Tarnished Gold

12

Following My Heart

Mama said nothing to me; her eyes did all the talking as she prepared our dinner and as we ate, flashing disappointment and sadness my way. Daddy didn't notice anything for a while. He was still beaming from the successful hunting trip and the good money he had made.

"To think I wasted all that time working for someone else," he lectured. "No one's ever going to take advantage of Jack Landry again and treat me like some swamp slave," he vowed. "No sir, I got respect. I think I might just invest in another building, a real boathouse, and eventually hire me an assistant," he continued, building steam as he rambled on. "I'll advertise my place in the papers, maybe even the New Orleans papers. We'll fix up this shack, put on new siding, do up the grounds, make it more presentable."

He paused and gazed at Mama. "What you so quiet about, Catherine? Ain't you happy about the money I gave you and how well we're doin'?"

"I'm happy, Jack," she said quickly. "I just don't want to hear any promises and pledges that ain't going to be kept," she warned.

"You see that, Gabrielle? She says that after all I've done already. A Cajun man ain't got a chance with a Cajun woman. They're the stubbornest, most ornery females this side a hell. You give a Cajun woman an inch of rope and she'll stretch it into enough to hang you upside down from the nearest cypress and leave you dangling till the blood drips out of your hair." He ran his long fingers through his strands and then held out his palms. "Look here, it's happening to me already."

"Go on with you, Jack Landry," Mama said with a tight smile. "You look abused now, don't you?"

"I'm abused because I ain't appreciated enough," he complained.

Mama lifted her eyes to the ceiling as if to ask for divine guidance and then shook her head.

"Your mama's pretty though, Gabrielle. That's why I grin and bear it," he said.

"Go on with you, Jack Landry."

"Pour me a little more of your good wine, Catherine," Daddy said with a different sort of look in his eyes. "It's time you and me did some celebratin'."

"I'll decide when it's time for that," Mama said, but she poured the wine and then flashed another sorry look my way. I finished eating and cleared the table.

"Let's us go for a little ride, Catherine Landry," Daddy suggested. "Like we usta," he added with a wink. It was the first time I could remember seeing Mama blush. She looked away quickly and went to fetch a light shawl.

"We won't be gone long," Mama told me.

"We'll see about that," Daddy said. "We might just stop to look at the moon over the dam at Samson's Landing."

"Hush up, Jack Landry, you fool," Mama snapped. Daddy laughed, put his arm around her waist, and hurried her out. She gazed back at me with a look of warning in her eyes, but Daddy rushed her into the truck before she could add a word. I heard them drive off, and the moment I was alone, my heart began to pound.

I completed cleaning up from dinner and then went quickly down to the dock to get into my canoe. The thumping in my chest was so hard and so fast, I almost couldn't pole and I was terrified I would lose my breath and fall out again. But I moved swiftly along the bank, and before long, saw the Daisys' old landing. There was just a sliver of moon tonight, and even that was blocked most of the time by thick layers of dark clouds rolling in from the Gulf. The cicadas were louder than ever, accompanied by a chorus of bullfrogs. A night heron landed on the dock before I arrived and strutted around for a moment before sailing off into the darkness.

From the dock I could see the tiny light of the butane lantern in the shack's rear window. It flickered like a candle. I hesitated, embraced myself and gazed into the darkness around and behind me. Everything felt forbidden; Mama had cast a blanket of taboo over the world with her dark gaze tonight. But inside the shack, the love of my life waited to feel my lips on his. His dazzling eyes danced on the inside of my lids whenever I closed them, and his voice was in the gentle breeze that lifted the strands of my hair and tickled the inside of my ears. I heard him calling, "Gabrielle . Gabrielle." I could practically feel his hand around mine, leading me, pulling me along, urging me to be at his side.

He didn't come out to greet me before I reached the shack, and when I opened the door slowly and stepped into the darkness, I didn't hear or see him. Maybe it wasn't Pierre; maybe someone else was in the shack.

