Pearl in the Mist (Landry 2)

"But you might start again if you think about us in a different way," he said hopefully. "You're back here and . . ."

I shook my head.

"It's more than that then, isn't it?"

I nodded.

"You still love that Beau Andreas, even though he's made you pregnant and left you, don't you? Don't you?" he demanded.

"Yes, Paul, I guess I do."

He stared a moment and then sighed. "Well, it doesn't change things. I'll still be here for you all the time," he said firmly.

"Paul, don't make me feel sorry I came back."

"Of course I won't," he said. "Weil, I'd better get home," he said and walked to the doorway. He paused and looked back at me. "You know what they're going to think anyway, don't you, Ruby?"

"What?"

"That the baby's mine," he said.

"I'll tell the truth when I have to," I said.

"They won't believe you," he insisted. "And as Rhett Butler said in Gone With the Wind, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'

He laughed and walked out, leaving me more confused than ever, and more frightened than ever of what the future had in store.

I made myself at home again faster than I had thought possible. Within the week I was upstairs in the loom room, weaving cotton jaune into blankets to sell at the roadside stand. I wove palmetto leaves into palmetto hats and made split-oak baskets. I wasn't as good at cooking gumbo as Grandmere Catherine used to be, but I tried and made a passably good one to sell for lunches. I would work evenings and be out setting up the stand in the morning. Once in a while I thought about doing some painting, but for the time being I didn't have a spare moment. Paul was the first to point that out.

"You're working so hard at making what you need to eat and get by that you have no time to develop your talent, Ruby, and that's a sin," he said.

I didn't answer because I knew what he meant.

"We could have a good life together, Ruby. You would be a woman of means again, able to do the things you want to do. We'll have a nanny for the baby and--"

"Paul, don't," I begged. My lips trembled, and he changed the subject quickly, for if there was one thing Paul would never do it was make me cry, make me sad.

The weeks turned into months, and soon it felt like I had never left. Nights I would sit on the galerie and watch the occasional passing vehicles or look up at the moon and stars until Paul arrived. Sometimes he brought his harmonica and played a tune or two. If something sounded too mournful, lie jumped up and played a lively number, dancing and making me laugh as he puffed out the notes.

Often I took walks along the canal, just the way I used to when I was growing up here. On moonlit nights the swamp's Golden Lady spider webs would glisten, the owls would hoot, and the 'gators would slip gracefully through the silky waters. Occasionally I would come across one sleeping on the shore and go cautiously around him. I knew he sensed my presence but barely opened his eyes.

It wasn't until the beginning of my fifth month that I began to show. No one said anything, but everyone's eyes lingered a long moment on my belly and I knew I had begun to be the topic of afternoon conversations everywhere. Finally I was visited by a delegation of women led by Grandmere Catherine's old friends Mrs. Thirbodeaux and Mrs. Livaudis. Mrs. Livaudis was apparently chosen to be their

spokeswoman.

"Now Ruby, we've come here because you haven't got anyone to speak for you anymore," she began.

"I can speak for myself when I have to, Mrs. Livaudis."

"Maybe you can. Being Catherine Landry's granddaughter, I'm sure you can, but it don't hurt to have some of us old biddies squawking alongside you," she continued, and she nodded at the others, who nodded back, all of one determined face.

"Who are we to be speaking to, Mrs. Livaudis?"

"We'll be speaking to the man who's

responsible," she said, nodding at me, "that's who. We all think we know who that young man is, too, and he comes from a family of substantial means in these here parts."

"I'm sorry, everyone," I said, "but the young man you're thinking about is not the father of my child."