Authors: Lorena Dureau
"Oh, yes," wailed Celeste. "She's with Maurice. They're
eloping!"
"Eloping?
Qué barbaridad
! That's all
I needed!" A flood of Spanish exclamations poured out of him. "But the
girl is daft!"
"She… she told me to tell you and Grandmother
not to… not to worry—that she'll be all right,"
Celeste added meekly, trying to soothe him a little, although it was
evident she didn't fully believe her own words of consolation.
Suddenly the full impact of the news hit him. Only one
thought was foremost in his mind now. He had to stop Monique before it
was too late.
"Quick! Where did they go?"
His grip was on Celeste's tiny wrist, but she hesitated.
"I… I don't know," she insisted.
"Come now, I'm sure she told you something of their plans."
The poor girl was sobbing uncontrollably now.
"I… I don't know," she insisted.
Vidal pulled her up out of the chair and drew her aside so
that those who were beginning to eye them with budding curiosity
couldn't hear what they were saying. "Come now, Celeste," he coaxed
more gently now, trying not to frighten the youngster more than she
already was. "You must tell me what you know… for your
sister's sake. She can't be permitted to do this idiotic thing."
"I… I can't." She stood there hanging her
honey-colored curls in stubborn silence.
Vidal was beside himself.
"Celeste, please! We're wasting precious time. You'll regret it to your
dying day if you don't tell me."
"But I gave my sacred oath. She made me swear…"
Vidal ran his hand desperately through the shock of dark
ringlets framing his anguished face.
"Don't let false loyalty blind you to the greater things
at stake here. Your sister's whole future is in jeopardy," he pleaded
fervently. "And think of your grandmother. This could kill her."
Poor Celeste was weakening. The burden of so great a
secret was too much for her scant years.
"They're… they're going to… to the
Acadian settlement," she finally replied, seeming to be wringing the
information out of her twisted handkerchief. "She said something about
the parish church at St. Martinville."
Vidal seemed to be about to sprout wings, but he paused a
moment longer. "What time did they leave here? Quickly, how much head
start do they have?"
"They left about an hour—no, an hour and a half
ago, I think. Oh, I'm really not sure!"
Azema, who had been listening in aloof silence, suddenly
caught Vidal by the sleeve to detain him. "Really, Miguel, you're not
thinking of riding out into the night after them?"
"Of course I am!" he retorted, surprised she would even
ask such a question. "I'm sure I can overtake them if I go on
horseback." He turned again to Celeste.
"They're in a carriage, I suppose?"
"Yes, in Maurice's cabriolet."
Vidal gave an exasperated snort. "The fool! To attempt
such a journey on a night like this in so light a vehicle!"
Azema blocked his way impatiently. "Miguel, aren't you
being rather melodramatic?" she chided, a cool, half-amused tone in her
voice. "After all, if your little cousin has chosen to elope, she may
have good reasons for it."
Vidal looked down at her from his full height, making no
attempt to hide his annoyance. "If you're implying what I think you
are, senora, you're quite out of your mind. My ward is only a
child… a foolish one, perhaps, but only a child. She may be
naive and impetuous, but most certainly she isn't trying to cover up
any transgression."
Azema laughed with a touch of sarcasm now. "Really,
Miguel, for all your worldliness in so many things, you can be so blind
where those little cousins of yours are concerned. Surely you've
noticed by now that your ward is more of a woman than a child? If she
wants to get married, why not let her do so and give her and the boy
your blessing?"
Vidal pulled his sleeve almost angrily from her grasp. "I
don't have time to argue fine points with you, senora," he snapped.
"I'm sure that, under the circumstances, you won't mind if I ask Henri
to take you and Celeste home for me. There simply isn't a minute to
lose."
He turned again to his unhappy young cousin. "If she's
going to Acadian territory, then I suppose they've taken the West Gate
out of the city?"
Celeste vacillated. She saw the anguish on her guardian's
face, ashen now above the snow-white folds of his high cravat. She
couldn't let him go off chasing out into the night like that,
frantically roaming the lonely roads of the dark wilderness looking in
vain for her sister.
