“Then there is Lavelotte's widow,” continued Honoré.
Yes, there was Lavelotte's widow, the worst of all. She whipped little Jules unmercifully, and if Honoré had not taken his part and stood before him, she might have ended by being Jules's widow. She stripped him of his whole fortune, four hundred dollars, when he finally obtained a separation from her. But instead of curing him, this experience only whetted his zest for another wife.
“And there is Thérèse.” Honoré did not say, “Last, Thérèse.” While Jules lived and his wives died, or were traded off or divorced, there would be no last.
“It is four,” declared Clethera; and the count was true. Honoré had taken Jules in hand like a father, after the adventure with Lavelotte's widow. He made his parent work hard at the boat, and in winter walked him to and from mass literally with hand on collar. He encouraged the little man, moreover, with a half interest in their house on the beach, which long-accumulated earnings of the boat paid for. But all this care was thrown away; though after Jules brought Thérèse home, and saw that Honoré was not appeased by a woman's cooking, he had qualms about the homestead, and secretly carried the deed back to the original owner.
“I want you keep my part of de deed,” he explained. “I not let some more women rob Honoré. My wife, if she get de deed in her han', she might sell de whole t'ing!”
“Why, no, Jules, she couldn't sell your real estate!” the former owner declared. “She would only have a life interest in your share.”
“No. She would have nothing but a life interest.”
“She have only life interest? By gar! I t'ink I pay somebody twenty dollar to kill her!”
But lacking both twenty dollars and determination, he lived peaceably with Thérèse until she died a natural death, on that occasion proudly doing his whole duty as a man and a mourner.
Remembering these affairs, which had not been kept secret from anybody on the island, Clethera spoke out under conviction.
“Honoré, it a scandal' t'ing, to get marry.”
“Melinda Crée,” retorted Honoré, obliged to defend his own, “she take a little 'usban' honly nineteen.”
“She 'ave no chance like Jules; she is oblige' to wait and take what invite her.”
The voices of children from other quarter-breed cottages, playing along the beach, added cheer to the sweet darkness. Clethera and Honoré sat silently enjoying each other's company, unconscious that their aboriginal forefathers had courted in that manner, sitting under arbors of branches.