"The procession of our Fate, howe'erSad or disturbed, is ordered by a BeingOf infinite benevolence and power."
Had Ringfield continued his conversation with thechâtelaineof Clairville he would in all probability have asked a few questions about her theatrical career, placing it in his imagination in one of the large American centres to which in the seventies or eighties all Canadian artists gravitated. In this he would have been wrong.
In a back street in the purely French quarter of Montreal stood a pillared and placarded building once known as the home of an ambitious coterie, theCercle Littéraire, which met fortnightly to discuss in rapid incisive Canadian French such topics as "Our National Literature," "The Destiny of Canada," and "The Dramatists of France," from which allpolitiquewas supposed to be eliminated. The building had originally been a house and private bank belonging to a courtly descendant of an old family, a De Lotbinière, who grew French walnut and cherry trees, lettuces and herbs in the back garden. When the banker died theCercle Littérairebought the house for a small sum, comparatively, seeing that it was built of good grey stone, had many bright green shutters and an imposing façade of four pillars, and from one part of it issued once a month the extremely high-class journal—organ of the society—called "Le Flambeau," the other part which comprised a fair-sized hall, retiring rooms, and secretary's office and quarters, being altered to suit the needs of theCercle Littéraire. But in time the glories of the exclusive and classically minded coterie faded, its leading spirits died or disappeared, the superior monthly organ—torch for all the country—burnt itself out, lost subscribers—in fact the whole business was declared insolvent, and the nervous, gifted, but too sanguine editor-in-chief (there were three editors), M. Anselme-Ferdinande Placide De Lery,avocat, and the devoted, conscientious, but unprogressive secretary, old Amédée Laframboise, scientific grubber and admirable violinist, had to get out of Rue St. Dominique as best they could and go back to the law and the local orchestra. For several years the house was vacant, and then at last it held a still more gifted, more numerous, and, all things considered, more successful coterie within its walls than "Le Flambeau" had been able to procure for it. A certain travelling organization, a company of good actors and actresses direct from Paris, which had landed in America the previous year, giving comedies and pretty domestic pieces in New York and other cities, not meeting with the success it expected, came to French Canada in the hope of reaping substantial profits in a congenial atmosphere. Ah—what a mistake was this! To think that if in Philadelphia or Boston "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" or "La Joie Fait Peur" did not make money, either play would do so in the Montreal of thirty years ago! It was a mistake, certainly, from the monetary point of view; on the other hand, many friends were made, much good feeling and admiration prevailed and, in short, the company, stranded in a Canadian town, found living cheap and easily earned, plenty of good fellows—French—and settled down as a local stock affair, fitting up at no great expense the banker's house with the walnut-trees and bright green shutters under the name of the Théâtre des Nouveautés.
This was the playhouse in which Mlle. Clairville acted. This was the clever company which, secure in New France from blasé critics, produced the comedies and tragedies of Molière, Corneille, Dumas, Halévy, Mme. de Genlis, as well as serving up adaptations like "Le Vieux Oncle Tom," "Le Prince de Denmarque," "Le Condamné," "L'étranger," also attacking with superb, delicious confidence the then popular operas of "La Grande Duchesse," "La Belle Hélène," and "Il Trovatore." What acting it was, so vigorous, dashing, resourceful! How Mme. d'Estarre jumped easily from a Précieuse to Eva, and from Gertrude, a dark-eyedbourgeoiseQueen with frizzed hair and train of cotton velvet, to Camille—wickedest play known at that time! Then when Mlle. Pauline-Archange-Emma-Louise de Clairville joined the company, what a Hamlet she made with her fine figure and her remarkably firm, white hands, what a Phedre, once when the actor was ill, what an "Oncle Tom"! What a Duchess of Gerolstein later, when the company discovered that it could sing, collectively at least, and what a Helen, in flowing Greek costume, fillet of gold braid, and sandals!
This was indeed Acting—to merge mannerisms, to defy fate and the jeers of any sober English reporter who strayed into the Theatre of Novelties! When Mme. d'Estarre found that she had to return to France unexpectedly, on account of the ill health of her children, left behind in a provincial town, she was given a grand benefit, and although the public (who were getting a little tired of madame, she was over fifty) did not respond as gallantly as might have been expected, the members of the company with true Gallic chivalry made up the large amount necessary to carry her across, bring her back and provide in the interim for the afflicted children. This was Pauline's opportunity; she naturally succeeded to the position of leading lady, and kept it until her faults of temper developed and she had the pleasurable excitement of a fierce quarrel with her manager. Thus, while her talent was conceded, her stormy temperament prevented her achieving anything like permanent success, and every few months she would reappear at St. Ignace, live drearily in the dingy house, lecture the servants, abuse and weep over her brother, when suddenly tiring of this she would return and have to begin again at the foot of the ladder.
Ignorant of these cloudy and strenuous careers, Ringfield saw only an impulsive and unhappy woman old enough to fascinate him by her unusual command of language and imperiousness of conduct, and young enough for warm ripe brunette beauty. To be plain, first love was already working in him, but he did not recognize its signs and portents; he only knew that an ardent wish to remain at St. Ignace had suddenly taken the place of the tolerant and amused disdain with which he had once considered Poussette's offer.
