With the coming of the furniture and the furnishing of the office, my hands were full for the next week. During the time, Mr. Ewart was in Ottawa on business, and I worked like a Trojan to have everything in readiness on his return. I was determined he should be the first to see the transformation of his special room, and forbade Jamie to open the door so much as a crack that might afford him a peep.
"It does n't seem much like the manor with Ewart away and you invisible except at meals," he growled from the arm-chair he had placed just outside the sill of the office door. He begged me to leave the door open just a little way, enough to enable him to have speech with me—a privilege I granted, but reluctantly, for I was putting the books on the shelves and giving the task my whole attention. The last day of the week was with us, and Mr. Ewart was expected in a few hours. I stopped long enough, however, to peep at him through the inch-wide opening. He was drawing away at a cold pipe and looked wholly disconsolate.
"A new version of Omar Khayyàm," I said.
"'A pipe, you know ... and ThouBeside me, chatting in the wilderness.'"
"I suppose you 'll let me in when Ewart comes."
"I 've nothing to say about that; it is n't my den."
"I was under the impression it was wholly yours, judging from your possession of it."
"Now, no sarcasm, Jamie Macleod; work is work, and there 's been a lot to do in here—not but what I 've taken solid comfort in putting this room into shape."
"Oh, yes, we have seen that; even Cale remarked to me the other night that he 'guessed' Mr. Ewart knew a good thing when he saw it, as he had a general furnisher and library assistant all in one, who was working for his interest about as hard as she could."
"Good for Cale, he is a discerning person. But he seems to be following suit pretty closely along his lines."
"I hear you 're to catalogue the books that are in the den."
"That is my order."
"Don't you want me to help you? Old French is n't so easy sometimes," he asked, coaxing.
"Oh, no; I 've help enough in Mr. Ewart. He knows it a good deal better than you do."
"'Sass'," was Jamie's sole reply, a word he had borrowed from Cale's vocabulary; he used it to characterize my attitude towards his acquirements.
I worked on in silence till the books were housed; then I drew a long breath of satisfaction.
"What's that sigh for?" was the demand from the other side of the door.
"For a noble deed accomplished, my friend."
"Humph!"
"Now move away your chair, I 'm coming out."
"Come on."
There was no movement of the chair, and, to punish him, I locked the door on the inside and went out through the kitchen up to my room.
I recall that afternoon: the heavy first-of-December skies; the gray-black look on the hemlocks; the faded trunks of the lindens; the dullness of the unreflecting snow; the intermittent soughing of the wind in the pines. All without looked drear, jaded, almost lifeless; the cold was penetrating. I determined that all within should be bright with home cheer on the master's return. Did he not say I had made a home of the old manor?
I recall dressing myself with unusual care and wishing I had some light-colored gown to help brighten the interior for him.
For him! I was looking in the mirror and coiling my hair when I realized my thought; to my amazement my own face seemed to me almost the face of a stranger. I saw that its thin oval had rounded, the cheeks gained a faint color; animation was in every feature, life anticipant in the eyes.
"That's what the change has done so soon; pure air, home life, good food and an abundance of it."
I failed to read the first sign.
There was nothing for it but to put on the well-worn skirt of brown panama serge, a clean shirt waist and a white four-in-hand. I promised myself not only a warm coat out of the first month's wages, but a light-colored inexpensive dress that would harmonize with the general feeling of youthfulness of which my inner woman was now aware. I sat down at the window to wait for the sound of the pung bells. Soon there was a soft tap at my door.
"Come in." Jamie made his appearance with a bunch of partridge berries in his hand.
"With Cale's compliments; he found them under the snow in the woods, and hopes you will do him the honor to wear them in your hair. He left them with me just before he went to meet Ewart; I had them under the arm-chair to present to you formally when you should come out of the den; instead of which, you ignominiously—"
"Please, don't, Jamie—no coals of fire; give me the lovely things."
"But, remember, you are to wear them in your hair, so Cale says."
"It's perfectly absurd—but I must do it to please him. Who would credit him with such an attention?"
"May I stay while you put them in?" he asked meekly.
"Of course you may, you sisterless youth."
I parted the bunch, and pinned a spray on each side, in the coils and plaits of my over heavy hair. Jamie said nothing till this finishing touch had been put to my toilet.
"I say, it's ripping, Marcia. Cale will be your abject slave from henceforth. By the way, I 've never heard him call you 'Happy', as he proposed to do."
"Nor I."
"I wonder what's the reason? Perhaps he thought he had been too fresh, and he does n't dare—There 's Ewart!" He was off on a run.
