Pamela Morsi (33 page)

The food was either exceptionally good or the
four of them were very hungry. They ate in complete silence except
for the occasional wordless expression of appreciation. The spicy
flavored crab had them licking their fingers. And the last of the
tangy roux sauce was mopped up with Madame Landry's only slightly
stale bread.

"This is the best food I've eaten in a week,"
Laron declared.

"Don't tell me that they did not feed you on
the German coast," Helga said.

He smiled warmly at her. "An old farmer's
wife did make me some goose liver and dumplings, but it was not
nearly so fine as your own."

There was no tart in their basket, but Aida
did find a handful of fresh blueberries and divvied them out.

The taste was a sweet, pleasant reminder to
Armand of the wonder of the morning. He had held Aida Gaudet in his
arms, kissed and caressed her, and he could have possessed her. He
had married her. He caught her eye momentarily and watched her
blush. Aida Gaudet was blushing for him. The very idea of it had
his heart pounding.

Deliberately he pushed the delightful thought
to the back of his mind. There was no time now for a flight of
fancy. It was time to speak with Laron, to find out if what they
suspected was true. And if it was, to dissuade him from his course
of action.

The night around them had turned dark and
chill. The fire crackled brightly, the orange glow warming them and
displaying their faces as they slowly sobered their thoughts and
gazed at it introspectively.

"You do know what Helga has been thinking,"
Armand began at last.

Laron raised his eyes to his friend and then
turned to regard the woman he loved.

"He has gone to Texas," Laron said, answering
the unasked question. "Years ago now. There is a price on his head.
He won't be back. I know of settlements there, but I cannot know
where he might be."

"You mustn't go after him," Helga declared.
"You must come home with me, Laron." The German woman's tone was
firm. "I was wrong. I was very wrong, I see that now. The children
love you and will come to understand. They will understand
everything. I want you back."

Laron looked down at her, his heart in his
eyes, but he made no promises.

"It is foolishness to kill him," she
continued. "As I told you, I was wrong. I want you to come home
with me."

Laron looked at her a long time and then
shook his head.

"I cannot, Helga," he said. "I cannot live
with you again as we have. You were not wrong. It was wrong. It was
the wrong example for the children."

"The children will learn to understand," she
insisted.

"To understand? To understand that the world
is a cruel and evil place? To understand that for all their lives
they must be outcasts to pay the price for their parents'
happiness?" He shook his head determinedly. "We can live with our
sin, Helga, because our love is stronger than it," he said. "But we
cannot force them to live with it, too."

Her eyes welled with unshed tears.

"You saw it before I did," Laron told her.
"We selfishly loved and thereby hurt the innocents who love us. We
cannot change the past, but there is no future for us
together."

She paled as if he had struck her, but she
nodded.

"Then if we cannot, we cannot," she said.
"But you must not do this thing. I cannot allow it. You must not
search him down and kill him."

"She's right," Armand told him. "No matter
what we think of him, the law never sees killing as justified
except in self-defense. And he would be the one with that
right."

"I do wish he were dead," Helga declared
forcefully. "If he were dead, I would marry you in a moment. But
you cannot kill him, Laron. If you did, you would not be the man
that I love."

Laron sighed heavily. "It wouldn't solve
anything, would it?"

It was a statement rather than a
question.

Helga's answer was a nod.

"Maybe there is some other way?" Aida piped
in. "Surely there is some other way for you two to be
together."

She looked at Armand hopefully. He stared
back at her mutely. There were no words to be spoken. There was no
way for them to be together, except illicitly. Still he searched
his mind, his thoughts, his memory for some answer. Aida believed
that he could find one.

"You could divorce," Armand said finally.
"The German church permits divorce and the law provides for
it."

"But our ways do not," Laron said. "If she
were to divorce him, the people in Prairie l'Acadie would see her
still as ineligible. Father Denis would never marry us."

He reached out and took her hand, expressing
the thoughts in his heart wordlessly.

"Prairie l'Acadie is not the only place in
the world," Armand said. "You could live elsewhere."

"Perhaps . . ." Laron looked toward Helga
hopefully.

"But you could not leave your home," she
said. "All of your family, all the people you love are there."

"You and your children are the people that I
love," he replied.

Helga shook her head. "No," she declared. "I
could never let you leave. It is beyond imagining. Your home is
there. I have heard you tell the stories, the stories about your
people. How they were torn from their homes and scattered to the
four winds. They have made such sacrifices, paid such prices in
blood and pain so that they could be together. You cannot throw
that away. That is who you are."

"She is right," Armand agreed. "If you went
away it would be like . . . like death for all of us."

The faint glimmer of hope that had been fire
in Laron's eyes sputtered and died out.

"We must simply part," Helga said. "We must
simply promise to keep away from each other. Try to go on with our
lives as if we had never met."

"I don't know how I will bear it," Laron
said. "It is one thing to make a vow to keep my distance from you
when I am sitting so near. It is another to keep that vow when you
are out of my sight, less than an hour away."

Helga nodded understanding. "It is misery to
be so near and forever separated. It is I who should go away."

Laron was stunned by her words. "But where
could you go?" he asked.

"To . . . to . . ." She hesitated
thoughtfully. "I could go to this German coast. You did say that it
was a nice place. If my husband is no longer there, I could go
there and start a new life. The children would be welcomed and we
could begin again."

Laron considered her words.

"I don't know if I could bear that any
better," he admitted.

Helga's expression showed agreement, but her
voice was decisively firm. "It will be easier if I am not so near,"
she said. "And I do not mind going. The children will grow up among
their own kind."

Laron shrugged. "Truthfully they speak their
French as well as their German."

She smiled proudly.

"What about your place?" Laron asked. "You've
put so much work into it. Would you sell it?"