A couple of days later he had returned from a long afternoon on the river when a man around the place named Crabbe came to him with a letter. Opening it, he found it to contain another offer from a prominent citizen of Radford, a large and thriving Western town, to fill a certain pulpit of some distinction during the absence of the pastor in Europe. The time mentioned was ten months and Ringfield sat down at once to consider the importance of this offer. He would be at last in a cultivated community. Much would be expected of him and he would have every chance to put forth what was best in him. For several years he had been labouring on the missionary circuit and the work was hard indeed, with slender results. Here was sufficient remuneration, comfortable housing in a more sympathetic climate, and the prospect of receiving a still more important call in the future should he make his mark. Such considerations, if mundane, need not also be mercenary; each man is worthy of his hire and his pulse beat in pleased excitement as he viewed the rosy outlook.
But—Miss Clairville! A vague foreboding of the truth flitted through his brain; men wiser in love and affairs of the affections than our young Methodist minister have been self-deceived, and although he sternly put her image away he dimly avowed to himself that she was already occupying far too much of his thought. Here was a clear way opened, or so he imagined, referring each move as it occurred to the guidance and knowledge of the Higher Power, and he could find no other than an affirmative answer to the letter which he kept turning over in his pocket, and still kept reading through the evening in the general room. He had excused himself from the already over-convivial group on the front verandah, and being provided with paper, sat at the table composing his reply.
The lineaments of his singularly fine and noble countenance were easily seen through the window where the guides, M. Desnoyers and Poussette were sitting, and the vision of the black-coated, serious young scribe inditing what he had informed them was a very "important" letter, subdued the incipient revelry.
Poussette was uneasy. He had not yet received any direct answer from Ringfield to his own offer, and for many reasons he preferred to attach and retain him rather than any other "Parson" he had ever encountered. But Ringfield was wrapped in his own thoughts and quite unconscious of the highly improving spectacle he made, lifting his eyes only to nod pleasantly to Mme. Poussette who had glided in and was sitting by the window. His letters were three: one to Mr. Beddoe who had invited him to Radford, another to his relatives on the farm at Grand River, and a third to Miss Clairville. He had not hesitated to write to her, for short as their intercourse had been, her emotional nature had manifested itself so warmly and their talk had been so completely out of the ordinary, that higher things than convention must always govern their friendship. His conscientious side held itself responsible for a slightly superfluous act of sudden interest and attachment, and the mentor's tone in which he pleaded with her, to ask herself whether the theatre must be her goal, would have deceived anybody unaccustomed to cold analysis of motives. He gave her, in short, good advice in the guise of kindly sentiments, ending by avowing himself her "friend in Christ" and protesting that her true welfare and happiness would always be of interest to him.
The letter written, he leant back, resolving not to send it by post but by some ignorant, unsuspicious hand (therein was the new-found subtlety and shyness of the true lover), and the change in attitude confused the watchers outside who guiltily resumed their smoking and conversation. And the strange, silent woman at the window, supposing Ringfield to be in want of something—paper, stamp or ink—rose and stood by his side. Thus she saw two envelopes addressed and ready for the mail, and a third as yet innocent of any inscription. That she could read English he doubted, yet he felt an objection to letting her look over his shoulder. He rose, and going to the office, where Poussette hastily preceded him, gave in the two letters for Ontario, and then informed him of his decision.
The Frenchman's disappointment was genuine and comic, partaking of tragedy and despair. Desnoyers was called in; also the guests and the two guides, with servants forming a picturesque and interested background, so that Ringfield suddenly found himself the centre of an admiring, friendly, but inclining-to-be quarrelsome crowd. Nothing occurred, however, to alter his decision, and, true to his idea of duty, he set off two mornings later, having committed the letter for Miss Clairville to the man called Crabbe, a slouching sort of Englishman who occasionally served as guide, ran a small open-air general store, and about whom there seemed to be some mystery, his accent and grammar being out of the common.
Forty-eight hours after, Ringfield arrived at his destination, and walking up from the train to the house of Mr. Beddoe, the gentleman who had written to him, was shown into a small parlour to wait a few minutes. Voices came from across the hall for a while, then he heard a visitor depart and the next moment Mr. Beddoe himself entered the room.
The surprise of this individual on perceiving Ringfield was genuine and complete; his countenance fell and he stood gazing.
"You did not expect me so soon, I see," said the young man easily. "Well, I was in rather a quandary, something else having offered, so I decided quickly, hating indecision. You got my note of acceptance all right, I hope? It should have reached youat the latestyesterday."
"Yes, yes," murmured Mr. Beddoe, "but, sit down, Mr. Ringfield, sit down—the truth is—a rather peculiar thing has occurred. I—ah—I may as well make you acquainted with it at once. Our pastor, who, without being mentally weakened to any extent by a troublesome and obstinate illness, for which, as you know, we have sent him abroad for a trip, was extremely absent-minded in many little ways, and it has transpired that before his departure he wrote himself to the Rev. Mr. Steers of Bradford, arranging with him to take the pulpit for the time he should be away. He neglected to inform us of the fact, but Mr. Steers came in just after we had written to you, and as he is a married man with a family, and as he certainly expected the duty and the remuneration for a period, I felt that you would have to reconsider our offer. I sent you a telegram embodying all this."
