Pamela Morsi (24 page)

Armand nodded slowly, but his gaze narrowed.
"Yes, it is what you said, but you are unable to look me in the eye
when you say it."

Aida swallowed, but determinedly raised her
chin to face him. "You may be a great friend to the priest," she
said sarcastically. "But it is Father Denis who is my confessor and
not yourself."

He looked away from her then. Clearly still
angry.

Aida was writhing in her own embarrassment,
but couldn't quite fathom from where his displeasure came. It was
impossible, she was sure, for him to believe that she cared about
him. Why, she wasn't even certain herself that it was true. Still
he was decidedly angry about something. Unhappily Aida surmised
that she was just too silly to understand what.

In Madame Landry's lap, the children
continued their happy exuberant singing. Thankfully it kept away
the sullen silence that surrounded the young couple at the other
end of the pirogue. Aida thought once again of the dream that was,
of course, not a dream. Perhaps she should tell him now. It might
serve to diffuse his anger and it would certainly change the
subject from why and whom she loved.

"I had a very strange dream the other night,"
she said, leaning toward him slightly. "I need to tell you about
it."

"A dream?" He appeared momentarily
disconcerted. "Madame Landry sometimes interprets dreams, perhaps
you should tell her."

"No, no," Aida said with certainty. "I must
tell you because you were in the dream. There was something about
it that was very important, I think."

Armand shrugged with unconcern. "It is
nothing, I'm sure. I've always thought most dreams to be just too
much coffee after supper."

"This one was not coffee. In fact, it was not
a dream, not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I was not asleep when it
happened."

Armand's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "You
weren't asleep?"

Aida shook her head and cast a hasty glance
in Orva Landry's direction before answering. "I was washing
dishes," she said quietly. "I ... I was washing dishes and a ... a
feeling came over me. I had a . . . well, a vision." The last was
spoken with a low whisper.

"A vision?" Armand was incredulous.
"Mademoiselle Gaudet, this attempt at being traiteur has gotten
out of hand. Madame Landry has visions, you do not."

Aida was stung by his dismissal.

"It was a vision. I did not ask for it and I
did not want it, but I got it all the same. And there is something
in it that I am supposed to relate to you."

"Mademoiselle Gaudet, I don't think—"

"Just listen," she told him. Deliberately she
took a deep breath and tried, as best she could, to convey the
importance and urgency she'd felt in her dream.

"I saw Laron cutting a field," she said. "But
there was no grain there to cut. It had all been shorn and was
lying in wait to be gathered."

Armand's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he
considered her words.

"I wanted to tell him that he should put away
the scythe and gather up what was on the ground," she said. "But it
was as if I was not there. He could not see or hear me."

Aida regarded Armand steadily. "You rode up
on a big chestnut horse."

She hesitated momentarily. Somehow she didn't
want to describe how handsome and noble he had appeared. In her
memory he seemed strong and brave and infinitely hers. She was not
willing to share that.

"You began talking to him," she said. "Trying
to get him to stop scything at nothing. You continued to intone
him, argue with him, plead with him, but you never once pointed out
that the grain lay cut on the ground. Somehow I know that if he
realized that it was already cut, he would go on about gathering it
up."

There was silence between them for a long
minute. Finally Armand pushed his hat back slightly, using his
sleeve to wipe the sweat that had inexplicably gathered there in
the cool morning.

"I don't believe for a moment," he said,
"that this was a vision. But whatever it was, it seems easy enough
to interpret."

Aida swallowed hard and forced herself to
look up at him questioningly. "And how do you interpret it?" she
asked tartly.

"Well," he answered. "It is obviously about
the broken betrothal. The German widow is the grain that Laron is
trying to cut. He needs a wife and he is trying to find one. But
that woman is already married. She is not available to him. You
are the cut grain already shorn and waiting to be gathered up."

"What were you telling him then?" she
asked.

"The same thing that I am telling you. The
marriage between you two is the right thing and the sooner you go
through with it, the better it will be for everyone concerned."