I thought I would wait for the various greetings to be over before going down. I felt sure I should not see his hand withdrawn this time, as on the occasion of his first home-coming. When I heard his voice below in the hall, I was aware of a warm thrill of delight, a joyous expectancy of good, a feeling as if the home-coming were my own; for never in my life had I been welcomed as he was, with a shout from Jamie, an outburst from the dogs, and joyful ejaculations from Angélique and Marie.
I went down, my cheeks glowing, my heart warm with the home-sense, and—I wondered at myself—my hand outstretched to his. When his closed upon it with the same cordial pressure of the week before, I knew for the first time in my life the joy of being "at home".
And I failed to read the second sign.
It was a busy winter and a joyous one for me; a short and happy one for Jamie, so he said. He was correcting proof for the first venture and collecting data for the second; trying his hand at a chapter here and there; alternately despairing, rejoicing, appealing to Mr. Ewart or me for criticism—something we were unable to give him, as from disjointed portions of his work we did not know the trend of his ideas; protesting one day that he could write nothing worth reading, then on the next proclaiming to the household, including Cale, his temporary triumph of mind over material. We enjoyed his moods, all of them, whether of despair or enthusiasm, guying him in the one and encouraging him in the other.
The cataloguing took me well into the first week in January. Mr. Ewart was often in the den with me of an afternoon, and I was glad to take advantage of his knowledge of the language in translation, and the use of obsolete words. His own time seemed over full for those first few months. On Tuesday and Saturday mornings, he was always in the office to see the farmers on the estate and talk with them about his plans for future development. On other week-days, when weather permitted, he and Cale were much in the woods.
I found that Mr. Ewart did not intend it should be all work and no play for me. Twice in December he drove me in the pung—no sleigh had as yet been purchased, although a piano filled a corner of the living-room; once, early in the morning, before the sun had a chance to warm and partly melt the ice-crystals that encased every branch, every twig and twiglet. On that morning, we drove without speech for miles behind the swiftly trotting French coach horses; the beauty about us was indescribable, and silence was the best appreciation. We sped through the woods'-road, a prismatic arcade of interlaced crystals; along the river bank beside the vast frozen expanse of the St. Lawrence, gleaming and glittering with blinding reflected radiance. It was so brilliant, that against it the trees by the roadside, laden as they were with ice, stood out black and gaunt. Then into Richelieu-en-Bas, where every roof, every fence, every post and rivet, looked to be pure rock crystal. Window-frames, eaves, doors, the old pump in the marketplace were behung with icicles. The world about us that morning was another world than the work-a-day one to which I was accustomed. I had seen this special condition of ice in northern New England, but never in such beauty and grandeur.
We drove home before the ice began to soften. Afterwards, I sat for an hour at my open window, listening to the musical tinkle and metallic clink of the falling ice from the trees in the woods across the creek.
With the reason given that Jamie and I needed exercise in the open every day,—our occupations being of the sedentary kind, as he said,—Mr. Ewart bade us fare forth with him to learn the art of snowshoeing. He was past master in it and a good teacher. By the middle of January we were well on our feet and independent of any help from him.
Oh, the joy of the fleet tracks over the unbroken white! Oh, the coursing of the blood, the deep, deep breaths of what Mr. Ewart called the "iced wine" air! Oh, the blessed hunger that was satisfied with wholesome food after the invigorating exercise! Oh, the refreshing sleep, with the temperature at zero and the still air touching my cheeks under the fur robe across my bed! And with it all the sense of security, the sense of peace, of rest!
In this atmosphere, the remembrance of the weary years in the great city grew dim. I rejoiced at it.
I was beginning, also, to make myself easily understood with the French. Their language I loved; their literature I cultivated. It was a delight to be able to visit the tiny homes in the village, whither I was sent on one errand or another by Mr. Ewart, so getting extra rides in the pung and longer hours in the bracing air. It was an education to make the acquaintance of various families, learn the names of every member of the households, their interests and occupations. They were such tiny homes, made so high of stoop to avoid the rising spring flood that the great river is apt to send far and wide and deep into the village streets, covering the noble park and flooding first floors, respecting neither twin-towered church nor manor house; so low in the walls, few-windowed, and those double and packed with moss.
And such expansive souls as I found in the tiny homes: the hostess of the inn, Mrs. Macleod's dressmaker who lived beneath the shadow of the great twin-towered church; the furrier and his wife on the market-square; from them I bought my warm coat; ancient Mère Guillardeau and her old daughter, weaver of rag carpets, and some of her friends who followed the same calling and showed me, during the short winter days, how to weave them on their rough looms.