"I never got it. Telegraphic facilities are uncertain in that part ofQuebec. For example, St. Ignace is the village, but Bois Clair thename of the post office, and there is no telegraph at either place.Montmagny——"
"That was where we telegraphed," broke in Mr. Beddoe, "but probably there was some delay in sending on the message and we did not look for you quite so soon. Mr. Steers has just left; he is a very reasonable sort of man, and if you think you are bound to keep us to our offer we will talk it over with him."
The young man had taken a chair at Mr. Beddoe's invitation, but he still clutched his florid and somewhat old-fashioned carpet-bag and he did not make any suggestions.
"Of course," exclaimed the other, uneasy at the silence, "you will remain here with us until the matter is settled, and I feel sure a satisfactory settlement can be made. You spoke of an alternative. Would that do for Mr. Steers?"
Ringfield roused himself to say that he did not think it would.
"It's not the place for a married man," he went on. "There are no houses such as you are accustomed to up here; the people are mostly French, the climate is extreme; it is, in short, only a mission, and as I've just come from there, and understand the place, I think I had better go back and leave Mr. Steers in possession of the field."
"Oh! But——" returned Mr. Beddoe, noticing a faint tinge of sarcasm in the tone of the speaker, "we do not ask you to do this. It's all most unfortunate! These great distances, so difficult to find a person—we did our best."
Ringfield rose; there was clearly no reason why he should remain in Radford whether he went back to St. Ignace or not, and just then the condition of his purse was extremely important. This detail was set right in time, in about two months; meanwhile a visit to his friends in the country would give him an opportunity to decide as to his future movements.
The sojourn on the farm occupied three days, at the end of which he did what he knew he would do from the moment of meeting Mr. Beddoe. He bought a ticket for Bois Clair with almost the last money he had in the world, and within ten days of leaving Poussette's the steamer plying on the river to St. Ignace deposited him at the familiar rickety wharf once more.
It was nine o'clock and dark, with a light rain falling. The passengers, mostly tourists, were stepping off in that timorous way peculiar to people unaccustomed to the primitive, by the light of a lantern waveringly but officially displayed by Crabbe, the surly guide to whom Ringfield had given his letter, and behind Crabbe, a little higher up on the bank, stood Poussette, whose costume as usual was characteristic. He wore a checked tweed suit of light brown, a straw hat, and an enormous chef's apron tied round his waist under his coat. Visions of fried bass or lunge, of potatoessauté, and even of hot pancakes, danced before Ringfield's weary eyes, for he was both tired and cold, and accordingly he gaily pushed his way through the loiterers and fresh arrivals until he reached his host.
"Well, Poussette!" he cried, "I'm to be your man after all, it seems! They didn't want me in the West, I found, or rather I thought it wiser to come back and take advantage of your kind offer. I suppose you can put me up somewhere for to-night, and to-morrow we can talk the matter over."
The Frenchman had started violently on seeing Ringfield and a great change came over his manner. Where was the welcome the minister had looked for? On this fat, usually smiling countenance he could discern naught but astonishment, disappointment, anger!
What could have happened during that futile journey westward and back? Poussette vouchsafed no reply, no solution. He avoided the puzzled stare of the other man, and after giving some orders in French to Crabbe and the other guide, Martin, a very decent Indian, quickly went up to the house without greeting his guests.
Ringfield was suddenly seized with a sense of the ludicrous. He told himself that he managed to bede tropwherever he went, but he also firmly resolved that no temper, no caprice on his patron's part should affect him now. If possible he must remain at St. Ignace and ignore whatever had caused the singular change in Poussette's attitude. There was indeed fish for supper, but he fancied that the cunning touch of the chef was wanting, and he was right. Poussette had not entered the kitchen.
"Nor is it a mean phase of rural life,And solitude, that they do favour most,Most frequently call forth and best sustainThese pure sensations."
The following day Ringfield's curiosity naturally ran high; he was entirely in the dark as to the peculiar treatment he had received at the hands of Poussette, and it followed that one strong idea shut out others. Miss Clairville's image for the time was obliterated, yet he remembered to ask Crabbe whether the letter had been safely delivered, to which the guide replied rather curtly in the affirmative. He supposed Pauline to be still at the manor-house, but the truth was, on the receipt of his letter a sudden temper shook her; she wrote at once to M. Rochelle, her former manager in Montreal, requesting a place in his company, and the evening that brought Ringfield back to St. Ignace took her away.
