The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Kate Chopin [133]
“Well, we didn’t know the man. My patience! there are murders every day. If we had to keep up with them, ma foi! Who is going to Lucie’s card party to-morrow? I hear she did not invite her cousin Claire. They have fallen out again it seems.” And Madame Nicolas, after speaking, went to give Tante Elodie a drink of tisane. 219
“Mr. Ben’s got about twenty darkeys from Niggerville, holding them on suspicion,” continued Fifine, dancing on the edge of her chair. “Without doubt the man was enticed to the cabin and murdered and robbed there. Not a picayune left in his pockets! only his pistol—that they didn’t take, all loaded, in his back pocket, that he might have used, and his watch gone! Mr. Ben thinks his brother in Conshotta, that’s very well off, is going to offer a big reward.”
“What relation was the man to you, Fifine?” asked Madame Nicolas, sarcastically.
“He was a human being, Amelia; you have no heart, no feeling. If it makes a woman that hard to associate with a doctor, then thank God—well—as I was saying, if they can catch those two strange section hands that left town last night—but you better bet they’re not such fools to keep that watch. But old Uncle Marte said he saw little foot prints like a woman‘s, early this morning, but no one wanted to listen to him or pay any attention, and the crowd tramped them out in little or no time. None of the boys want to let on; they don’t want us to know which ones were playing cards at Symund’s. Was Gabriel at Symund’s, Tante Elodie?”
Tante Elodie coughed painfully and looked blankly as though she had only heard her name and had been inattentive to what was said.
“For pity sake leave Tante Elodie out of this! it’s bad enough she has to listen, suffering as she is. Gabriel spent the evening here, on Tante Elodie’s sofa, very sick with cramps. You will have to pursue your detective work in some other quarter, my dear.”
A little girl came in with a huge bunch of blossoms. There was some bustle attending the arrangement of the flowers in vases, and in the midst of it, two or three ladies took their leave.
“I wonder if they’re going to send the body off to-night, or if they’re going to keep it for the morning train,” Fifine was heard to speculate, before the door closed upon her.
Tante Elodie could not sleep that night. The following day she had some fever and Madame Nicolas insisted upon her seeing the doctor. He gave her a sleeping draught and some fever drops and said she would be all right in a few days; for he could find nothing alarming in her condition.
By a supreme effort of the will she got up on the third day hoping in the accustomed routine of her daily life to get rid, in part, of the uneasiness and unhappiness that possessed her.
The sun shone warm in the afternoon and she went and stood on the gallery watching for Gabriel to pass. He had not been near her. She was wounded, alarmed, miserable at his silence and absence; but determined to see him. He came down the street, presently, never looking up, with his hat drawn over his eyes.
“Gabriel!” she called. He gave a start and glanced around.
“Come up; I want to see you a moment.”
“I haven’t time now, Tante Elodie.”
“Come in!” she said sharply.
“All right, you’ll have to fix it up with Morrison,” and he opened the gate and went in. She was back in her room by the time he reached it, and in her chair, trembling a little and feeling sick again.
“Gabriel, if you ‘ave no heart, it seems to me you would ’ave some intelligence; a moment’s reflection would show you the folly of altering your ’abits so suddenly. Did you not know I was sick? did you not guess my uneasiness?”
“I haven’t guessed anything or known anything but a taste of hell,” he said, not looking at her. Her heart bled afresh for him and went out to him in full forgiveness. “You were right,” he went on, “it would have been horrible to saying anything. There is no suspicion. I’ll never say anything unless some