I still had some money, as in all my slamming around I’d clung to my pocketbook, but when I’d send down for my bill no bill would come up. Someone was paying for me, that much was clear, but who I didn’t know. I supposed for a time it was Dan, as he came every day for a visit — the General, by now, was back on headquarters duty, though relieved in the field. But when, in between plaguing for news of Mignon, which he said he hadn’t been able to get, I offered to square things up, he looked perfectly blank and knew no more than I did what I was talking about. Then I began to have my suspicions, but couldn’t do much about them, pending surgery on my leg. It would puff up, be lanced, and then puff up again, until the doctor said to me: “I have to lay it open if it’s ever going to heal. Trouble is, you were stabbed only halfway through, so the wound acts as a pocket to trap the corruption in. We have to drain it out, especially that bruised corruption that the crack in the river caused. I must open your leg from behind, to let the wound drain down, so gravity works for us, ’stead of being our worst enemy.”
I told him do what he had to, and he did, bringing another doctor to help, spreading oilcloth on the bed, and in all ways doing a job. The pain wasn’t so bad, but the laudanum almost finished me. It affected my lungs, somehow, so they seemed to be paralyzed, and wouldn’t draw any air. I lay for hours stifled, fighting for my breath, and when at last the paralysis went, I was completely gone. My leg, I thought, would get well, but all I could do was sleep. And then, one day when I woke up, Sandy was sitting there, in his Vicksburg blues but neatly brushed and clean. He started in, pretty nervous, talking about his transfer to headquarters duty in New Orleans: “The fighting’s pretty much over, here on Western waters.”
“What about Mignon?” I asked him.
“You mean Dan hasn’t told you?”
“He couldn’t find out anything — he said.”
“He probably wanted to spare you.”
“You mean, they never got her?”
“That’s right — we grappled all morning, not only for her, but for a seaman that was lost, boy by the name of Cassidy, who never came up after the cutter capsized when they took her down separate. No bodies were found.”
He came over, patted my shoulder, stood around, and said all the dumb things one friend says to another who’s been hit in the head with an axe. At last I said: “Well, the end of our little adventure.”
“In New Orleans, you’re talking about?”
“Yes, Sandy, of course.”
“You feel you can’t go on?”
“What do we go on with? Whiff?”
“... I’m sorry I got you into it.”
“Takes two to get into a thing like that, and I don’t blame you for it. Just the same, Sandy, I stick around New Orleans and I’m on the town. Well, I don’t want to be.” And then, as I began to shift from what was to what was going to be, I went on: “I’d like you to do something for me. I have the fare home — not much more, but enough to get me there. Not enough, however, to settle my hotel bill, doctor, and so on. They’ve been paid for me, in a somewhat mysterious way, and what I want you to do is see a woman for me; I think she is responsible.” I told him the little he needed to know about Marie and said: “What I want you to do is see her, find out how much she’s spent, and assure her I’ll remit when I get to Annapolis. I want you to talk to her nice as you can, but if she has any idea of starting up with me again, get it out of her head. That would be the last straw — she’s a sweet, wonderful person, who’d be perfectly capable of paying for me here out of the goodness of her heart. But I must mourn my dead, and my dead wouldn’t like it if I got outside help. Will you take care of it for me?”
“I’ll do my best, Bill.”
I didn’t see him for several days, and in that time I gained enough strength to sit up. I’d taken my first staggering stroll, to the sofa in the sitting room, and was reading the Times there when a tap came at the door. “It’s open, come in!” I called, expecting the maid. But who opened the door was Marie. She had on a white summer dress, with floppy straw hat, and carried a bouquet of flowers tied with a white ribbon. I jumped up to greet her, but she pushed me back on the sofa, then sat down, laying her flowers aside, and took me in her arms. “Guillaume,” she said, “are you better?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m going to be all right — thanks to you, I think. And that’s what we’re talking about.”
“No, please,” she whispered. “First, about me.”
“Then — what about you?”
“You may félicite me. I am mariée.”
“That means — married?”
“Yes, Guillaume. Are you angry at me?”
“Angry? I’m so happy I want to cry.”
“Alors. Alors. Alors.”
She got up, as though to go to the door, but I grabbed her, pulled her down again, kissed her, and kissed her again. I said: “It’s the most wonderful news, Marie — especially to me, after the lousy way I treated you—”
“There shall be no talk of louses! You were in love, with a fine, wonderful girl, half poupée, half tigre, so where is the louse, for example? But you ask not, petit, who my husband is.”
“All right, who is this lucky hombre?”
She got up, went to the door and beckoned. I expected her guard to come in, or Dumont, or someone who had been in her life before she met me, but Sandy stepped through the door, a self-conscious grin on his face, his Lavadeau suit glittering like a Christmas tree. I said: “You?”
“That’s right, Bill. I’m the one.”
“Pardon me, I think I’m going to faint.”
He took a seat in a chair, quite pleased with himself, while she sat by me again, no longer afraid of what I might say, but friendly, cuddly, and ramping to tell me about it. She said: “Alexandre came to me, with messages of you, who I heard about of m’sieu Olsen, but it seemed discussions were required. So — we walked, in Jackson Square. We had coffee, in the French Market, perhaps — gras, greezee but droll. Ainsi, next day, more discussion appeared to devolve, so we lunched at Antoine’s, some hours. Then, it was time for dinner, and then we attended the theater. Then, we walked more in Jackson Square, and next day we resumed our discussions. Ainsi, ainsi, ainsi — today, we go to the City Hall, and — pardon if I draw breath.”