all-over forehead. By contrast he emphasized the
sullenness of my father; yet when occasion had pressed there never was
a readier hand than Skenedonk's to kill.
I tossed the cover back to spring out of bed with a whoop. But a woman
in a high cap with ribbons hanging down to her heels, and a dress short
enough to show her shoes, stepped into the room and made a courtesy.
Her face fell easily into creases when she talked, and gave you the
feeling that it was too soft of flesh. Indeed, her eyes were cushioned all
around. She spoke and Skenedonk answered her in French. The
meaning of every word broke through my mind as fire breaks through
paper.
"Madame de Ferrier sent me to inquire how the young gentleman is."

Skenedonk lessened the rims around his eyes. My father grunted.
"Did Madame de Ferrier say 'the young gentleman?'" Skenedonk
inquired.
"I was told to inquire. I am her servant Ernestine," said the woman, her
face creased with the anxiety of responding to questions.
"Tell Madame de Ferrier that the young gentleman is much better, and
will go home to the lodges to-day."
"She said I was to wait upon him, and give him his breakfast under the
doctor's direction."
"Say with thanks to Madame de Ferrier that I wait upon him."
Ernestine again courtesied, and made way for Doctor Chantry. He came
in quite good natured, and greeted all of us, his inferiors, with a
humility I then thought touching, but learned afterwards to distrust. My
head already felt the healing blood, and I was ravenous for food. He
bound it with fresh bandages, and opened a box full of glittering knives,
taking out a small sheath. From this he made a point of steel spring like
lightning.
"We will bring the wholesome lancet again into play, my lad," said
Doctor Chantry. I waited in uncertainty with my feet on the floor and
my hands on the side of the couch, while he carefully removed coat and
waistcoat and turned up his sleeves.
"Ernestine, bring the basin," he commanded.
My father may have thought the doctor was about to inflict a vicarious
puncture on himself. Skenedonk, with respect for civilized surgery,
waited. I did not wait. The operator bared me to the elbow and showed
a piece of plaster already sticking on my arm. The conviction of being
outraged in my person came upon me mightily, and snatching the
wholesome lancet I turned its spring upon the doctor. He yelled. I
leaped through the door like a deer, and ran barefooted, the loose robe

curdling above my knees. I had the fleetest foot among the Indian
racers, and was going to throw the garment away for the pure joy of
feeling the air slide past my naked body, when I saw the girl and
poppet baby who had looked at me during my first consciousness. They
were sitting on a blanket under the trees of De Chaumont's park, which
deepened into wilderness.
The baby put up a lip, and the girl surrounded it with her arm, dividing
her sympathy with me. I must have been a charming object. Though
ravenous for food and broken-headed, I forgot my state, and turned off
the road of escape to stare at her like a tame deer.
She lowered her eyes wisely, and I got near enough without taking
fright to see a book spread open on the blanket, showing two
illuminated pages. Something parted in me. I saw my mother, as I had
seen her in some past life:--not Marianne the Mohawk, wife of Thomas
Williams, but a fair oval-faced mother with arched brows. I saw even
her pointed waist and puffed skirts, and the lace around her open neck.
She held the book in her hands and read to me from it.
I dropped on my knees and stretched my arms above my head, crying
aloud as women cry with gasps and chokings in sudden bereavement.
Nebulous memories twisted all around me and I could grasp nothing. I
raged for what had been mine--for some high estate out of which I had
fallen into degradation. I clawed the ground in what must have seemed
convulsions to the girl. Her poppet cried and she hushed it.
"Give me my mother's book!" I strangled out of the depths of my throat;
and repeated, as if torn by a devil--"Give me my mother's book!"
She blanched so white that her lips looked seared, and instead of
disputing my claim, or inquiring about my mother, or telling me to
begone, she was up on her feet. Taking her dress in her finger tips and
settling back almost to the ground in the most beautiful