Aida considered his words for a long
minute.

"That isn't what it means," she said
finally.

Armand was immediately annoyed. "If that is
not it, then what does it mean?" he asked, annoyed.

"I'm not sure. But I believe that you have
spoken too quickly. Perhaps if you think about it longer, you will
see some meaning more plausible."

"I think the meaning I have come up with is
more than plausible," he said. "You must marry Laron Boudreau. It
is exactly what you are meant to do."

"I will not do that," she stated flatly. "I
do not love him."

"But you should, Mademoiselle Gaudet," he
said. "You should."

She looked at him askance. "Do you believe,
monsieur, that a person can force such a feeling?"

"I am not trying to tell you where to love,"
Armand said firmly. "I do suppose that is something

that is out of a person's control. But I do
think that a person, a man or woman, can decide on the simple
things, the very important things, that could ensure or deny
happiness. Those elements that they will and will not accept."

"What do you mean?"

"Well . . . like the prospective mate has a
nasty temper or ... or that he doesn't like children."

She scoffed. "I can't imagine many women
falling in love with a nasty-tempered man who doesn't like
children."

"Of course not, but you see my meaning.
Standards are set."

"And you believe that Laron Boudreau and I
would meet the standards of each other?"

"Perfectly," Armand answered. "He will be a
handsome, generous, supportive husband. What more could you
want?"

"And for him?"

"You are . . . well, you are not married to
someone else," he said.

Aida thought it was very little to recommend
a woman.

"Have you set standards, monsieur?" she
asked.

"Certainly I have."

"What kind?" Her question was more than idle
curiosity.

"Hmmm." Armand was thoughtful for a long
moment. "The woman I wed doesn't have to be pretty," he said. "But
I would be pleased if she had some attractive aspect. Nice eyes or
soft hair or something that I would feel drawn to."

"All women have some desirable feature," Aida
pointed out.

He nodded. "Yes, I think you're probably
right. I'd also like to be able to talk to her. She doesn't have to
be a keen wit or a brilliant thinker, but I would want her to have
an opinion."

"Still that is nothing," Aida said. "Even I
have an opinion. Is there nothing else?"

"Naturally she would have to be small."

"Small?"

"Yes, shorter than I. Certainly I would never
consider a marriage to a woman who was taller than me."

"That's silly."

"It is not."

"It is. It's the most ridiculous idea I've
ever heard."

"Then you don't often listen, mamselle.
Everyone in the parish agrees with me. People are always suggesting
to me young female relatives and acquaintances that are small in
stature. It is accepted that the husband should be taller than the
wife."

"I thought you could read both the law and
the Bible?"

Armand eyed her curiously. "I can," he
said.

"Is that written either place?"

"Of course not, but—"

"I know that I am not very bright, monsieur,"
she interrupted. "But if I were to love someone . . ." Her voice
became soft, almost dreamy as she spoke. "If I were to love
someone, I would let nothing that anybody thought or said dissuade
me from my lover."

Armand's eyes widened in genuine concern.
"But a person must always listen to their friends, their relatives,
the people of their community."

"And why must I do that?" she asked. "A
marriage

is between two people, a man and a woman. No
one else must live day by day for the rest of time with that
person. So no one else should have a say in it."

"So you would go against your family, your
friends, your people?" His tone was angry, disapproving.

Aida Gaudet looked up at him, standing in the
pirogue. Her chin was high and her words determined.

"For the man I love, monsieur, I would go
against God Himself."

Armand was nearly shaking from the import of
Aida's words. For the man she loved, she would go against God
Himself. Certainly she was preparing her conscience for the break
with church and community and family. She might not even realize it
yet herself, but she was preparing to break up his brother's
marriage and bring pain and misery upon all of them.

He glanced over at Gaston and Marie, still
happy and contented in Madame Landry's lap. Earlier he had seen
Aida hold the little girl tenderly in her arms. How could a woman
do that? Be gentle with a child whose life she planned to ruin?