"Pierre?" I called. There was no response; nothing but the drumming of my own heart against my chest. "Pierre?" I walked in farther, reaching the steps and listening. "Pierre?"

"Gabrielle," I finally heard from the darkness above. "I'm up here, waiting for you."

My body trembled so. I had to hold on to the railing as I ascended. Slowly, wrapped in the darkness myself, I approached the doorway of the bedroom and gazed in at him, bathed in the dim light of the butane lantern. He was naked on our bed, his body gleaming.

"I shouldn't have come," I whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. "I should have resisted."

"You might as well try to hold your breath forever," he replied. "We can't refuse what our hearts desire. Gabrielle, come to me," he said, holding out his arms.

Resembling someone under hypnosis, I walked slowly, my legs feeling as if they glided on air to the bed. It was his idea that we not touch each other, not kiss, not caress, not even brush each other with our breaths for a while. He lay back as I undressed in the yellow glow of the small lantern. Then he shifted to the opposite side of the bed and I lay down, my head on the pillow, my eyes fixed on him. We gazed at each other, both our hearts pounding, the blood rushing through our bodies.

Every part of me longed to be touched. My lips tingled in anticipation. He smiled and brought his hand to within an inch of my breasts, moving over the air between us as if he were caressing me. I moaned, closed my eyes, and waited.

"It's exquisite, this torture," he said.

I squirmed, moaned again, and ran the tip of my tongue over my lips in anticipation of his kiss.

"Every inch between us is like a mile," he said. "Now you know how painful it is for me to return to New Orleans and what it is like for me to look out of my window toward the bayou and think of you."

I had come hoping to have the strength to refuse him, but now it was all I could do to keep from throwing myself at him.

"Gabrielle," he finally said, and brought his lips closer and closer until we finally kissed. It was the most tingling, exciting kiss between us yet. I held him harder and tighter than he held me and then we touched and brought our bodies together. Our lovemaking was more frantic this time. It was as if we had driven each other mad by teasing each other with our desire. I didn't want it to end, and when it threatened to do so, I cried out and demanded more, digging my fingers into his shoulders and hips.

He laughed and we made love until both our bodies shone with sweat, our hearts ready to burst, our lungs unable to keep up with the demand for air. Gasping, but happier than ever, we lay back, our heads beside each other, his arm around my shoulders, and waited to catch enough breath to speak.

"Can you ever doubt my love for you?" he asked. "No more than I can doubt my own for you."

"Good. Then let there be no more talk of resisting."

I curled up in the warm nook of his arm and listened as he described what it was like for him anticipating our rendezvous, planning it around his father's trip.

"We were so busy, I didn't know when we would be able to get back here, but my father was almost as anxious as I was."

"No one will miss you at home when they see you haven't returned with him?" I asked, meaning his wife.

"I'm on a business trip as far as anyone knows. It's not uncommon for me to do that, but I think my father has some suspicions."

"What will he do?" I asked, a bit frightened.

"Nothing. He isn't looking for any more unpleasantness. Despite the way he behaves with his friends, he is a very unhappy man these days. First, there is my brother Jean, as I told you, and second, there's . . ."

"What?" I asked when he hesitated.

"My wife's failure to be with child. He's been hoping for grandchildren. He's very disappointed."

"Is there no hope that your brother will someday recuperate?"

"No. The doctors believe the damage was permanent. He may improve enough to take care of his basic needs, but he'll never be the man he was," Pierre said, and sat up quickly. "I blame myself," he added.

I put my hand on his back. "Why? If you were caught in a storm . ."

"I should have never gone out with him. If I hadn't, if I had listened to my own warnings and not let him taunt me into it, he would be fine today."

"But he was a good sailor, wasn't he? He should have known, too."

"Jean was always challenging me to be like him. I think that ego of his got the best of him. I should have restrained him. I'm older, wiser," he said.

"But you're a man, and every man has ego, I'm sure."