Of the three or four English families, with the exception of the postmistress, I knew nothing, or knew of them only through Mr. Ewart and Jamie. The "Seignior" and "Seignioress", so-called although English, were in Montreal for the winter. The old General and his wife were housed through infirmities. Now and then I saw a bevy of red-cheeked English girls, driving over from their home-school in Upper Richelieu for a jolly lark on their half-holiday. Of other English I heard nothing; there were none in Richelieu-en-Bas.
As the season advanced and I was firm on my winter feet, I made many a snow-shoe call on the farmers' families who lived on the old seigniory lands. It was good to hear them tell their hopes and anticipations; for Mr. Ewart's plan to do away with the old seigniorial rents and leases, and make of each farmer, at present paying rent, a freeholder, was welcomed, with almost passionate enthusiasm, in this community, where, generally, change is looked at askance. It was not long before I discovered that, on entering these homes, I found myself anticipating some word of praise, some expression of loyalty and devotion to the man who was to give them a new outlook on life. I listened with willing ears and led them, many times of my own accord, to speak of him.
In the long winter evenings I read thoroughly into the history of French Canada. It took me far afield, into English as well; into biography and the work of pioneers. It showed me the flaming enthusiasm of the fanatic, the faith of the apostle, the courage of high adventure, the chivalry of noble lives, the loyalty and devotion of the humble. It showed me, also, the cruelty of man to man, the divergence of race, the warring of nations, the battlefields, the conquests, the heavy hand of the conqueror, the red man's friendship, the red man's enmity, fire, sword, torture. But in and through and above all, it opened to me the high heart of the Canadian, the undaunted faith in established principles, and the patriotism that is a veritable passion.
"O Canada, my Canada!" an old French Canadian once exclaimed to me as we sat by the box-stove in his little "cabin". "There is no land like it; no land where they live at peace as we do here; no land where they are so content by their own fireside." And he spoke the truth.
I began to understand, through my intercourse with our neighbors on the estate and the village people, those words of Drummond—Drummond who has shown us the hearts of Canada's children:
"Our fathers came to win usThis land beyond recall—And the same blood flows within usOf Briton, Celt and Gaul—Keep alive each glowing emberOf our sireland, but rememberOur country is CanadianWhatever may befall.
"Then line up and try us,Whoever would deny usThe freedom of our birthright,And they 'll find us like a wall—For we are Canadian, Canadian forever,Canadian forever—Canadian over all!"
One night in February, just before the Doctor's mid-winter visit, a friend of the dead poet passed a night beneath the roof of the old manor house as Mr. Ewart's guest. After the yellow chintz curtains were close drawn, so shutting out the wintry night, and while the backlog was glowing, he read to us from those poems that at the author's will exact tears or smiles from their hearers. After the reading of "The Rossignol", Jamie took his seat at the piano and played softly that exquisite old French Canadian air "Sur la montagne".
Mr. Ewart rose and, taking his stand beside him, sang the words of the poem which have been set to this music.
"Jus' as de sun is tryin'Climb on de summer skyTwo leetle birds come flyin'Over de mountain high—Over de mountain, over de mountain,Hear dem call,Hear dem call—poor leetle rossignol!"
They recalled to me that twin song of Björnson's which, despite its joyous note of anticipation, holds the same pathos of unsatisfied longing.
The last note had scarcely been struck when Jamie broke into the jolly accompaniment to
"For he was a grand Seigneur, my dear,He was a grand Seigneur."
And, listening so to poems and music and the talk of these men of fine mind and high aspirations, to their hopes for Canada as a whole, to their expression of pride in her marvellous growth and their faith in her future, I said to myself:
"Am I the girl, or rather woman now, who a few years ago made her way up from the narrow thoroughfares about Barclay Street to her attic room in 'old Chelsea'—up through the traffic-congested streets of New York, in the dark of the late winter afternoon, the melting snow falling in black drops and streams from the elevated above her; the avenues running brown snow-water; the rails gleaming; the steaming horses plashing through slush; the fog making haloes about the dimmed arc-lights; the hurrying, pressing tide of humanity surging this way and that and nearly taking her off her feet at the crossings; the whole city reeking with a warm-chill mist, and the shrieking, grinding, grating, whistling, roaring polyglot din of the metropolis half deafening her?"
Thinking of this as I stared into the fire, listening to the good talk on many subjects, something—was it the frost of homelessness?—melted in my heart. The feelings and emotions that had been benumbed through the icy chill of circumstance, thawed within me. The tears, usually unready, filled my eyes. I bent my head that the others might not see, but they fell faster and faster. And with every one that plashed on my hands, as they lay folded in my lap, I felt the unbinding from my life of one hard year after another, until the woman who rose to bring in the porridge, in order to cover her emotion, was one who rose free of all thwarting circumstance. I had come into my own—a woman's own.