"Take this stream right here," Orva Landry
ordered, breaking into Armand's thoughts.

"Bayou Tortue?" He looked at the old woman
questioningly.

"Yes, this way," she said, indicating the
narrow waterway named for its abundance of turtles.

"Madame Landry," Armand spoke up sternly.
"You have no business up there."

Orva gave him a long, deliberate stare,
nearly cool enough to frost his eyelashes.

"Bayou Tortue, young man. There is a person
up that way with whom I must speak."

He hesitated only a moment, casting a quick
glance at Aida, who was wide-eyed. Madame Landry was going to speak
to the German widow. The prospect did not please him. Then he
thought once more of Mademoiselle Gaudet's strange vision. Perhaps
the old woman, too, had a plan to tell Aida that she must marry
Laron.

With mild trepidation, Armand guided the
pirogue into the turn and began the more laborious task of poling
it and five people upstream.

The bayou was much narrower than the river,
and the huge cypress and stately tupelos shaded the water so that
it felt chill and dark. The verdant duckweed and water lettuce was
thick and surrounded the boat like an unimpeded effluvium. Armand
had been up this way, hunting and fishing many times in the past.
The pervasive feeling of the place had never been as it was now. It
was as if there were a sadness that seeped even from the
vegetation.

"Something must be done” Orva said aloud,
breaking the strange silence that had settled upon them. "Something
must be done and soon."

Armand's pirogue covered the stretch between
the river and the German widow's settlement in good time. The
occupants of the boat, including the children, kept quiet and
watchful until the small, well-worn cypress landing came into
view.

"Look! It's a boy!" Gaston exclaimed as he
spotted Helga Shotz's youngest handfishing from the end of the dock
with a length of cotton cord.

The little boy looked up, his eyes curious
and a little wary.

"Bonjour!" he called out to them. The sound
of his French, as familiar as their own, was in stark contrast to
his appearance. He was as blond as a human could be, the fairness
of his hair and eyebrows almost the exact color of his skin. And he
was dressed in the German fashion of very short wide-legged pants
of homespun with shoulder galluses bibbed together with a block of
the same material. He was small and strange and very foreign, but
he appeared eager and friendly.

"Bonjour," Armand called back.

"Put the boat in," Orva told him. "I wish to
disembark."

With some skill Armand eased the pirogue next
to the boat. Gaston threw the rope out to the boy and he attempted
ineffectually to tie it to the pillar.

A young girl came rushing down the dock. Her
long blond braids were as thick as sweetgum saplings.

"Let me do it," she told the little one
without criticism. She easily pulled through the good knots,
without requiring the help of Armand, who had set the pole firmly
in the bayou floor and bounded onto the cypress to assist.

"Good morning," he said formally to the
newcomer and her brother. "I am Armand Sonnier. This is Madame
Landry, Mademoiselle Gaudet, and my niece and nephew, Marie and
Gaston."

The young girl gave a credible curtsy,
nodding. "I am Elsa Shotz and this is my brother Jakob. Welcome to
our home." Her smile was sweet and winning. "I have heard of you,
monsieur," she said. "I have heard of all of you. You are
acquaintances of our friend Monsieur Boudreau."

"He's not our friend” the little boy argued.
"He is our uncle."

The little girl's cheeks flushed with
embarrassment and she opened her mouth to dispute her brother's
words, but Armand forestalled her.

"Indeed?" he said, sounding delighted.
"Monsieur Boudreau is as well a cousin to Madame Landry, who is
also my godmother. So it seems we are all almost family."

Armand deliberately avoided any mention of
what his friend's relationship with Mademoiselle Gaudet might
be.

More might have been said had not, at that
moment, Helga Shotz stepped out on her porch. Her threadbare
workdress was scrupulously clean, her hair exceptionally tidy, and
her face as white as death.

"Has something happened?" she asked
anxiously. "Has something happened to Laron?"