Part 12 (1/2)
Zephyr noted with approval.
”Rising barometer, with freshening winds, growing brisk, clearing weather.”
Madame looked up at Zephyr's almost inaudible words.
”How?” she ventured, timidly.
”That's a fair question,” Zephyr remarked, composedly. ”The fact is, I get used to talking to myself and answering a fool according to his folly. It's hard sledding to keep up. You see, a fellow that gets into his store clothes only once a year or so don't know where to hang his thumbs.”
Madame looked somewhat puzzled, began a stammering reply, then, dropping her useless efforts, came to her point at once.
”It's about elise.”
Zephyr answered as directly as Madame had spoken.
”Is elise in trouble?”
”Yes. I don't know what to do.” Madame paused and looked expectantly at Zephyr.
”Pierre wants her to marry that Morrison?”
Madame gave a sigh of relief. There was no surprise in her face.
”Pierre says she shall not go to school and learn to despise him and me.
He says she will learn to be ashamed of us before her grand friends. Do you think she will ever be ashamed of me?” There was a yearning look in the uncomplaining eyes.
Zephyr looked meditatively at the fire, pursed his lips, and, deliberately thrusting his hand into the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt, drew forth his harmonica. He softly blew forth a few bars of a plaintive melody, then, taking the instrument from his lips, began to speak, without raising his eyes.
”If my memory serves me right, I used to know a little girl on a big ranch who had a large following of beasts and birds that had got into various kinds of trouble, owing to their limitations as such. I also remember that that same little girl on several appropriate occasions banged h.e.l.l--if you will excuse a bad word for the sake of good emphasis--out of two-legged beasts for abusing their superior kind. Who would fly at the devil to protect a broken-winged gosling. Who would coax rainbows out of alkali water and sweet-scented flowers out of hot sand. My more recent memory seems to put it up to me that this same little girl, with more years on her head and a growing heart under her ribs, has sat up many nights with sick infants, and fought death from said infants to the great joy of their owners. From which I infer, if by any chance said little girl should be lifted up into heaven and seated at the right hand of G.o.d, much trouble would descend upon the Holy Family if Madame should want to be near her little elise, and any of the said Holies should try to stand her off.”
Madame did not fully understand, but what did it matter? Zephyr was on her side. Of that she was satisfied. She vaguely gleaned from his words that, in his opinion, elise would always love her and would never desert her. She hugged this comforting thought close to her cramped soul.
”But,” she began, hesitatingly, ”Pierre said that she should not go to school, that she should marry right away.”
”Pierre is a very hard sh.e.l.l with a very small kernel,” remarked Zephyr.
”Which means that Pierre is going to do what he thinks is well for elise. elise has got a pretty big hold on Pierre.”
”But he promised her father that he would give back elise to her friends, and now he says he won't.”
”Have you told elise that Pierre is not her father?”
”No; I dare not.”
”That's all right. Let me try to think out loud a little. The father and mother of elise ran away to marry. That is why her friends know nothing of her. Her mother died before elise was six months old, and her father before she was a yearling. Pierre promised to get elise back to her father's family. It wasn't just easy at that time to break through the mountains and Injuns to Denver. You and Pierre waited for better times.
When better times came you both had grown very fond of elise. A year or so would make no difference to those who did not know. Now elise is sixteen. Pierre realizes that he must make a choice between now and never. He's got a very soft spot in his heart for elise. It's the only one he ever had, or ever will have. elise isn't his. That doesn't make very much difference. Pierre has never had any especial training in giving up things he wants, simply because they don't belong to him. You haven't helped train him otherwise.” Zephyr glanced at Madame. Madame's cheeks suddenly glowed, then as suddenly paled. A faint thought of what might have been years ago came and went. Zephyr resumed: ”As long as elise is unmarried, there is danger of his being compelled to give her up. Well,” Zephyr's lips grew hard, ”you can set your mind at rest.
elise isn't going to marry Morrison, and when the proper time comes, which will be soon, Pierre is going to give her up.”
Madame had yet one more episode upon which she needed light. She told Zephyr of Pierre's threatened attack, and of elise's holding him off at the point of her revolver. She felt, but was not sure, that elise by her open defiance had only sealed her fate.