"No, no; you are no trouble at all. Had you the yellow fever--ah! then!"
She rolled her eyes to signify the superlative character of the tribulations attending yellow fever.
"I had a lady and gentleman once--a Spanish lady and gentleman, just off the ship; both sick at once with the fever--delirious--could not tell their names. n.o.body to help me but sometimes Monsieur John! I never had such a time,--never before, never since,--as that time. Four days and nights this head touched not a pillow."
"And they died!" said Kristian Koppig.
"The third night the gentleman went. Poor Senor! "Sieur John,--he did not know the harm,--gave him some coffee and toast! The fourth night it rained and turned cool, and just before day the poor lady"--
"Died!" said Koppig.
Zalli dropped her arms listlessly into her lap and her eyes ran brimful.
"And left an infant!" said the Dutchman, ready to shout with exultation.
"Ah! no, Monsieur," said Zalli.
The invalid"s heart sank like a stone.
"Madame John,"--his voice was all in a tremor,--"tell me the truth. Is "t.i.te Poulette your own child?"
"Ah-h-h, ha! ha! what foolishness! Of course she is my child!" And Madame gave vent to a true Frenchwoman"s laugh.
It was too much for the sick man. In the pitiful weakness of his shattered nerves he turned his face into his pillow and wept like a child. Zalli pa.s.sed into the next room to hide her emotion.
"Maman, dear Maman," said "t.i.te Poulette, who had overheard nothing, but only saw the tears.
"Ah! my child, my child, my task--my task is too great--too great for me. Let me go now--another time. Go and watch at his bedside."
"But, Maman,"--for "t.i.te Poulette was frightened,--"he needs no care now."
"Nay, but go, my child; I wish to be alone."
The maiden stole in with averted eyes and tiptoed to the window--_that window_. The patient, already a man again, gazed at her till she could feel the gaze. He turned his eyes from her a moment to gather resolution. And now, stout heart, farewell; a word or two of friendly parting--nothing more.
""t.i.te Poulette."
The slender figure at the window turned and came to the bedside.
"I believe I owe my life to you," he said.
She looked down meekly, the color rising in her cheek.
"I must arrange to be moved across the street tomorrow, on a litter."
She did not stir or speak.
"And I must now thank you, sweet nurse, for your care. Sweet nurse!
Sweet nurse!"
She shook her head in protestation.
"Heaven bless you, "t.i.te Poulette!"
Her face sank lower.
"G.o.d has made you very beautiful, t.i.te Poulette!"
She stirred not. He reached, and gently took her little hand, and as he drew her one step nearer, a tear fell from her long lashes. From the next room, Zalli, with a face of agonized suspense, gazed upon the pair, undiscovered. The young man lifted the hand to lay it upon his lips, when, with a mild, firm force, it was drawn away, yet still rested in his own upon the bedside, like some weak thing snared, that could only not get free.
"Thou wilt not have my love, "t.i.te Poulette?"
No answer.
"Thou wilt not, beautiful?"
"Cannot!" was all that she could utter, and upon their clasped hands the tears ran down.
"Thou wrong"st me, "t.i.te Poulette. Thou dost not trust me; thou fearest the kiss may loosen the hands. But I tell thee nay. I have struggled hard, even to this hour, against Love, but I yield me now; I yield; I am his unconditioned prisoner forever. G.o.d forbid that I ask aught but that you will be my wife."
Still the maiden moved not, looked not up, only rained down tears.
"Shall it not be, "t.i.te Poulette?" He tried in vain to draw her.
""t.i.te Poulette?" So tenderly he called! And then she spoke.
"It is against the law."
"It is not!" cried Zalli, seizing her round the waist and dragging her forward. "Take her! she is thine. I have robbed G.o.d long enough. Here are the sworn papers--here! Take her; she is as white as snow--so! Take her, kiss her; Mary be praised! I never had a child--she is the Spaniard"s daughter!"
"SIEUR GEORGE.
In the heart of New Orleans stands a large four-story brick building, that has so stood for about three-quarters of a century. Its rooms are rented to a cla.s.s of persons occupying them simply for lack of activity to find better and cheaper quarters elsewhere. With its gray stucco peeling off in broad patches, it has a solemn look of gentility in rags, and stands, or, as it were, hangs, about the corner of two ancient streets, like a faded fop who pretends to be looking for employment.
Under its main archway is a dingy apothecary-shop. On one street is the bazaar of a _modiste en robes et chapeaux_ and other humble shops; on the other, the immense batten doors with gratings over the lintels, barred and bolted with ma.s.ses of cobwebbed iron, like the door of a donjon, are overhung by a creaking sign (left by the sheriff), on which is faintly discernible the mention of wines and liquors. A peep through one of the shops reveals a square court within, hung with many lines of wet clothes, its sides hugged by rotten staircases that seem vainly trying to clamber out of the rubbish.
The neighborhood is one long since given up to fifth-rate shops, whose masters and mistresses display such enticing mottoes as "_Au gagne pet.i.t!_" Innumerable children swarm about, and, by some charm of the place, are not run over, but obstruct the sidewalks playing their clamorous games.
The building is a thing of many windows, where pa.s.sably good-looking women appear and disappear, clad in cotton gowns, watering little outside shelves of flowers and cacti, or hanging canaries" cages. Their husbands are keepers in wine-warehouses, rent-collectors for the agents of old Frenchmen who have been laid up to dry in Paris, custom-house supernumeraries and court-clerks" deputies (for your second-rate Creole is a great seeker for little offices). A decaying cornice hangs over, dropping bits of mortar on pa.s.sers below, like a boy at a boarding-house.
The landlord is one Kookoo, an ancient Creole of doubtful purity of blood, who in his landlordly old age takes all suggestions of repairs as personal insults. He was but a stripling when his father left him this inheritance, and has grown old and wrinkled and brown, a sort of periodically animate mummy, in the business. He smokes cascarilla, wears velveteen, and is as punctual as an executioner.
To Kookoo"s venerable property a certain old man used for many years to come every evening, stumbling through the groups of prattling children who frolicked about in the early moonlight--whose name no one knew, but whom all the neighbors designated by the t.i.tle of "Sieur George. It was his wont to be seen taking a straight--too straight--course toward his home, never careening to right or left, but now forcing himself slowly forward, as though there were a high gale in front, and now scudding briskly ahead at a ridiculous little dog-trot, as if there were a tornado behind. He would go up the main staircase very carefully, sometimes stopping half-way up for thirty or forty minutes" doze, but getting to the landing eventually, and tramping into his room in the second story, with no little elation to find it still there. Were it not for these slight symptoms of potations, he was such a one as you would pick out of a thousand for a miser. A year or two ago he suddenly disappeared.