"No," he said sharply. "It was my fault," he said firmly. "I've got to learn to live with that, but more importantly, I've got to find a way to bring my father some happiness before he dies. I try. I do the best I can with our businesses, but it's never enough. My father is a very demanding person, you see.

"But," he said suddenly, turning back to me and smiling, "let's not talk about my family problems. Let's just talk about us.

"Let us make a pledge to one another. Let us pledge to care only about our own bliss and not think about the consequences of anything we do together as long as we do it out of love and for each other."

"It sounds like a very selfish pledge," I said.

"It's meant to be. I want to pluck happiness out of the jaws of sadness, drive the monster away and keep us protected forever and ever, shielded from the miseries, the jealousies, the evil, that seems to seep into everyone's life, even the richest and most respected people. No one will have the ecstasy we will have, Gabrielle. I swear."

"You overwhelm me with your love for me," I said. "It scares me because I don't know if I can keep such a pledge, Pierre. I think my mother already knows about us."

"If she's truly a woman with vision, she will see how full your heart is and how good our love is and she will not want us to part."

"But you're married. We can't be lovers forever."

"We'll find a way, somehow," he said. "For now, let's not think about it. Let's not think about anything that takes from our love. Let's be deliberately blind and deaf to anything but ourselves. Can you do that?"

He didn't wait for my reply. He brought his lips to mine and then he kissed my chin and my breasts, laying his head in my lap. I stroked his hair and gazed down into his handsome face and pleading eyes and ordered the voices inside me that wanted to warn me to be silent.

Be still my heart, I thought, and listen only to my love's vow.

I lay back on the pillow. It started to pour, the drops tapping on the tin roof. He raised himself slowly and then brought himself to me so we could make love again to the rhythm of the rain.

It was still raining when I left the shack to pole my pirogue home. Pierre wanted to drive me, but I told him it was far from the first time I poled in the rain, even at night. He walked down to the dock with me and we kissed as we parted. He stood there, smiling, the drops trickling over his cheeks, soaking him, but him acting as if it were the brightest, driest day. I pushed off and waved and, after a moment, lost sight of him in the darkness. He said he was going to drive back to New Orleans tonight and he would let me know when he would be able to return to our love nest.

Mama and Daddy weren't home when I returned, which made it easier for me. I didn't like lying to Mama, but I had a story already prepared. I was long in bed and even asleep when they came home. I woke to the sounds of Daddy's laughter and Mama telling him to hush up. He knocked into a chair and Mama chastised him again. Then she helped him up the stairs and into bed. I heard her come to my doorway and sensed she was standing there awhile, but I pretended to be asleep.

Daddy slept late the next morning. When I went down to breakfast, Mama was up, sitting at the table, her hands cupped around a mug of steaming coffee. She gazed into the dark liquid as if it were a crystal ball.

"Morning, Mama," I said, and shifted my eyes quickly to avoid her penetrating gaze when she raised her head. It was as good as a confession. She waited for me to get some coffee and a biscuit before she spoke.

"You went out after your daddy and me left last night, didn't you, Gabrielle?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Where did you go?"

"Just for a walk and then a short ride in the pirogue," I said. I put some jam on my biscuit.

"You met that man someplace, didn't you, Gabrielle?" she asked directly. My heart stopped and then fluttered. "You can't lie to me, Gabrielle. It's written in your face."

"Oui, Mama," I confessed. She was right: Keeping the truth from Mama was like trying to hold back a twister.

"Oh, honey," she moaned. "After what you've been through, you've suffered, to go and start with another married man."

"We love each other, Mama. It's different and it's not like anything I've ever felt before," I protested.

"How would you know?" she asked with a stern face. "You've never really had a boyfriend."

"It can't be this good with anyone else."

"Of course it can. You're just feeling your first real excitement, and with a very sophisticated, rich city man who probably has a half dozen young mistresses," she declared.

Such an idea had never occurred to me.

"No, Mama, he said . . ."