She could feel his dark eyes fixed on
her—pleading —waiting for her reply.
"They… they left by the North Gate," she said
at last. "Then at the fork on the levee road, just a little before Le Rêve, they plan to turn off and continue westward."
Vidal didn't wait to hear more. He went dashing off toward
the exit, pausing only to say a few hurried words to Henri Ducole on
his way out before clapping his beaver hat firmly down on his head and
vanishing into the inclement night.
Celeste sank down into the nearest chair she could find,
afraid that her legs would give way on her at any moment. She had
broken her sacred oath and betrayed her sister's confidence in her.
Monique would probably never speak to her again!
They
had been riding for several hours now, and it was well
after midnight. Although it hadn't begun to rain yet, the wind had been
steadily increasing in velocity, and the small one-horse carriage
swayed and creaked noisily as it made its way doggedly down the dark,
winding road running beside the levee. The Mississippi looked like
tarnished silver in the overcast night, for there was very little
moonlight to reflect. Not even the lanterns bobbing on either side of
the cabriolet had helped much to illumine the road as they had
flickered and sputtered feebly to the rhythm of their feverish race
against time.
Now, however. Foucher had drawn the carriage up to the
side of the road in order to give their hard-pressed horse a momentary
rest after their three-hour sprint on the wings of the wind. They were
at the junction where the road either turned off to the west or
continued straight north.
Monique sat huddled next to Maurice, the full skirts of
her wilted ball dress crushed into the limited space of the small
two-seater. If only the tumult raging inside of her would stop long
enough to let her think! As they had ridden on and on into the damp,
inclement night, with the wind rushing— almost
pushing—them along their way, her confusion had continued to
mount until now it over-whelmed her. Between Maurice and the wind and
her own torment, she simply couldn't collect her thoughts. How she
wished she could at least blot out that image of her guardian and Azema
Ducole dancing together and shut out the sounds of Maurice's voice and
the roaring wind in her ears! Somewhere amid the turmoil roaring around
her and within her, she had begun to wonder whether she would really
like everything that being married to Maurice Foucher would entail.
Now, as they paused on the lonely, dimly lit road, she was
beginning to realize that, in the future, it would be like
that—just she and Maurice. He was the one who would always be
by her side now—not Miguel. Was Maurice Foucher the man,
then, who would be holding her, making love to her for the rest of her
life? It seemed that, although Miguel Vidal filled her dreams, the
reality would be Maurice.
She wondered whether she would react the same way to him
as she had with Claude that night on the gallery. When the moment came
and Maurice would begin to kiss and fondle her, how would she feel on
opening her eyes to see it was Maurice's face bending over her instead
of her guardian's?
She tried to imagine how it would be to have Maurice
kissing her and cupping his hands over her breasts and drawing her into
the apex of his thighs, but the thought revolted her.
Suddenly she realized Maurice had put his arm around her
shoulder and at that very moment was drawing her closer to him. She
stiffened and drew away.
"What… what are you doing?" she demanded
uneasily.
"I'd just like to kiss you," he said, bending eagerly
toward her lips.
But she pushed him away so violently that the carriage
vibrated all the more in the wind.
"Oh, don't you dare!" she exclaimed indignantly.
"But if we're to be married… All I want is a
little kiss, my dear, nothing else. I mean no disrespect."
"Well, we're not married yet," she declared emphatically,
"so don't think you can take liberties with me just because we're alone
out here in the middle of the night."
Maurice flushed self-consciously. "I wouldn't dream of
it!" he protested. "I… I just thought you might at least
like me to kiss you. It's all rather romantic, don't you think? I mean,
our eloping like this on the spur of the moment and all."
Monique frowned. She really didn't find anything very
romantic about being parked on the side of a dark road at one o'clock
in the morning on a damp, windy night with rain threatening to come
down on them at any moment. Actually, much as she had always liked to
share her feelings of patriotism and mutual hatred of Spaniards with
Maurice, she had just about come to the conclusion that she didn't want
to share any other kinds of feelings with him at all.
