The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length, in her soft
white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was beside her, upon her
arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her breast. The yellow nurse woman
sat beside a window fanning herself.
Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed her,
holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned to the
child.
"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones. French was the
language spoken at Valmonde in those days.
"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Desiree, "at the way he has
grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs, mamma, and his
hands and fingernails,--real finger-nails. Zandrine had to cut them this
morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"
The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, "Mais si, Madame."
"And the way he cries," went on Desiree, "is deafening. Armand heard him
the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."
Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it
and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She scanned the
baby narrowly, then looked as searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was
turned to gaze across the fields.
"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly,
as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?"
Desiree's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.
"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly
because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says not,--that he
would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn't true. I know he
says that to please me. And mamma," she added, drawing Madame Valmonde's
head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he hasn't punished one of
them--not one of them--since baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended
to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work--he only laughed, and
said Negrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens
me."
What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had
softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature greatly.
This was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she loved him
desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved him. When he
smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God. But Armand's dark,
handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he
fell in love with her.
When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one day to the
conviction that there was something in the air menacing her peace.
It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been a disquieting
suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from
far-off neighbors who could hardly account for their coming. Then a
strange, an awful change in her husband's manner, which she dared not
ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from
which the old love-light seemed to have gone out. He absented himself
from home; and when there, avoided her presence and that of her child,
without excuse. And the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take
hold of him in his dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable
enough to die.