"He'd say anything to get you where he wants you, Gabrielle." She leaned toward me so I couldn't look away from those all-knowing eyes. "And he would make any promise to get what he wants. If you believe him, it's because you want to, first, and second, because he's done it so many times before, he's good at it," she concluded.

I stared, thinking. Then I shook my head. "He can't be that way; he can't," I insisted, as much to myself as to her.

"Why not, Gabrielle?"

"I feel him," I said, putting my hand over my heart, "deeply in here, My feelings have never betrayed me before," I insisted, building my own courage. "Since I was a little girl, I have known what is true and what is not. My animals . . ."

"Animals are so much simpler than people, Gabrielle. They are not conniving and deceitful."

"Tell that to my spiders," I shot back. Mama's eyes softened for a moment with a little amusement, but then she grew worried again.

"All right, what of your spider who sets up such a seemingly harmless world around him, so innocent looking, the fly always steps into it and realizes it too late?

"A rich, sophisticated man like Monsieur Dumas has the power to weave a very inviting world around him. He will catch you in it, and when you realize it, it will be too late."

"Pierre is no more conniving than I am, Mama. You don't know him yet."

"And you do? Already?"

"Our feelings for each other have opened our hearts and minds to each other. When you love each other deeply, truly, it takes only minutes to know everything there is to know. He has told me of his great unhappiness and I see how much he suffers, even though he is a wealthy man."

"And what of his wife, then?" she asked.

"They lead separate lives right now. She has been unable to give him a child and she is more involved with her society friends than with him," I explained.

"But where will all this take you, Gabrielle?" she asked with despair.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"And for the moment, you don't care because you're blinded by your feelings and your excitement. Don't you think I know how desperate you are for a real love, how much you need someone who will love you truly, especially after your horrid experience? You're jumping on the first opportunity, only it's not an opportunity, Gabrielle. It's like a false dawn. You're going to plummet into a deeper darkness."

She sat back firmly, her words lying heavy in the air between us.

"I want you to tell this man first chance you get that you won't ever see him again, hear? If you don't, I will, Gabrielle, even if it means marching down that road all the way to New Orleans and knocking on his front door," she threatened.

"Oh Mama, please . . ."

"If I stood by and watched you drown, I'd be wrong, wouldn't I? Well, I ain't gonna stand by and watch this, neither," she vowed.

We heard the floorboards above us groan.

"It's best your daddy don't know nothing about this, Gabrielle, hear?"

"Yes, Mama." I looked down.

"I'm sorry, honey, but I know what's best for you."

I shot an angry glance at her. Why did she always know what was best for me? She wasn't me. What did she think it was like having a traiteur for a mother, thinking all these years that my every thought, my every feeling, was as naked as a newly born doe before her eyes? Besides, I thought, when it came to love, Mama wasn't infallible. Look at the mistake she had made, the marriage she had. Defiant, I rose from the table and left the room.

"Gabrielle!"

The front door slammed shut behind me as I jogged down the galerie steps and around back, heading toward the canal. I remained away from home most of the day, wandering through my paths, weaving along the water, sitting on a big rock and watching the birds and the fish. I spent most of the time arguing with myself.

The sensible side of me took Mama's side, of course, claiming she was only looking out for my happiness and trying to protect me from sadness and disappointment. That side of me warned against living for the moment. It ridiculed the pledge Pierre and I had made to each other. What sort of a pledge was it anyway, a pledge to ignore everything and anything but our own pleasure? Living for the moment was shortsighted. What would happen when that day of reckoning came?

The other side of me, the wild and free side that found its strength in Nature, that side of me which was never comfortable confined by clothes and houses and man-made rules, refused to listen. Look at the birds. They don't sit worrying about the winter; they enjoy the spring and the summer and feel the warm breeze around them when they glide through the air, free . . . happy.

And what of these people who have been sensible and who have married the so-called right person? What of these people who have never been naked under the sun and the stars, who have listened first to their minds and then their hearts? Trapped in their wise and reasonable decisions, they wither away wondering what it might have been like if they had followed their feelings instead of their thoughts.

