The Mothers of Honoré | Page 4

their inherited diplomacy. But as steadily as the waters set like a strong tide through the strait, in spite of wind which combed them to ridging foam, the rapid courtship of age went on.
In carrying laundered clothing through the village street, Melinda Crée was carefully chaperoned by her granddaughter, and Honoré kept Jules under orders in the boat. But of early mornings and late twilights there was no restraining the twittering widower.
"Melinda 'tend to her work and is behave if Jules let her alone," Clethera reported to Honoré. "But he slip around de garden and talk over de back fence, and he is by de ironing-board de minute my back is turn'! If he belong to me, I could 'mos' whip him!"
"Jules McCarty," declared Honoré, with some bitterness, "when he fix his min' to marry some more, he is not turn' if he is hexcommunicate'!"
Jules, indeed, became so bold that he crowded across the stile through the very conferences of the pair united to prevent him; and his loud voice could be heard beside Melinda's ironing-board, proclaiming in the manner of a callow young suitor.
"Some peop' like separate us, Melinda, but we not let them."
The conflict of Honoré and Clethera with Jules and Melinda ended one day in August. There had been no domestic clamor in this silent grapple of forces. The young man used no argument except maxims and morals and a tightening of authority; the young girl permitted neither neighboring maids nor the duties of religion to lure her off guard. It may be said of any French half-breed that he has all the instincts of gentility except an inclination to lying, and that arises from excessive politeness.
Honoré came to the fence at noon and called Clethera. In his excitement he crossed the stile and stood on her premises.
"It no use, Clethera. Jules have tell me this morning he have arrange' de marriage."
Clethera glanced behind her at the house she called home, and threw herself in Honoré's arms, as she had often done in childish despairs. Neither misunderstood the action, and it relieved them to shed a few tears on each other's necks. This truly Latin outburst being over, they stood apart and wiped their eyes on their sleeves.
"It no use," exclaimed Clethera, "to set a good examp' to your grandmother!"
"I not wait any longer now," announced Honoré, giving rein to fierce eagerness. "I go to de war to-day."
"But de camp is move'," objected Clethera.
"I have pass' de examin', and I know de man to go to when I am ready; he promis' to get me into de war. Jules have de sails up now, ready to take me across to de train."
"But who will have de boat when you are gone, Honoré?"
"Jules. And he bring Melinda to de house."
"She not come. She not leave her own house. She take her 'usban' in."
"Then Jules must rent de house. You not detest poor Jules?"
"I not detest him like de hudder one."
"Au 'voir, Clethera."
"Au 'voir, Honoré."
They shook hands, the young man wringing him-self away with the animation of one who goes, the girl standing in the dull anxiety of one who stays. War, so remote that she had heard of it indifferently, rushed suddenly from the tropics over the island.
"Are your clothes all mend' and ready, Honoré?"
But what thought can a young man give to his clothes when about to wrap himself in glory? He is politely tapping at the shed window of the Indian woman, and touching his cap in farewell and gallant capitulation, and with long-limbed sweeping haste, unusual in a quarter-breed, he is gone to the docks, with a bundle under one arm, waving his hand as he passes. All the women and children along the street would turn out to see him go to the war if his intention were known, and even summer idlers about the bazars would look at him with new interest.
Clethera could not imagine the moist and horrid heat of those southern latitudes into which Honoré departed to throw himself. Shifting mists on the lake rim were no vaguer than her conception of her country's mighty undertaking. But she could feel; and the life she had lived to that day was wrenched up by the roots, leaving her as with a bleeding socket.
All afternoon she drenched herself with soapsuds in the ferocity of her washing. By the time Jules returned with the boat, the lake was black as ink under a storm cloud, with glints of steel; a dull bar stretched diagonally across the water. Beyond that a whitening of rain showed against the horizon. Points of cedars on the opposite island pricked a sullen sky.
Clethera's tubs were under the trees. She paid no attention to what befell her, or to her grandmother, who called her out of the rain. It came