But I failed to read the third sign.
Doctor Rugvie's visit! It was fruitful of much, little as I anticipated that.
I wrote regularly every month to Delia Beaseley telling her all that I knew would be of interest to her about my life at Lamoral, and assuring her that my lines had fallen in pleasant places. She wrote, at first, to tell me that my wish, in regard to keeping my identity from Doctor Rugvie for the present, would be respected; but in a later letter she urged me to make it known to him; to ascertain all the facts possible about my parentage. I replied that I preferred to wait.
And why did I prefer to wait? I asked myself this question and found no answer. When the answer came, it was unmistakable in its leadings.
"A letter from Doctor Rugvie; he is coming Monday!" I cried joyfully, flourishing the sheet in Jamie's face when he appeared at the door to ask for his mail.
I was sitting on the floor by the shelves in the living-room, for I was busy cataloguing the books in the general and mixed collection, and searching for allied subjects. This work Mr. Ewart assigned to me after I had finished the "forestry" cataloguing.
"Where 's mine?"
"You have n't any, nor Mr. Ewart—from the Doctor, I mean."
"You seem to be particularly elated over the fact."
"Jamie, my friend, feel—" I held up the envelope to him; he took it and fingered it investigatingly.
"What's this in it?"
"That is an object which in international currency exchange we call a draft—the equivalent of my wages, Jamie; in other words, payment for industrial efficiency; do you hear?"
"My, but you are a mercenary woman! One of the kind we read of in the States," he retorted.
"Wait till you get your first check for royalties from London, then use that word and tone to me again if you dare."
Mr. Ewart opened the door of the office.
"What's this I hear about the Doctor and mercenary tendencies—the two don't go together as I happen to know." He spoke from the threshold.
Jamie showed him the envelope, holding it high above my head.
"This, Ewart, is the compensation for sundry days of so-called labor on the part of Miss Farrell—drives, snow-shoeing, tobogganing with Cale not discounted, of course. Shall I read it, Marcia?"
"For all I care."
Mr. Ewart looked on smiling at our chaff.
"It's on the First National Bank of New York, Ewart, for the amount of fifty-two dollars and eighty-seven cents—how 's that about the cents, Marcia?"
"Because the Doctor insists on paying me every two months and seems to call thirty days a month—why every two, I don't know, do you?" I said laughing, and looking up, questioning, into Mr. Ewart's face. What I saw there, what I am sure Jamie saw, was not encouraging for more jesting on Jamie's part or mine. He turned away abruptly and sat down at his desk before he spoke:
"The Doctor wired me this afternoon that he would be here to-night instead of Monday, as he can get in an extra day. I can't say how sorry I am it has happened so, for I made arrangements to be in Quebec to-night and in Ottawa to-morrow night. I return Monday. Well, I must leave him in your hands—he won't lack entertainment. I wish, Jamie, it were possible for you to risk it and meet him with me this evening; but I suppose this night air is too keen—it's ten below now. I shall take the train he comes on and may not have time for a word of welcome."
"I suppose it would be risking too much." Jamie spoke with something that sounded like a sigh. "I don't want the Doctor to roar at me the first thing because I am indiscreet—not after what he and his advice and kindness have done for me already."
Mr. Ewart laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You 're another man, Macleod, since coming here. We won't make any back tracks into that wilderness, will we?" He spoke so gently, so affectionately, that Jamie turned suddenly to him, exclaiming impulsively:
"Gordon, if you were a woman I 'd kiss you for saying that."
I knew what courage it gave him to hear this from his friend; and I wondered what kind of a man this might be who, one moment, could look stern and unyielding at our half childish chaffing, and in the next be all affectionate solicitude for this younger man who, at times, was all boy.
"Then, Miss Farrell," he turned to me, "won't you come? Cale will drive me over in the double pung."
There was no hesitation in my giving an affirmative answer.
"We 'll have supper within an hour, please, Mrs. Macleod," he said, as she entered the room. He looked at the pile of books on the floor beside me.
"It's too late for you to work any more." He stooped and, gathering up an armful, began to place them. "Will you be so kind as to speak to Marie and tell her to have four soapstones thoroughly heated, and ask Cale to warm the robes? It will be twenty below before you get back."
"Just what I 've wanted to do all winter," I exclaimed; "a drive on such a clear, full-moon night to Richelieu-en-Haut will be something to remember."
"I hope to make it so; for it's a typical Canadian midwinter night—a thing of splendor if seen with seeing eyes."
"Then you won't expect me to talk much, will you?"