But your mama followed her feelings instead of her thoughts, my sensible side retorted. That thought shut me up for a while. I sat there, brooding. My sensible side continued. She's only trying to give you the benefit of her wisdom, a wisdom unfortunately gained through pain and suffering. Can't you take her gift gracefully and stop being a stubborn, selfish little girl?

I swallowed back my tears and took a deep breath.

Still defiant, or tying to be, I turned my face to the wind and screamed.

"I love Pierre! I will always love him. I won't give him up. I won't!"

My words were swept away. They changed nothing. It didn't take very much effort to scream them; I could scream them again. What took great effort was to shut them up in my heart, to lock the door on that secret place within me where Pierre's face resided and his words resounded.

As I started walking back home, I wondered if every birth, whether it be the birth of a tadpole or the birth of a spider or the birth of a human being, was another beat in the heart of the universe. Maybe my birth was an irregular beat. I was simply out of sync with the rhythms of this world, and I would not ever find a place in it. I would never find happiness and a love that could be. I was destined to be an outcast. Maybe that was why I was so drawn to simple, natural things and felt safer in the swamp than I did in society.

Mama looked up from the clothes she was washing in the rain barrel when I appeared. She wasn't angry; she was very sad for me. She stopped working and waited as I drew closer.

"I'll tell him I won't see him anymore, Mama," I said. "It's the best thing, Gabrielle."

"The best thing shouldn't be so hard to do," I replied angrily, and went into the shack.

Almost a week went by before I heard from Pierre again. During that time I sat by the window in my room and looked out over the canals toward New Orleans and wondered what he was thinking, what he was doing. In my mind I wrote and rewrote my letter to him until I found the words, and then I sat at the kitchen table late one night after Daddy and Mama had gone to bed and put the words on paper.

Dear Pierre,

Some women think giving birth is the hardest and most painful experience of their lives. Afterward, of course, there is a wonderful reward. But I think the birth of these words on this paper is the hardest and most painful thing for me. There is no wonderful reward either.

I can't see you anymore. I love you; I won't lie and deny that, but our love, as beautiful as it seems, is a double-edged sword that will turn on us someday, perhaps sooner than we expect. We will hurt each other deeply, perhaps too deeply to recover, and maybe, just maybe, we will even grow to hate each other for what we have done to each other, or worse, hate ourselves for it.

I don't pretend to be a very wise person. Nor have I ever assumed I have inherited my mother's powers, but I don't think it takes a very wise person or a clairvoyant to see our future. We are like a stream, rushing, gleaming, sparkling, and full, that suddenly turns a corner and drops over a ledge to pound itself on the rocks below and then stagnate.

I can't let this happen to you or to me. Please try to understand. I want you to be happy. I hope your problems will end and you will have a good and fruitful life where you are, where you belong.

Sell this shack and go home, Pierre. Do it for both our sakes.

Gabrielle

I folded the letter and put it in an envelope quickly. The next morning after breakfast, I went down to the dock, got into my canoe, and poled up to the Daisy dock. I hurried up to the shack and put the envelope in the center of the kitchen table where it would be prominent. Then I gazed around what was to have been our love nest for as long as we could have it. The tears streamed down my cheeks. I sighed, bit down on my lower lip, and ran out of the shack. I sobbed as I poled my way back, but when I reached our dock, I sucked back my tears, took a deep breath, and forced myself to stop thinking about what I had done.

I dove into the work Mama and I had to do, weaving, cooking, organizing, and I didn't permit myself to think about Pierre. Whenever his face came to mind, I started doing something else. Mama watched me all day through her wise eyes. She said nothing while I worked, but that evening, after dinner, she came out to see me on the galerie and just hugged me without speaking. We gazed into each other's faces.

Finally she said, "Don't think I don't feel your pain, honey. We're too close."

"I know, Mama."