"I don't think we should try to go on any farther
tonight," she told him crossly. "The weather seems to be getting worse.
How populated is the road to Acadiana?"
"I'm not really sure," admitted her prospective
bridegroom, rather crestfallen now over his bride-to-be's reaction to
his efforts to add a little more romanticism to their flight. "But it
does look as though we might be in for a bad storm, even a hurricane.
Perhaps we should continue up the river road as far as Le Rêve and
spend the night there. It's our nearest refuge from this
point… just up the road a piece. Is there anyone there now?
I mean, would we be able to get in?"
"Roselle and the field hands should be in their quarters
out back, and usually grandmother leaves Old Meggie in charge of the
main house when we're not there, but the poor old soul is almost deaf
and usually sleeps in her room up in the attic."
"Do you think it would occur to your guardian to look for
us there?"
"I doubt it. But you can never tell anything for sure
about him. It's never easy to predict what my cousin will do."
"Perhaps we ought to backtrack to my place. I'm sure my
family would welcome us."
Monique was pensive for a moment. "I still think it might
be better to go on to Le Rêve," she said at last. "Even if Cousin
Miguel were to find out about our elopement and that we took this road
out of town, he'd probably go look for us at your place first."
There was the sound of horses' hooves coming toward them
over the road they had just traveled.
"Listen… someone's coming!" exclaimed Monique,
almost glad to know there were still other people abroad in that part
of the world.
"Some lone traveler, I wager, probably trying to get to
his destination before the storm breaks. We probably should be doing
the same thing," declared Foucher.
"Oh, Maurice, let's hurry and stop off somewhere," she
begged, suddenly feeling very alone and afraid. "I don't want to go any
farther tonight!"
"All right, my dear, whatever you want," soothed Maurice.
"The weather does seem to be getting worse. What's more, I just
remembered some friends of mine who live about two or three miles from
here. They'll help us, I'm sure, and that's the least likely spot where
Vidal would look for us."
He turned the carriage into the road forking off toward
the west, but suddenly, without warning, the lone rider behind them
came tearing out of the darkness.
The tall silhouetted figure on horseback rushed past them
as though he were part of the wind itself, but all at once reined in
abruptly and, catching the horse drawing the cabriolet by its bridle,
forced it to come to a halt.
At that same moment the flickering lights of the carriage
fell across a face as dark and stormy as the night.
"God in heaven! It's Miguel!" gasped Monique incredulously.
The two runaways sat in guilty confusion as they watched
Vidal dismount and walk directly up to their carriage, leading his
panting, snorting horse behind him by its reins, while the wind lapped
at the long tails of his frock coat and his sword danced a menacing
rhythm against his boot tops. The high-crowned black hat, pulled down
tightly over his frowning brow, made him look all the taller and more
imposing as he unceremoniously reached into the carriage and, without
so much as a word, pulled his amazed ward brusquely out to the ground
beside him. Then, with his hand on his sword hilt, he motioned to
Foucher to step down, too.
Even the freckles on the young man's face paled. He had
always had a healthy respect for Don Miguel Vidal de la Fuente, and his
awe had never been greater than at that moment, but he realized he had
no other recourse at this point except to descend from his cabriolet
and brazen it out with his future bride's irate guardian.
"Now, Don Miguel, before you say or do anything we might
both regret, I think you should know that your ward and I are on our
way to St. Martinville to be married," he began in an unsteady voice,
eyeing Vidal's sword hand all the while. "Monique is with me of her own
accord."
"My ward is under age, Foucher, as you well know, so she
can have no 'accord' of her own whatsoever," snapped Vidal. "Under the
circumstances, I'd say it'll be generous of me if I don't run you
through right here on the spot."
"I assure you I want to marry Monique."
"I wouldn't call running off with a girl in the middle of
the night the best way to prove your good intentions."