There were symptoms of thaw stirring in Poussette, and the minister did his best to encourage them, but on the Saturday afternoon following his return, when it was necessary to hold some sustained business conversation with his patron, the latter could not be found. The bar was a model of Saturday cleanliness, damp and tidy, smelling equally of lager beer and yellow soap. Fresh lemons and newly-ironed red napkins adorned the tall glasses ranged in front of Sir John A. Macdonald's lithograph, and the place was dark and tenantless, save for Plouffe, a lazy retriever, stretched at the door. The dining-room was abandoned, the general room was full of children engaged in some merry game, but otherwise the place wore that air of utter do-nothingness which characterizes a warm afternoon in the country. Yet Ringfield persevered and at last heard familiar accents from the "store" across the road, a kind of shack in which a miscellaneous collection of groceries, soft drinks, hardware and fishing appliances were presided over by the man called Crabbe. Ringfield crossed, and found the two men lolling on chairs; Poussette slightly drunk and Crabbe to all appearances decidedly so. The place was of the roughest description; it had no windows but an open space occupied by a board counter on which were boxes of cigars, bottles, a saucer of matches and the mail, duly sorted out for the inhabitants by Crabbe, who was supposed to be a person of some importance and education, and postmaster as well as guide. As Ringfield paused at this aboriginal place of barter, not far removed from the rough shelter up the road under the trees where some Indians held camp and displayed their grass and quill wares on planks supported by barrels, he was struck by the sight of his own name. There in front of him lay the missing telegram which Mr. Beddoe had dispatched to Montmagny nearly a fortnight before. He took the folded yellow paper up and put it in his pocket—no need to open it there and then.
"How long has this been here?" he asked, but Crabbe only moved uneasily in his chair, reaching sideways in a pretence of arranging boxes underneath the improvised counter, his hands shaking so that the goods tumbled out of them.
Poussette laughed and swore, yet a gleam of good nature seemed to illumine his puffy face, and Ringfield, catching at this ray of kindness, hoped he had come at the right moment.
"Why, Poussette!" he said. "I'm sorry to see you neglecting a good business like yours in this manner.—Get up, man, and walk along the road with me. Where is the fun, or glory, or enjoyment of this muddling and tippling—I am ashamed of you! Come on, I say!"
But Poussette was hard to move; Crabbe, on the other hand, rose and shuffled out of doors in the direction of the forest; Ringfield thought he saw Madame Poussette's skimp skirts behind a tree; presently she emerged and stood talking to the guide.
"Come now, Poussette! There's your wife. Don't let her see you like this. Then there's Father Rielle."
"Where?" Poussette rose, superstitious fears of the villagecurégiving him strength and aiding his resolution.
"Nowhere at present. But he's coming to tea. The cook told me he was."
"What cook? I'm the cook!"—with great dignity.
"No, no. You are cook extraordinary, when you wish it. I mean Frank, who gets the wood and keeps the fire going, who cooks under you—you know well enough whom I mean. Now, are you coming?"
Poussette allowed himself to be hauled out of the shack and presently he and Ringfield were walking up the road.
"I've got to get you sober for to-morrow, you see. To-morrow's Sunday and I want to know about the music. If we are going to introduce our hymns to St. Ignace, you must help me to find some one to play the harmonium. Better be a lady. Do you know any one?"
But Poussette was not following. The mention of the priest had awakened a flood of memory.
"Father Rielle—I don't know if I like that one or not. One's enough, you're enough, Mr. Ringfield. Give Father Rielle a drink and let him go."
"I'm not talking about Father Rielle at all just now. I'm talking about our church and some one to play for us. And look here, Poussette, this returning of mine wasn't my own doing. I want you to know this. The man who wrote to me telegraphed afterwards—here's the message in my pocket—and you see I never got it. I'm here now and we must make the best of things. That fellow Crabbe mislaid the message or detained it knowingly, I can't tell which, and I don't like him, Poussette, I don't like his looks at all. He's a low fellow, always drunk, and if I were you I wouldn't be seen going about with him. I'm astonished at you, Poussette, with such a good businesss, two good businesses, you may say, well-to-do and prosperous as you are, keeping such a fellow on the premises. For I suppose he rents the shack from you. Well, I know I wouldn't have him round the place at all."
Poussette wagged his head in imbecile accord.
"Low fellow—Crabbe—marche donc—get off,animal, don' come my place 'tall."
"You know I'm talkingright, Poussette. Get rid of Crabbe. And sober up now, man; don't let folks see you like this."
Ringfield put his arm through the other's and led him aside under a thick canopy of trees as a party of fishermen and Martin came along.
"Look here—I'll make a pillow for you, here, out of these balsam twigs! You lie down—that's it—and get a good sound sleep. Got a cigar? And a light? That's all right. Now, you sleep—yes, don't bother about the smoke now—just go to sleep and when you wake up, have your smoke, clear your head, shake yourself and show up at tea-time, straight and sober as I am! You'd better! Father Rielle's over for tea. You wouldn't like him to see you like this!"
Poussette collapsed on the improvised balsam couch, but managed to remark that he would not get up on account of Father Rielle, nor give him anything good to eat.
"Why, I thought you liked him! Liked his good opinion, anyway!"
"Beeg liar! Beeg rascal! I like you, Mr. Ringfield, when you don' take away my girl. You leave my bes' girl alone and I like you—first rate. Bigosh—excuses, I'll just go to sleep—for—while."
Ringfield rose from the ground and sighed. He earned his livelihood pretty hard when such scenes came into his life. Pastoral slumming, one might term it, for he had only just laid Poussette respectably to rest when he encountered Crabbe, lurching dully along the road, and at the sight of him Poussette's extraordinary remark about his "best girl" came back. What possible connexion could have suggested itself to Poussette between the faded sickly creature he called his wife and the visitor from Ontario? Ringfield thought it not unlikely that Poussette was confusing him with Crabbe, for to-day was not the first time he had seen the woman wandering in the proximity of the shack. However, Crabbe gave him no opportunity for ministerial argument or reasoning, for as soon as he perceived the other he turned, and straightening in his walk very considerably, soon disappeared in the forest.