"You're a good girl, a strong girl, stronger than me," she said, and smiled. I smiled back, but I didn't believe those words. If anything, I felt more fragile and thinner than ever.

Another day passed and then another and another. I began to believe that Pierre had come to the shack, found my letter, and returned to New Orleans. The longer time grew between us, the more I began to believe Mama might have been right about everything. I was saddened, but a little relieved.

And then, one night, just as I was about to go to sleep, I paused to gaze out of my window as I often did, and there in the moonlight, his form well outlined, was Pierre. He stood staring up at my window. I wanted to go down to him, to talk and tell him why I wrote the letter, but I didn't move. I watched him and waited. He stood there for nearly an hour, waiting, looking like a statue. My heart was bursting, but I stopped myself every time I went toward the doorway. And every time I returned to the window, I hoped he would be gone, but he wasn't.

Clouds came and blocked the moon. He disappeared in the shadows, but when the clouds parted, he was there again, waiting, watching, hoping.

I went to bed and pressed my face in the pillow, nearly smothering myself, squeezing, clinging to the sheets like someone who might drown if she let go. Finally, when I went to the window, he wasn't there. He had resembled my ghost once more, and once more, he had returned to that other world. I couldn't fall asleep. I lay there with my eyes open, wondering if he had returned to the shack to sleep or if he had taken my advice and gotten into his car to drive back to New Orleans.

All the next day I was tempted to pole up to the Daisy dock to look. I thought he might also pole down to see me, but he didn't come. I took my walks, did my work, watched the road every time I heard an automobile, but he didn't appear. It's over, I thought that night after dinner. I did it. The realization made me sick inside. I had to go to bed early. Daddy was off playing bourre and Mama finished cleaning up.

But just as I got into bed, I heard someone come to the front door. I listened hard. Was it Pierre? I heard the voices and realized it was Jed Loomis, a neighbor who lived about a half mile toward Houma. He had come by in his pickup truck to tell Mama that his mother was suffering something terrible from stomach cramps. She was in great pain. Everyone was very worried; his father wouldn't leave her bedside. They weren't sure whether it came from something she had eaten or if it was something worse.

Mama packed up her herbs and her holy water and then came up to tell me she was going.

"You want to come along, Gabrielle?"

"No, Mama. Not unless you think you'll need me."

"No. There's nothing for you to do and it might take most of the night. I guess there's no sense in both of us staying up," she said. "If your daddy comes home early for some reason, you'll tell him where I've gone."

"Yes, Mama."

"You all right, honey?"

"Yes, Mama," I lied.

She paused a moment. "I gotta go," she said. "Poor woman's in pain."

"Okay, Mama."

She descended the stairs and was gone. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, and for a little while I did fall into a deep repose, but suddenly my eyes popped open. My heart had started to drum as if it knew something I didn't. I lay there staring up into the darkness waiting for it to slow down. When it didn't, I sat up and then went to the window.

There he was, outlined in the moonlight, staring up at the house, waiting . . . Pierre. My ghost would not go away.

I threw on my dress and hurried down, closing the screen door softly behind me. He was waiting on our dock.

"Gabrielle," he said as I approached. "I was afraid to come to your house to ask for you."

"I'm glad you didn't," I said, stopping a foot or so away from him.

"Why? Why did you write that letter?"

"I had to," I said as harshly as my lips would permit me to speak to him. He stepped toward me. "Mama knows," I added, and he froze for a moment. "She threatened to go to New Orleans and knock on your door if she had to," I added.

As the moon peeked over the shoulder of a passing cloud, the light caught his face and revealed a pained expression.

"What is it your mother thinks of me?" he asked softly. "What has she told you?"

"You are rich, Pierre. You can go anywhere, do anything, see anyone you want."

"Oui,” he said. "That's true, Gabrielle, but I didn't go anywhere else; I didn't do anything else, and I haven't seen anyone else but you. You were right in your letter. Our love, my love for you, is a double-edged sword, and when you said you couldn't see me again, I felt its sharpness in my heart. Do you know what it's been like being here, looking up at your window at night?"