"We've put so much work into it," she said
with emphasis. "And I suppose I must just leave it. It belongs to
my husband. I cannot sell it, or trade it, or truly even own
it."

Laron glanced toward Armand for verification;
he nodded slightly. Only a real widow had rights over her husband's
property.

"If I go away," she said. "You will be able
to forget me."

"No Helga," he told her honestly. "I do not
believe I could ever forget you."

The lovers gazed into each other's eyes with
sorrow and intensity that was almost palpable. Armand was nearly
cut to the quick by the sight. He hastily rose to his feet,
offering his hand to the woman beside him.

"Aida and I will walk," he announced. "She is
very fond of long leisurely walks. It will be some time before we
return."

If the two took note of his words, they made
no sign.

Aida grabbed up a blanket and wrapped it
about her shoulders like a shawl.

"It's cold tonight," Armand agreed.

She nodded and allowed him to wrap his arm
around her as he led her away from the fire and into the
darkness.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Aida
spoke up.

"We can't let this happen," she said. "There
is something that we can do. I know that there must be."

"There is nothing," Armand assured her sadly.
"This is best, undoubtedly. She will go to the German coast and he
will go on with his life."

Aida shook her head. "Something," she said.
"There must be something. Think of the vision."

"The vision meant nothing, I'm afraid," he
answered. "I know it was your vision, Aida, and your very first
one. But I think it meant nothing."

She shook her head. "It's not possible that
it serves no purpose at all. It was too real, too vivid. It was too
important."

"Perhaps it was, but how can we decipher its
meaning?"

"We simply must," she insisted. "We need to
think about it and think about it until we understand what it
meant."

"Aida, I—"

"You are the answer, Armand," she said. "Of
that I am certain. In some way, somehow, you are the answer."

Her words harkened back to those spoken by
Madame Landry and gave him pause. He repeated the words softly
aloud.

"A careless word spoken is like a tree
falling into a mighty river. When the water is low and the yonder
bank delicate, sometimes the river will swirl around the tree with
some force, wear away the weak side and cause the flow to meander
in a new direction."

Aida's brow furrowed.

"It was something Madame Landry said to me,"
he explained.

"What does it mean?"

Armand shrugged, shaking his head.

Aida shivered.

"You're cold," he said.

"It was better by the fire," she admitted.
"But I think we are right to leave them alone for now."

Armand nodded in agreement and then drew her
into his arms.

"Let me try to keep you warm," he said,
holding her close against him.

"Oh yes," she whispered to him. "That is much
better."

"I don't know how he will say goodbye to her.
I think that I ... I think that I didn't know entirely how much she
must mean to him. Not until . . . until this morning."

"Armand," she whispered against his cheek.
"Do you regret marrying me?"

He was still for a long moment, considering
her words.

"What a question to ask a man on his wedding
night," he answered finally. "No, Aida. Not unless you do."

"I don't. I was just afraid that perhaps you
thought that . . . that I pushed you into it."

"I didn't think that."

"But I did push you into it," she
admitted.

"You felt compromised," he countered.

"But I was not truly compromised," she
said.

"Aida." He turned and drew her close, kissing
her in the way that he had wanted to that morning in front of the
church. A long, lingering, loving kiss. "It's done now," he told
her at last. "I am your husband. And my only regret is that we must
spend our night standing on a cold beach instead of a flower-filled
bower."

"A flower-filled bower?" She laughed.
"Monsieur Sonnier, where would we get flowers this time of
year?"

He laughed with her and they began to walk
once more, arms wrapped around each other as much for the pleasure
of it as for the warmth it afforded.

"It is not much of a wedding night," he
said.

She shrugged, unconcerned.

"Unlike most young women I have spent more
time being fearful of my wedding night than anxious for it," she
said.

"Fearful?" His brow furrowed in concern. "You
have been afraid your husband would hurt you?"

"No, not that. I . . . I've been afraid of
his being disappointed."

"Disappointed?" Armand's look was
incredulous. "How could any man be disappointed with you?"

She dissembled prettily and at first he
thought that she would not answer, but she did.

"I ... I am like a fancy store-bought gift,"
she said. "All bright and shiny-looking tied up with a bow."

"That you are," Armand agreed quietly.

"But I have always been afraid that when . .
. when I am divested of my wrappings and ribbon," she said, "I will
be nothing but an empty box."

"An empty box?" Armand stopped, stunned,
shook his head, and looked straight into her eyes. "Aida, my sweet
and lovely Aida," he said. "You are in no way empty. You are full
of joy and brightness and care. I have seen it in the way you laugh
at yourself, the way you charm the old men as easily as the young,
the way you defer to Madame Landry. And the way that you look at me
and make me believe that I am strong and wise. You are not at all
empty. You are filled, filled nearly to bursting with everything
that a man could want. At least with everything that this man
wants."

Jean Baptiste finished up the last bite of
the blueberry tart and wiped his mouth. It hadn't been the best
dessert that he'd ever eaten. In fact it had a rather unpleasant
undertaste, but he'd ignored that, assuming it to be the
ingredients of the love charm. And a love charm, he'd decided, was
a welcome idea.

Felicite was on her hands and knees with a
cleaning rag finishing up the floor. Jean Baptiste shook his head
and marveled to himself as he watched her. The first evening she'd
been alone with him in years and she'd taken it into her head to
scrub the house from back porch to the rafters.

He wasn't sure when it had happened or how it
had happened, but things had changed between them. They had grown
up together, friends long before they were sweethearts. He had
planned for her to be his wife when he was little more than a boy.
At age seven they'd taken first Communion together and he had
informed her, accurately as it turned out, that the next time they
were both dressed so finely and headed for church would be their
wedding day.