Ringfield was thus thrown on his own resources after all, and in thinking over the question of the Sunday music, not unnaturally was led to associate Miss Clairville with it. He did not know her to be exactly musical, but he gathered that she could sing; at all events, she was the only person he had met in St. Ignace capable of making arrangements for a decorous and attractive service, and he resolved to see her and ask for her co-operation. Thus again he was drawn by inclination and by a steady march of events along the road that led to Lac Calvaire. Arrived at themétairiehe was told of Pauline's departure for Montreal, and also that Henry Clairville was confined to his bed by a severe cold. Some new awkwardness led Ringfield over the threshold; the old Archambault woman who had attended the front door threw open another on her left hand, and the next moment he found himself in what must have been once thesalonof the family. The furniture was of faded tapestry; a spinning-wheel, an armoire of dark mahogany, miniatures, one very old and very ugly oil painting of some mythological subject, cracked with age, the gilt frame thick with fly-specks; a suit of Court clothes hung ostentatiously on a common nail—these were the impressions he received as he sat waiting to hear whether the Sieur would see him.
Suddenly he started. The woman had closed the door, the room had been empty when he entered it and yet—there were three cats in front of his chair! Where had they come from? The window was closed, how had they got in? Watching, Ringfield saw what greatly astonished him, for presently the cats walked towards the door and a miracle appeared to happen! They not only walked towards it but through it, and he was ignorant of the apparent cause of the miracle until observing the door very closely he discovered a little door down at the bottom, a cat door through which they were in the habit of calmly passing back and forth at will. Another cat door appeared in the hall where he stood a minute later before being shown out, for Mr. Clairville would not receive him, and nothing more impressed him with the idea of being in a strange house given over to strange people than the knowledge of a system of little doors cut in the big ones for the use of a dozen cats.
Once more on the road, Ringfield experienced that sense of frustration inseparable from first love. He had been so confident of seeing Miss Clairville once again, and now, as he learned from the servant, it might be Christmas before she would return, and despite his resolutions, he knew he should be very lonely indeed, without any congenial soul in the village, for a period of four months. He roused himself, however, to think of the morrow's duties, particularly of the music, and at tea that evening he found the person he wanted through the kind offices of Father Rielle, who was a very liberal Catholic, well acquainted with the whole countryside and who could ask, as he said, in eloquent broken English, nothing better than co-operation in good works with his young Methodistconfrère. Poussette was present at the evening meal, rather pale and subdued and pointing with the pride of a truechefto the omelettes which were his alone to make by special dispensation, and after supper Ringfield walked out to the great Fall, remaining till it was dark and late—so late that he knew no one would pass that way. Then he knelt on a slab of rock and lifted up his voice in this wise:—
"O Lord," he began, "look down on Thine unworthy servant. Help him and guide his footsteps aright. He has returned to this place and to this people. Assist him to preach the truth of the Gospel in the wilderness and to those who know Thee not. Make him kind and keep him humble. Give him light and understanding that he may be acceptable in this place and that he may witness for Thee and for the Gospel, and that his labours may be blessed and the harvest thereof indeed be great." He paused, his eyes opening on the white wilderness of the Fall. Knowing that the roar of its foaming waters would drown his voice he did not scruple to use his fine, sonorous tones to the full, and went on again: "Strip from Thy servant, O God Most High, all that savours of self. Strike at sin if it lodgeth in him; cause him to remember now his Creator in the days of his youth. Grant him wisdom in dealing with the froward, and may Thy Holy Spirit descend in this solemn evening hour and be with him now through the watches of the night and to-morrow when he rises to plead Thy righteous cause. For Christ's sake, Amen."
The mixture of the orthodox circuit style with an occasional direct and colloquial abruptness made this prayer worthy of record, and after silent meditation under the dark, swaying pine-trees, Ringfield, braced by temporary abandonment of self, returned to Poussette's. As he rose from his knees, however, something rolled down several ledges of rock and he promptly went after it and picked it up. It proved to be a book, not very large, and opening easily, but there was no light to view it by, and it was not until he came near the village windows that he discovered it to be, much to his astonishment, a well-worn copy of Tennyson's Poems. On the fly-leaf were the initials "E. C. H." and underneath, the word "Oxford" and date "1873". Ringfield took it up to his room; some tourist had probably dropped it, and it was safer with him than with Poussette. But when had an Oxford man passed that way?
"Here Nature was my guide,The Nature of the dissolute; but Thee,O fostering Nature! I rejected…"
Ringfield, now committed to his duty at St. Ignace, was experiencing that reaction which must always follow upon a sudden change in the affairs of life when the person concerned has a tendency towards the reflective. The absence from the manor house of that interesting personality, Miss Clairville, threw him altogether on the society of the village, but, apart from Poussette, who had become mysteriously friendly again, the two individuals most in need of his ministrations were Mme. Poussette and the shambling guide, Edmund Crabbe, in whom were the dregs of a being originally more than the preacher's equal. Old world distinctions would seem to be of small account in such a hamlet as St. Ignace and yet questions of caste were felt even there.