"Pierre . . ."

"And during the day."

"During the day?"

"Yes. I've watched you from a distance, seen you walking, seen you working, talking to people, but I was afraid to approach you in daylight. Remember the exquisite torment of being beside each other and not touching? It wasn't exquisite this time; it was just torment.

"You think I have other lovers, don't you? You think because I am rich, I can go anywhere and have affair after affair and then one day pick up and leave, breaking someone's heart without caring?"

I was ashamed to say yes, but I had thought it. He nodded and turned away for a moment.

"Other men I know, wealthy, married men, fit that description. I would not deny it, but you are the first woman I have kissed passionately since I married Daphne. You must believe me."

"Didn't you love her?"

"I . . . thought so. She's a very beautiful woman and she comes from a family as distinguished as mine, although not as wealthy. Ours was more of an arranged marriage. We were thought to be the perfect couple, but things happen, things change. I'm a very lonely man these days, Gabrielle, and despite what your mother might fear for you and even what you might think at this moment, I am not one to go wandering and philandering. I do not give myself liberally.

"But when my eyes feasted on you, when I first saw you, I felt something so deep and so sincere in my heart, I could not deny it; I will not deny it. I swear I'm not here to take advantage of you and then leave you in the lurch. I will never do anything to harm you or make you unhappy. Somehow, I want to be able to take care of you.

"I can't believe," he continued, raising his voice and his clenched hands in the air, "that this love is not meant to be. What a horrible trick Nature has played on us then. To bring me here, to permit me to see you and you to see me. To permit us to kiss and hold each other and pledge our feelings to each other, and then to rip us apart mercilessly like this . . . no. No!" he cried. "I won't permit it to happen. Tell me what I must do to be with you and I will do it."

"I can't ask you to do anything, Pierre. It's enough that you and I have been together while you are married, but I believed you when you said our love is so good and pure, it makes it all right. I wanted to believe you."

"Don't stop believing that, Gabrielle. It's true. It's as true as the morning light and the evening stars." He stepped closer to me. "How can you deny that?"

"I don't deny it," I said softly.

"Good. Love me then, Gabrielle; love me as purely as I love you and throw caution and unhappiness to the wind."

"Pierre," I said, whispering. He put his hands on my shoulders. I couldn't drive him away; I didn't have the strength. God forgive me, I thought, but I love him more than I love what's logical or right or what's sensible. He kissed me and I kissed him back.

Instantly his arms were around me. He lifted me to him and held me.

"I thought I might kill myself," he whispered in my ear between kisses. "I thought I might throw myself into your swamp and let your snakes or alligators feast on my depressed body. It seemed a fit place to die."

"No, Pierre. Don't think of such a terrible thing."

"I won't as long as you will hold me and be with me and love me," he said. I promised I would and we kissed again. Then we stepped into his canoe. I lay back and watched him push off and pole us into the darkness.

The swamp seemed to come alive. It was as if all sound, all life, had been put on hold while we spoke, and now that we were quiet, Nature spoke. She spoke through the owl that hooted from the branch of the pecan tree onshore, the cicadas that raised their voices to drone their nightly symphony, the frogs that croaked at us every inch of the way, and the night heron that called from the darkness.

We returned to our love nest that night, and together, we burned my letter and watched the flames consume it.

"Let those dark thoughts evaporate with the smoke," Pierre said, and kissed me.

I lay back, too emotionally exhausted to resist or even to hesitate. Afterward, he brought me home before Mama returned from her traiteur mission. He told me he had to leave in the morning.

"I won't be able to return for nearly two weeks because I'm going on a business trip to Texas with my father."

"I will miss you and count the days until I see you again," I promised.

"I don't suppose I can come calling on you when I do return. Your mother wouldn't be too happy about that." "No."

