Rough-Hewn

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Marise heard Mme. Garnier's son also laugh nervously and say that he would come in for a moment to pay his respects to Madame. They both spoke English, which Jean-Pierre had learned so well in New York. Well, why not? In America anybody might happen to make an evening call at half past eight. And Mme. Garnier's son had just been in America. Heavens! How her head ached! She would go to bed anyway, whether it was time or not. She undressed rapidly and getting into bed pulled the covers over her head. It seemed to her that she lay thus for ages, her eyes pinched shut in the smothering air under the blankets. Then she pulled them down to breathe and found that she had forgotten to put out her candle, which was guttering low and showing by the clock that her "ages" had been less than an hour. It was twenty minutes past nine.

She blew out her candle, and decided that Jeanne or no Jeanne, she must have more air. She was suffocating. She drew the curtains aside and secure in the darkness of the room, opened both sides of the window wide. The fresh air came in like waking up from a nightmare.

But she had not waked up, for there on the bench across the street was Mme. Garnier's son again. Had she dreamed that he had come to the door? How strangely he sat now, flung down sideways, his face hidden on his arm. As Marise stared, understanding nothing of what she saw, he started up spasmodically as though some one had struck him from behind. Then he collapsed again, his face buried on his out-flung arm. After this he was perfectly motionless, like everything around him, the somber wall of the Château Vieux, the sickly light of the street-lamp, the bench, the rough paving-stones, the vacant, gray shutters of the department store further along the street.

As Marise stood there, shivering in her night-gown, staring, she heard Maman's quick light step at the other end of the corridor, and the sound of Maman's voice, humming a little trilling song. She turned her head, and saw the cheerful yellow flicker of a candle coming nearer her open door. Maman was going down to her dressing-room to get ready for bed. She thought of course that Marise was in bed and asleep by this time and when she came by, looking down at the lighted candle in the pretty little gilt candle-stick she did not even glance into the dark room where the child stood bewildered. For the instant she was framed in the square of the open door, she was brilliantly painted on the darkness, all the bright colors of her fair hair, her shining eyes, her red lips, softly gleaming in the warm, golden light of the little flame. The picture was printed indelibly on the child's wide eyes sensitized by the darkness; and long after the sound of the gay little song had died away, long years after the sound of the light footstep was silent, Marise could see, hung on the blackness around her bed at night, the shining picture, golden-bright in the quivering, living flame of the candle, the dense waxy petals of the camellia against the vaporous blonde hair, the smiling curved lips, the velvet white of the slender bare neck and arms, the rich sheen of the mauve satin flowing about the quick, light feet.

She got into bed warmed, comforted. Nothing could be the matter if Maman was smiling so cheerfully. She fell asleep at once, desperately tired, giving up as an unanswerable and no longer very interesting riddle, the question of what was the trouble with Mme. Garnier's son.

But in the night, without knowing how, she found herself once more by the open window—she had been dreaming, she had got up to see about something in her dream—something about ... why, there he was still on the bench, all huddled and stooped together now, his face hidden in both arms crossed on his knees. Perhaps he had dropped asleep there. Br-r-r-r! he would be cold when he woke up. How chilly it still was at night! Well, yes, it was evident that she had dreamed it about his ringing at the door. She plunged back under the covers, she heard the long sonorous hoot of a steamer going out to sea, and was asleep before it died away.

She overslept in the morning, so that Jeanne, when she came with the tray, ran to shake her and said she must hurry to dress or she would be late to school. Marise sprang up, thinking of nothing but the reprimand she risked, and flung on her clothes, stopping to bite off big mouthfuls of the buttered croissants and drink big swallows of the café-au-lait. Jeanne buttoned her behind while she brushed furiously at her hair. "Where are my books? Oh, never mind that last hook, it'll never show. Oh, just once without my gloves! No I don't need my coat, the sun is so warm." She ran out to the corridor, snatched her hat, and, her teeth set in the last morsel of her bread, darted down the hall, Jeanne galloping stiffly behind her, as anxious as she over the possibility of being late.

But at the outer door, she paused, one hand on the knob, something imperatively urging her to return. What had she seen as she passed the open door of the salon? Just the every morning scene, Isabelle with her head tied up in a cloth, a brush-broom in her hand, all the windows wide open, the rugs hanging over the sills, the sun streaming in with the particular clean fresh brilliance it always seemed to have early in the morning, while the room was still empty of life. How could there have been anything threatening about that familiar sight? It was Isabelle's face. She had been standing perfectly still, the long handle of her brush-broom held under one arm, looking down with a puzzled expression at something she held in her hand.

Marise had wheeled so instantly in answer to the vague warning of danger, that she was back at the door of the salon, before Isabelle's position had changed. She still stood there, looking down at a wilted, white rose-bud. And now her face was suspicious as well as puzzled. Glancing up she said meaningly to Jeanne, over Marise's shoulder, "Now, where do you suppose this came from? I found it on the floor by the sofa! There were no roses brought into the house by any one we saw yesterday!"

Jeanne thrust her long stringy neck forward, and passed her head over Marise's shoulder to verify the fact. Marise could see the glitter in her eye. Marise cried out instantly, "Oh, my poor rose! That's where it was! I looked for it everywhere last night to put it in water."