Crabbe, the owner of the "Tennyson," was that melancholy wraith of breeding, a deteriorated gentleman, spoken of in whispers as an "Oxford man," slouching along the winding country road, more or less in liquor, with the gait and air of a labourer, yet once known as the youngest son of a good county family. Few would have recognized in the whiskered blear-eyed, stumbling creature an educated Englishman of more than middle-class extraction. In drink an extraordinary thing occurred. He then became sober, knew himself, and quoted from the classics; when sober, he was the sullen loafer, the unmannerly cad, and his service as guide alone redeemed him from starvation and neglect. Ringfield, who had seen him, as he supposed, drunk on the Saturday afternoon when Miss Clairville's departure had been made known, concluded to call upon him at his shack a few days later, and was considerably surprised to find the place roughly boarded up, while sounds of talking came from a shanty at the back. The latter was on the plumed edge of an odorous hemlock wood; squirrels and chipmunks ran, chattering, hither and thither in quest of food, and a muskrat, sitting on a log near the water, looked unconcernedly at Ringfield as he stood, hesitating, for a few seconds. While he thus remained, a boy came along, looked at the "store" and scudded away; then came a little girl, and, finally, one of the maidservants from Poussette's. Muttering her annoyance, she too waited for a while and was on the point of going away, when the door of the cabin opened, and Crabbe looked out. He held himself erect, he had shaved, his fadednegligéshirt was clean and laced with blue—a colour that matched his eyes, and his voice had a certain expressive and even authoritative drawl in it.
"No supplies to-day, my good people," he said, affecting to suppose Ringfield a customer. "Call to-morrow, or—ah—the next day. Sorry to inconvenience you, but I've had to take a few hours off, writing letters to the Old Country, asking about my remittance and so forth. So I can't attend to business."
In these polite if slightly satirical cadences there was the element of superiority; the woman and the girl faded away, while Ringfield hardly knew how to proceed.
"I have come over just for a chat," he finally said, "if you are not too much engaged. I have a good deal of time on my hands, and I'm trying to get to know the people around. I am speaking to Mr. Crabbe, I think?"
"You are not sure, eh? Want to apologize for calling me a low fellowto mine host Poussette, I expect! Well, come in and have your chat.I'm not much in favour of clergymen, but then—you're only a Methodist,I hear. You don't count."
He shut the door, after piloting the other in, and led the way into a sort of dining and living room, in the middle of which was a long, narrow table covered with white oilcloth, graced by a monster bouquet of wild-flowers, grasses and ferns at the end; at the other end was a tumbler and a bottle and Ringfield saw clearly enough that it held whisky. Yet he did not comprehend that Crabbe was drunk, while the bold, blue eyes, the erect stature and the loud voice did not make a single suspicion. Indeed, surprise and pity worked in him a kind of false modesty.
"I certainly should never have used that expression. My defence is, that Poussette, though a good fellow, is rough, and difficult to impress in English, you understand, especially when he is about half-tipsy himself!"
Looking around, the sight of faded photographs of English scenes on the wall, of a large lithograph of Tennyson and of many well-bound books and other evidences of refinement, led Ringfield to say, in vague apology, "If I had known——"
"Known what?" said Crabbe in loud, dictatorial, dangerous tones, all shiftiness gone. "That I was a gentleman, eh? Well, gentle is as gentle does, I suppose, and I've never scored anywhere, so here I am, here Iam, Ringfield (bringing his hand down on the table) that's your name, I believe—and I've not worn so badly all these years. From Oxford to Manitoba; then robbed and ruined by a shark of a farming agent, damn him, down here to this wilderness and hole of a Quebec Province for a change. For keeps, I imagine."
He went round the table and poured out some whisky, drank it off raw, and still Ringfield did not understand. He thought this was the sober phase, the other, the drunken one, and feeling his way, ventured on general topics.
"Well, I'm here too by a curious twist of circumstances. I'm a 'varsity' man—Toronto, you know—and might look for something different from St. Ignace."
"You're a what?" cried the other. "O Lord!" and a strange kind of rude contempt filled the rich cadences with which he spoke, so different from the surly repression of his ordinary tone.
"O I see!" he drawled presently. "I'm an Oxford man myself—worse luck—and much good it's done me; hope you've benefited more thereby. What disgusting rot, Ringfield, filling us up with Horace and Virgil, and then sending us out to a land like this! I'm the youngest of five; there was nothing left for me at home, and then there was fuss about a woman—there always is."
"Is there?" echoed the other sweetly, determined not to be annoyed. "Don't lay everything at their door. Our mothers, Crabbe, our sisters——"
The Englishman suddenly ran amuck, as it were.
"In God's name, Ringfield, drop that! I can see you know nothing about it, nothing about life or women—God, Ringfield, women are the Devil! If I thought you'd listen and not preach——"
The other's hand, which had been lifted in horror and deprecation, came down again.
"I don't care to listen," he said, "but I can gather your meaning—all the same! Don't take any more of that vile stuff, you'll make yourself drunk. Here——" and then, with sudden fury, the preacher grabbed the bottle, threw it out of the window among the debris of rotting fruit and rusty cans and faced the Englishman.