"No,"—he smiled genially, and Jamie audaciously winked at me behind his back,—"it's apt to make my teeth ache, and although yours are as sound as mine, I don't believe they can stand prolonged exposure to severe cold any better. But how about Cale? There is no ice embargo on his flow of speech."
Jamie burst into a laugh. "You 're right, Gordon, he 'll do all the talking for both, and for the Doctor too. By the way, mother," he said, turning to Mrs. Macleod and at the same time holding out a hand to help me up from the floor—an attention I ignored to save his strength—"something Cale said the other day, but casually, led me to think he may be a benedict instead of a bachelor; you have n't found out yet?"
"No, but sometime it will come right for me to ask him. He has consideration for women in just those little things that would lead me to believe that he has been married—"
"Oh, I say, mother, that's rough on Ewart and me. Give us a point or two on the 'little things', will you?"
"Stop teasing, Jamie; I still think, as I thought from the first, that he has been—"
"Perhaps more than once, mother! Perhaps he 's a widower, or even a grass widower—I 've heard of such in the States—or he might be a divorcé, or a Mormon, or a swami gone astray—"
"Havers!" she exclaimed, with a show of resentment which caused her son to rejoice, for it was only when thoroughly out of patience with him that she used the Scotch.
"You 're too absurd," I said with a warning look.
"Mother is for stiff back-boned unrelentingness in such things," he remarked soberly, after she and Mr. Ewart left the room; "and I 've put my foot into it too," he added dolefully. "Why, the deuce, did n't you stop me in time?"
"How did I know how far your nonsense would lead you?"
"Well, I don't care—much; I can't step round on eggs just because of what I 've heard—"
"If only you had n't said anything about 'grass widower'!"
"Don't rub it in so," he said pettishly, and by that same token I knew he was repentant because, without intention, he might have spoken in a way to hurt momentarily his friend.
"Beats all how dumb critters scent a change," said Cale, just after supper. He was loaded with the robes he had been warming. Pierre was waiting in the pung, having brought the horses around a little early. Little Pete with a soapstone was following Cale. "They begun to be uneasy 'bout two hours ago; I take it they heard Mr. Ewart say he was leavin' on the night express, and begun to get nerved up."
"So they did, Cale; they were in the office, all four of them, and heard every word. Look at them!"
Cale stopped on his way to the front door and looked up the stairway. Mr. Ewart was coming down, a dog on each side of him, and two behind fairly nosing his heels. They made no demonstration; were not apparently expectant; but, as Cale remarked 'they froze mighty close to him', sneaking down step by step beside and behind him, ears drooping, tails well curled between their legs—four despairing setters!
We watched them. Mr. Ewart paid no heed to them. They heeled along in the passageway almost on their bellies when he took his fur coat from the hook. He had another on his arm which he held open for me.
"I really am warmly enough dressed," I said.
"I don't doubt it—for now; but you 'll be grateful enough to me three hours later for insisting on your wearing it—in with you!" He moved a dog or two from under his feet, gently but forcibly with the tip of his boot; whereupon they literally crawled on the floor.
"If you don't mind, Cale,"—he spoke purposely in a low monotone, but with a look of amusement,—"if you don't mind having the dogs in with you under the robes on the front seat, I 'm willing to have them go, but I don't want them to run with the pung."
I noticed no movement on the part of the dogs except an intense quivering of the whole body. One who does not understand doghood might have fancied they were shivering at the prospect of the eighteen-mile drive in the cold.
"I ain't no objection," said Cale; "the fact is there ain't no better foot-warmer 'n a dog on a cold night, an' I was goin' ter ask if I could n't have the loan of one of 'em fer ter-night."
"Well, they can all go—"
The last word was drowned in a chaos of frantically joyous barks. They leaped on him, caressed him, stood up with their forepaws stemmed on the breast of his fur coat, licked his boots, his hands, and attempted his face—but of that he would have none.
"Be still now—and come on, comrades!" he said. The four made a mad but silent rush for the door. Cale gave them right of way; Pierre swore great French oaths wholly disproportionate to the occasion, for the outrush of the dogs caused the French coach horses to plunge only twice. At last we were in—the dogs in front with Cale, and Mr. Ewart and I on the back seat, so muffled in furs, fur robes, fur caps, coats and mittens, that we humans were scarce to be distinguished from our canine neighbors.