"I expect your father wouldn't be pleased either. But I can't just come by and stand waiting for you to see me, so here's what I'm going to do," he said, and took off the blue silk cravat he had around his neck. "When you find this tied to the northeast post on your dock, you will know I am here and waiting for you. Bring it with you when you come," he said. "Someday, somehow," he added with a sigh, "we might not have to be so secretive, but as for now . . ."

"As for now, let's not think about it," I told him. He smiled and kissed me good night. He waited as I ran up to the house and turned once to wave good-bye. He pushed off into the darkness as was gone, and I went inside.

As Mama had thought, she had to stay with Nicolette Loomis most of the night and was exhausted herself when she returned just before daybreak. Daddy didn't come home at all until the following afternoon. He made no excuses and Mama didn't ask him for any.

I said nothing to Mama about Pierre. If she knew anything by reading my face, she didn't reveal it.

Daddy had two hunting trips that week, and Mama and I were busy making food and selling our wares.

I went to town on an errand the following Saturday and spotted the Tates' automobile in front of the dry goods store. Neither Gladys or Octavious seemed to be around, so I wandered up the walk toward the car. When I peered into the rear, I saw the nanny and Paul. He smiled at me and I smiled back, but I moved away quickly when I thought Gladys Tate was returning. Even so, I had a long enough look at Paul to see how he had grown, how bright his eyes were and how beautiful he was.

Mama sensed a lightness in my gait and a contentment in my smile during those days. I could see it in the way she looked at me from time to time, but she didn't ask me anything, nor reveal she suspected anything. I was spending almost all my time working beside her or taking my walks in the swamp alone. I helped Daddy, too.

I hated being deceitful and secretive, but I told myself this was one of those times when it was better for everyone. I was afraid I was becoming a little like Daddy, who used to say lying and stealing were all right if they were meant to help someone you love or who needs it.

Mama, of course, accused him of just making up an excuse for his own evil ways.

"It will all come home to roost and haunt you in your old age, Jack Landry," she predicted. "The ghosts of your sins will be your own company."

I was terrified, of course, that what she predicted for Daddy would fit my future, too; but every time I entertained a thought to try to end my love for Pierre again, his face, his words, his warm lips, returned to mind and drove those thoughts away, fluttering off like a flock of rice birds spooked by an alligator.

The weeks passed too slowly, and when the time came for him to be here, I looked eagerly for his blue silk cravat; but every day I looked, I found nothing. I was afraid he had tied it and it had come loose and been carried down the canal, so I even poled up to the Daisys' landing to check, but he wasn't there. Another week passed and I began to grow desperately worried. Had our love affair been discovered and his father forbidden him to see me again? Had Daphne found out and made great trouble between them? Perhaps something happened to him and he was sick or hurt, I thought. It was terrible having to live in ignorance and darkness when it came to him. After another day passed and there was no cravat, I entertained the thought of going to town to use a pay phone and call his residence in New Orleans; but the idea of hearing his wife's voice, or even a maid's or butler's, terrified me. I could get him in trouble, I thought. So I waited, growing sadder and more depressed with every passing hour, much less every passing day.

I tried to act cheerful whenever I was with Mama or whenever I thought she was watching me, but my face was like a glass pane to her. She finally asked me if I was feeling all right.

"I'm fine, Mama," I said. I thought quickly and added, "I saw little Paul in town the other day and he smiled at me."

"Oh," she said, thinking that was it. "Did the Tates . . ."

"No, I left before either saw me looking at the baby."

"That's good," Mama said. "We don't need any more turmoil in our lives," she added, raising her eyebrows. "No more, hear, Gabrielle?"

"Yes, Mama."

I went on about my business. The next morning I found a lark had thatched a nest with goose down, but a family of field mice had made a home beneath it. The lark didn't seem to mind, and the wonder of Nature cheered me up for a while. Then, as I returned home from my walk, I gazed at our dock and saw the blue silk cravat waving in the breeze.

My love was back.

My heart was full again.