For a moment Crabbe looked, spat, and swore like a fiend; then he collapsed into his chair, though still gazing at Ringfield with those full, rolling eyes and that hateful, superior smile.
"I'll hear anything you have to tell about yourself," continued Ringfield, "but I won't listen to tales of other people, men or women. And what's the use of telling me about yourself? That won't do any good. Put it all back in the past, man; put it all away. Now is your accepted time, now is your day of salvation, right here, this moment. But I won't preach to you. I won't vindicate my calling and talk religion, as you'd call it, in this place and at this hour, because I see you're not ready. I thought you were sober. Now I see my mistake, and now, I don't knowhowto talk to you. I don't know how to begin! I've never tasted the stuff myself—not even a glass of wine has ever passed my lips, and my mother, Crabbe, used to make home-made wine and give it to us—all but me. I wouldn't taste it. If I understood the fascination of it, if I could follow the process, if I could sympathize at all with you, then I might appreciate the difficulty and realize the force of the temptation. But I can't! Other vices, take theft or treachery, or cowardice, or insubordination; the seed of hatred suffered to grow till the black Death Flower of Murder be born; covetousness, sins of temper, all these I understand. And in some degree those other temptations to which you have alluded."
A slight wave of colour surged in the young minister's cheeks. Crabbe was apparently beyond impressing. He sat and whistled, looking wisely at his nails. The loss of the whisky did not trouble him, for he remembered where he had a second bottle hidden, and a small quantity yet remained at the bottom of the tumbler, unnoticed by Ringfield. But presently he broke out again.
"As for women," he cried thickly, as if he had not heard the other's latest speech. "I've had enough of them, too much, as I said before. You be warned, Ringfield! You keep out of trouble! I wouldn't swear that I did not take to drink on account of them, and then, look here—the trouble followed me out to this country, even to St. Ignace, even to this hut and hole. What d'ye think of that?"
"Why, who is there here?" exclaimed Ringfield, but as he spoke he had a vision; the foolish wife of Poussette seemed to come along the path, chanting as she came some minor French refrain and tapping at the uncared for window as she passed. She might have been attractive once, and Crabbe was not a very young man now. Some graces she must have had; a way of catching at the side of her skirt, suggesting a curtsy; plenty of fair hair and a child's smile playing at the corners of her mouth—not so foolish then. But wise or foolish, she had been another man's wife, unless he had encountered her in her maiden days, which seemed improbable.
"I cannot think," went on Ringfield, striving to shut this vision out, "how women, any woman, plain or fair, sane or mad, could bring herself to care for you,—and not because,—hear me, Crabbe, you are beyond caring about. God forbid!—but because your form of vice must ever be so distasteful to a woman. And then you are all wrong about your surroundings. You are, you have been, at least, a man of education, and yet you call this a hut and a hole. It is you who make it so! You vilify, where you might ennoble. You defile where you should enrich and keep pure. You are set here, in the midst of the most beautiful scenes of Nature, scenes that cannot be matched anywhere in the world, and yet you despise them and use them for your own undoing and that of others. Nature lies at your door and you are answerable for your treatment other."
Crabbe laughed surlily. "She's no business lying—where'd you say—at my door. Nature, always Nature! Much good it's done me, Nature, and all that rubbish. I hate it, I hate and abhor it, Ringfield. That's what makes me drink. Too much Nature's been my ruin. I'd be sober enough in a big town with lively streets and bustle and riot and row. I wouldn't drink there. I'd show them the pace, I'd go it myself once more and be d——d to all this rot and twaddle about Nature! Nature doesn't care for me. So careful of the type she seems, but so careless of the single life. She doesn't bother her head about me, or you, or Henry Clairville or Pauline!"
He paused, and Ringfield shivered with sudden poignancy of recollection. What right had this miserable scion of good family, so fallen from grace, so shaken and so heartless, to call the lady of Clairville Manor by her Christian name?
"Or Mme. Poussette!" said the minister hurriedly, but with meaning, as he pronounced the name, his voice trembling in spite of himself. "Nature, it is true, does not care for any of us. Nature will let you starve, get drunk, go mad. Therefore, we need a greater than Nature. Therefore, having this committed unto us we speak as——"
"O Mme. Poussette!" interrupted Crabbe, pouring the contents of the tumbler down his throat. "Shall I get you some? No? Well, I don't blame you, don't blame you. Mme. Poussette, poor creature! I have heard she was pretty once. That was before I came, before—God's truth this, Ringfield—before I taught her husband to drink deep."
"I might have known!" escaped from the other. "Our own people rarely drink—like you."
"He was no innocent! He tippled, tippled. Then I came along and set up my sign, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree, Esquire; no, we'll drop the last and stick to E. Crabbe without the Esquire, d——n it! Lord! what a mess I've made of it, and this rankles, Ringfield. Listen. Over at Argosy Island there's a slabsided, beastly, canting Methodist Yankee who has a shop too. Must copy the Britisher, you see. Must emulate—gentleman."
His sentences were beginning to be less clear now. His head was falling forward. "Well! then—this fine fellow does well out ofhisshop; sets up another down the river and yet another over at Beausoley. He's made money! He's rich, married, and has a big family. Why don't I make money, Ringfield, and get away from here? Why don't you make money and not go about preaching? Eh? So careless of the single life! Who said that? Whoever said that, knew what—was talking about. I know what I'm talking about. I'm a gentleman, that's what I am, Ringfield, and yet I can't make money."