We no longer used the frozen creek for a crossing, but drove a mile up the road to the highroad bridge. The night was very cold. The moon had not yet risen. The stars shone with Arctic splendor. Cale drove us rapidly over the dry, hard-packed snow—to my amazement in silence. Through the woods, down the river road we sped, and on through Richelieu-en-Bas. The light in the cabaret by the steamboat landing shone dimly; the panes were thick with frost. Here and there a bright lamp gleamed from some window, but, as a whole, the village was dark. We drove on to the open country towards Richelieu-en-Haut six miles away, sometimes through a short stretch of deep woods where the horses shied at the misshapen stumps, snow-covered. Then out into the open again, the flat expanse of white seemingly unbroken. Here and there, far across the snow-fields, I caught a glimpse of a light from some farmhouse. Once we heard the baying of a hound, at which all four setters came suddenly to life from beneath the robes and barked vindictive response.
To the north the sky was dark and less star-strewn than above. Suddenly I was aware of a wondrous change: the stars paled; the north glowed with tremulous light, translucent yellow that deepened to gold—an arc of gold spanning twenty degrees on the horizon. The glory quivered; ran to and fro; fluctuated from east to west, unstable as liquid, ethereal as gas; paled gradually; then, in the twinkling of an eye, dissolved, and in its dissolution sent streamer after streamer, rose, saffron, pale crocus and white, rapidly zenithward, rising, sinking, undulating, till the heavens were filled with marvellous light. Cale reined in the horses for a moment.
"Guess this can't be beat by the biggest show on earth," he remarked appreciatively.
"Look to the right—the east, Miss Farrell," said Mr. Ewart.
I leaned forward to look past him. Over the white expanse, lightened in the rays of the northern aurora, the moon, nearly full, showed the half of its red-gold disk.
The glory faded from the heavens; the moon, rising rapidly, sent its beams over the fields; the horses saw their shadows long on the off side. Cale chirruped to them, and we sped onwards to the station.
I was happy! If Cale had called me by that name at this time I would have welcomed it. It applied to me. It was good to be alive; good to be out in such a world of natural glory; good to have, in the night and the silence, such companionship that understood my own silence of enjoyment.
I was happy at the prospect of the Doctor's coming. The thought of the future removal to the farm no longer filled me with misgivings. "I shall still be near the manor, it will not be banishment in any sense." So I comforted myself.
I turned to get a look over the ridge of fur at the man beside me. He had spoken but once, to ask if I were comfortable. I wondered if he were enjoying all this as much as I? He must have read my thought for he turned his face to me, saying:
"I am enjoying all this on my own behalf, and doubly because your enjoyment of it is so evident."
"How evident? You can't see that, and I have n't said a word."
"Perhaps for that very reason."
He leaned over and drew the robe farther about my exposed shoulder. I felt the strength of his arm as he pulled at the heavy pelt, the gentleness of his touch as he tucked it behind my back. So little of this thoughtfulness and care had been mine! Almost nothing of it in my life! No wonder that other women who are cared for, carried on loving hands, protected by the bulwark of a man's love, cannot understand what the simple adjustment of that robe around a chilled shoulder meant to me, Marcia Farrell!
He was always doing something in general for my comfort and pleasure, but never anything special. Even this drive I owed to Jamie's physical inability to accept his friend's invitation. But this fact did not quench my joy.
"Are you comfortable—feet warm?" he asked for the second time.
"As warm as toast."
What was it that I felt as I continued to sit silent by this man's side?—an alien, I had called him to the Doctor; fool that I was! I felt a peculiar sense of perfect physical rest I had never before experienced, a consciousness of happy companionship that needed no word to make itself understood. This sense of companionship, this rest of soul and body during the two hours I passed at this man's side—I enjoyed them to the full. The feelings and emotions of the woman who, only a few evenings before, had thrown off the yoke of burdening circumstance, who had broken, to her own physical benefit, with past associations and memories, found scope, in the protecting night and the silence, for perilous nights of imagination. Thoughts undreamed of hitherto, desires I had never supposed permissible in my narrow walk of life, proved their power over me at this hour. Hopes unbounded, if wholly unfounded,—for what had this man ever said to me since his home-coming that he had not said a dozen times to every member of his household?—imagined joys of another, a dual life—
"Yes," I said to myself, giving rein to pleasing fantasy, "a dual life in one—our lives, his and mine, one and inseparable; why not, Marcia Farrell? Why should n't I grasp with both hands outstretched at all life may have to give me? Why not hold it fast even if it have thorns?"
Imagination was carrying me out of myself. I called a halt to all this frenzy, as it at once appeared to me by the cold light of the moon, and brought myself down to earth and common sense with a jolt. I moved uneasily.
"Are you cold?" Mr. Ewart asked, evidently noticing the movement.
"No; but too much aurora, I 'm afraid."
