Rose à Charlitte — Background and Themes

"Hast committed a crime, and think'st thou to escape? Alas, my father!"--_Old Play._

"Evil deeds do not die," and the handsome young man stretched out in an easy chair by the fire raised his curly black head and gazed into the farthest corner of the comfortably furnished room as if challenging a denial of this statement.

No one contradicted him, for he was alone, and with a slightly satirical smile he went on. "One fellow sows the seeds, and another has to reap them--no, you don't reap seeds, you reap what springs up. Deadly plants, we will say, nightshades and that sort of thing; and the surprised and inoffensive descendants of sinful sires have to drop their ordinary occupations and seize reaping-hooks to clean out these things that shoot up in their paths. Here am I, for example, a comparatively harmless product of the nineteenth century, confronted with a upas-tree planted by my great-grandfather of the eighteenth,--just one hundred and forty years ago. It was certainly very heedless in the old boy," and he smiled again and stared indolently at the leaping flames in the grate.

The fire was of wood,--sections of young trees cut small and laid crosswise,--and from their slender stems escaping gases choked and sputtered angrily.

"I am burning miniature trees," drawled the young man; "by the way, they seem to be assisting in my soliloquy. Perhaps they know this little secret," and with sudden animation he put out his hand and rang the bell beside him.

A colored boy appeared. "Henry," said the young man, "where did you get this wood?"

"I got it out of a schooner, sir, down on one of the wharves."

"What port did the schooner hail from?"

"From Novy Scoshy, sir."

"Were the crew Acadiens?"

"Were there any French sailors on her?"

"Yes, sir, I guess so. I heard 'em jabbering some queer kind of talk."

"Listen to the wood in that fire,--what does it say to you?"

Henry grinned broadly. "It sounds like as if it was laughing at me, sir."

"You think so? That will do."

The boy closed the door softly and went away, and the young man murmured, "Just what I thought. They do know. Now, Acadien treelets, gasping your last to throw a gleam of brightness into my lazy life, tell me, is anything worth while? If there had been a curse laid on your ancestors in the forest, would you devote your last five minutes to lifting it?"

The angry gasping and sobbing in the fire had died away. Two of the topmost billets of wood rolled gently over and emitted a soft muttering.

"You would, eh?" said the young man, with a sweet, subtle smile. "You would spend your last breath for the good of your race. You have left some saplings behind you in the forest. You hope that they will be happy, and should I, a human being, be less disinterested than you?"

"Vesper," said a sudden voice, from the doorway, "are you talking to yourself?"

The young man deliberately turned his head. The better to observe the action of the sticks of wood, and to catch their last dying murmurs, he had leaned forward, and sat with his hands on his knees. Now he got up, drew a chair to the fire for his mother, then sank back into his own.

"I do not like to hear you talking to yourself," she went on, in a querulous, birdlike voice, "it seems like the habit of an old man or a crazy person."

"One likes sometimes to have a little confidential conversation, my mother."

"You always were secretive and unlike other people," she said, in acute maternal satisfaction and appreciation. "Of all the boys on the hill there was none as clever as you in keeping his own counsel."

"So you think, but remember that I happened to be your son," he said, protestingly.

"Others have remarked it. Even your teachers said they could never make you out," and her caressing glance swept tenderly over his dark curly head, his pallid face, and slender figure.

His satirical yet affectionate eyes met hers, then he looked at the fire. "Mother, it is getting hot in Boston."

"Hot, Vesper?" and she stretched out one little white hand towards the fireplace.

"This is an exceptional day. The wind is easterly and raw, and it is raining. Remember what perfect weather we have had. It is the first of June; it ought to be getting warm."

"I do not wish to leave Boston until the last of the month," said the little lady, decidedly, "unless,--unless," and she wistfully surveyed him, "it is better for your health to go away."