"Did you feel that too? I thought I would n't mention it, but something affected me powerfully for the moment, and there has been an aftermath of sensation since. If this display is wholly electrical, it may easily be that some human machines are tuned like the wireless to catch certain vibrations at certain times."
I sat down hard, metaphorically, on eight feet of frozen earth upon hearing this explanation. "You little fool," I said to myself, but aloud:
"Whatever it was, it was effectual; I have never experienced anything like it."
"Never?"
"No; have you?"
The answer seemed long in coming.
"Yes, many years ago; and it was here in this northern country too. Sometime I would like to tell you about it.—Cale," he spoke quickly, abruptly, "I hear the train. Keep the horses in the open roadway behind the station, then if they bolt at the headlight you can have free rein and a clear road. They 've never seen that light. We 'll get out here," he said, throwing off the robes as Cale drew rein at the edge of the platform, "and you can welcome the Doctor for me if I miss him."
He whisked me out of the pung, giving me both hands as aid, and replaced the robes.
"Keep the horses head on, and don't let the dogs run," were his last words to Cale.
The Quebec express whistled at the curve an eighth of a mile distant from the junction; the sound fell strangely flat in the intense cold. Cale braced himself to handling the horses. I followed Mr. Ewart to the front of the platform.
The engine was thundering past us, and the train drawing to a stop of fifteen seconds.
"Take off your mitten," he said abruptly; I pulled it off with a jerk. He held out his ungloved hand, and I laid mine within it. The two palms, warm, throbbing with coursing life, met—
"Goodby till Monday—and thank you for coming. There he is!"
He had just time to see the Doctor appear on the platform at the other end of the car. Mr. Ewart called to him as he swung himself on to the already moving train:
"John, look out for Miss Farrell—"
The dazed Doctor failed to grasp the situation. Mr. Ewart waved his hand as he passed him; "Till Monday—Miss Farrell will explain."
"Miss Farrell, eh?" The Doctor turned to me who was at his side by means of an awkward skip and a jump, cumbered as I was with the long coat. "Br-r-rre! Is this the weather you give me as a greeting?"
"Why don't you say rather: 'Is this the weather you brave to meet me in?' Would n't that sound more to the point? Come on to the pung; the soapstones are fine."
"Ah—that sounds more like Canadian hospitality. Come on yourself, Marcia Farrell; where's the pung?"
"Behind the station, that is, if the horses have n't bolted with Cale and the four dogs. Here he is."
Four canine noses were visible above the robes; eight delicate nostrils were flaring after the departing train. At the sound of the Doctor's voice a concerted howl arose from among the robes on the front seat—a howl expressive of disappointment, of betrayal by their master: "He is gone, we are left behind."
"Shut up," said Cale shortly, with a significant movement of his foot beneath the robes.
"Oh, Cale!" I made protest, for at that moment I sympathized. I should have felt the same had I been a dog; as it was—
I looked after the swiftly receding train, a bright beaded trailing line of black in the white night. The Doctor was opening the robes.
"In with you, and then we can talk; there 's no wind to prevent."
As soon as he was seated beside me and the horses' heads turned homewards, he began to chat in his cheery way, he asking, I answering the many questions; he telling of Delia Beaseley and his delight to be in Canada again, I inquiring, until we found ourselves passing through Richelieu-en-Bas. And during all the time I was listening to his merry chat and chaffing, to his kindly expressed interest in all that pertained to my small doings at the manor, I was hearing the on-coming thunder of the engine and those last words: "Take off your mitten—Good-by till Monday—thank you for coming."
During that hour and a half of our homeward drive, I gave no heed to the perfect Canadian night, its silver radiance, its snow gleam and sparkle enhancing the violet shadows. I was seeing only that long-stretching waste of white beyond the junction, that bright beaded trailing line of black, narrowing and foreshortened as it receded swiftly into the night.
And where was the sense of physical rest? Why had this unrest I was experiencing taken its place? I was sitting beside as good a man, as fine a man, one more than that other's equal in achievement, as the world counts achievement. I was groping for a solution when the Doctor exclaimed: "There's the manor!"
The white walls and snow-covered roof stood out boldly against the black massed background of spruce, hemlock and pine. The yellow chintz curtains were drawn apart, showing us both the gleam of lamplight and the leaping firelight. At the windows in the living-room were Jamie and his mother; at those of the dining-room both Angélique and Marie were visible for a moment. The Pierres, father and son, were at the steps to lend a helping hand.
"We are at home again, Marcia," the Doctor spoke significantly. I responded, simulating joyousness:
"Yes, and does n't it give us a warm cheery welcome?"
But even as I replied, I was conscious that the old manor of Lamoral without its master would never be home for me.
I went up the steps answering gayly to Jamie's "Is he here?" But by the emptiness of heart, by the emptiness of the passageway, by the empty sound of the various greetings, joyous and hearty as they in truth were, I knew I needed no fourth sign to interpret myself to myself.
My woman's hour had struck—and with no uncertain sound.
"And what next?" I asked myself after my head was on the pillow and while staring hour after hour at the opposite wall. Surely I had read enough of love! I had imagined what it might be like, even if I had never experienced it, even if I had thought little enough about it in connection with myself. I did not know it on what might be called the positive side, but I seemed to have some knowledge of it negatively. I knew it could be cruel, cruel as death; my own mother was a dead witness to that. I knew it could be brutal when passion alone means love; I was eye witness to this on Columbia Heights not so very long ago. I knew, or thought I knew, that it could be killed, or rather worn to a thread by the slow grinding of adverse circumstance. I recalled my own lack of affection after the years of sacrifice for the imbecile grandfather, my shiftless aunt.
And now, in the face of such knowledge, to have this revelation! This sudden absorption in another of my humankind; all my thought at once, without warning, transferred to that other wherever he might be; all interest in life centering with the force of gravity in that other's life; "at home" only in that other's presence; at rest only by his side—
"Now, look here, Marcia Farrell, don't you be Jane Eyrey," I said to myself in a low but stern voice. I sat up in bed and drew the extra comforter about my shoulders. "No nonsense at your age! You accept the fact that you love this man,—and you will have to whether you want to or not,—a man who has never spoken a word of love to you, who has treated you with the consideration, it is no more, no less than that, which he shows to every member of his household. Now, make the most of this fact, but without showing it. Don't make the youthful mistake, since you are no longer a girl, of fancying he is reciprocating what you feel, feeling your every feeling, thinking your every thought. And, above all, don't betray your self at this crisis of your life, to him or any member of his household—not to Delia Beaseley, not to Doctor Rugvie. Rest in his presence when you can. Rejoice to be near him—but inwardly, only, remember that!—when you shall find opportunity, but don't make one; discipline yourself in this, there will be need enough for it. 'Stick to your sure trot'; give full compensation in work for your wages—and enjoy what this new life may offer you from day to day. This new joy is your own; keep it to yourself. Now lie down for good and all, and go to sleep."
Thereupon I snugged down among the welcome warmth of the bed-clothes, saying to myself:
"I don't care 'what next'. I am so happy—happy—happy—"
But, even as I spoke that word softly—oh, so softly!—laying the palm of my right hand, that still felt the strong throbbing of his, under my cheek, I remembered that Cale had never once called me by the name he had proposed, "Happy"; that Jamie noticed the omission and remarked on it.
And what did Cale know? What could he know? There used to be a family of Marstins in our town before I was born. My aunt told me once that her sister married into the family; that, too, was before I was born. I never knew any one of the name, and I never cared to look at the old family headstones. The churchyard, because it held my mother, was hateful to me.
And I? I was too cowardly to ask Cale why he omitted to call me by his chosen name; for by that name my mother was known among her own, so I was told—that mother whom I never knew, whose memory I never loved, of whom I was ashamed because people said she had belied her womanhood.
But ever since Delia Beaseley opened my eyes to a portion of the truth concerning her, I had felt great pity for her. Now, at the thought of her, dying for love, for this very thing that had come to me like lightning out of the blue, dying without friends in that dull basement in V—— Court, my heartstrings contracted, literally, for I experienced a feeling of suffocation.
"Mother, oh, mother," I cried out under my breath, "was it for this, that I know to be love, you gave your all, even life itself? Oh, I have understood so little—so little; I have been so hard, mother. I did n't know—forgive me, mother—forgive, I never knew—"
It eased me to speak out these words, although I knew that in giving utterance to them my ears were the only ones the sound of my pleading could reach. Those ears, on which the word mother would have fallen so blessedly, would never hear, could never hear. Not so very far away, in northern New England, the snows lay white and deep, as white and deep as in Canada, on her neglected grave.
Something Delia Beaseley quoted from my mother in her hour of trial flashed again into consciousness: "The little life that is coming is worth all this." And my mother must have said it knowing all the joy, the bliss, the suffering, both of body and of soul, that this love must in due time bring to her daughter, because she was a woman-child.
What a Dolorous Way my mother must have trodden, must have been willing to tread forthis!
There are minutes, rare in the longest lives, when life becomes so intensified that vision clears almost preternaturally, sees through telescopic lenses, so to speak. At such moments, the soul becomes so highly sensitized that it may photograph for future reference the birth or passing of Love's star.