The wagging head toppled—he fell over on the table. The fire and youth Ringfield had observed were gone and in their place were the decrepit tone and the surly animalism which one associated with the guide. Here, then, thought the young and impressionable minister, is the living result of two corroding vices; the man is a sot, but something beside the lust for liquor has helped to make him one. He has followed after sin in the shape of his neighbour's wife, and perhaps the latter's decline may be traced to the working of remorse and the futile longing after a better life.
As he was thus thinking, the vision of his thought actually flitted past the window without turning her head. Still with those thin hands picking at her shabby skirts and with that tremulous smile she emerged from the wood and Ringfield heard her singing long after the rustling of the closely arched branches had ceased. Crabbe seemed to be dropping asleep when Ringfield touched him on the arm and tried again to reason with him.
"Tell me, I ask it for your own good and for that of the poor unfortunate woman who has just gone by, tell me what there is between you, how far the matter went, how long ago it was. Tell me, and I will help you perhaps to get away, leave this place and all in it. That would be the best thing. Come, Crabbe, I'll believe in you if you've lost belief in yourself. Can I, can anyone, do more than that?"
The Englishman rallied, passed a hand across his brow, then rose unsteadily to his feet, looking around the cabin. Habit called for a drink at this juncture and he saw nothing to drink. Anger awoke in him; he grew maniacal, dangerous, and the late September shadows filled the room.
"What woman do you mean?" he cried. "In vino veritas! You thought I was sober. So I was. Sober enough before you, the preacher, to know that I'm getting drunk rapidly, beastly drunk too, and being so, and the gentleman I am, or meant to be, I don't thank you for interference in my affairs. What woman are you thinking of? What woman passed my window?"
"Mme. Poussette."
The guide's face stared, then broke into unmistakable and contemptuous laughter.
"Didn't I tell you I was a gentleman? You've made a big mistake, Ringfield. Even in my deterioration" (he had difficulty with this word) "I remember who I am, and I don't go after married women. Matrimony's one of the Church's sacraments, Ringfield, isn't it? Perhaps not; I have forgotten. Anyway, Mme. Poussette is the wife of my best friend, my best friend I tell you, and whoever cares for her faded hair and finicking ways it isn't I. Sweeter pastures once were mine. Have I named the lady of my choice or have I not? The gay Pauline, the witty Pauline, the handsome Pauline! Ah! You admire her yourself. You wrote her a letter. I gave it to her and we read it together and laughed at it. 'Yours in Christ.' Ha-ha! We laughed at it, Ringfield."
Even in his foolish insults he paused, for an awful expression appeared for a moment on the other's face. In that moment Ringfield realized what Miss Clairville had become to him. No one can bear to hear his love traduced, and he believed that in his cups this villain, Crabbe, was lying. They faced each other and Ringfield was not the cooler nor the saner of the two.
"Pauline! Miss Clairville! What can she be to you? Hanger on of womanly footsteps," burst from him, scarcely knowing what words formed in his brain and emptied themselves upon the darkening air of the cabin. "Stealthy and gloating admirer of her beauty, even the despised companion and disloyal friend of her brother—all these you may be, but surely nothing more to her."
"What I am to her I know well enough and can tell you easily enough. She's done with me, hates and fears me, won't have anything to do with me, and yet she belongs to me and I'm not likely to forget it. And I belong to her. That's another reason why I wouldn't go after Mme. Poussette."
"You mean—that she is, that you are—oh! impossible! You mean—what do you mean? Not that you are married to her?"
Extreme agony and repulsion gave shrillness to Ringfield's voice. To have met and loved, to have coveted and dreamed of that warm, imperious yet womanly presence, and to hear this dreadful truth concerning her—if it were the truth.
"Well, you've guessed it. Yes, married to her, by heaven!" saidCrabbe, and he lurched forward and fell.
Ringfield saw and heard him fall, but he was already out of the shack and speeding through the forest paths; dim arcades of larch and pine met over his head while upon the river and the great Fall were stealing long bars of bright silvery light from the level sun. Soon the silver would mellow to gold as the daily marvel of the sunset was accomplished, but Ringfield was beyond such matters now. Nature could do no more for him in this crisis than it had done for Edmund Crabbe, and the virginity, the silence and fragrance of the noble wood, brought him no solace. Yet as he sped he could not choose but breathe and the air filled his breast and then fed his mind so that presently coming upon a glade or opening in which was a large slab of grey lichened rock he lay down at length to think. And that Nature which could do nothing for him spiritually in this hour of trial conspired to comfort and restore him physically. He could not pray. His accustomed resources had failed him; instead, as it grew quite dark around, he fell asleep.
"How dreadful the dominion of the impure!"
The September days gave place to October ones and still Miss Clairville remained away. The tourists had departed and Ringfield could judge more accurately of the mental and moral status of the countryside. The congregation of Sunday scarcely numbered two score, but Amable Poussette and wife were always present and the rule seemed to be that any who had tired of Father Rielle came to Ringfield whether they understood him or not; poor Catholics were thus in danger of becoming even worse Methodists, and he exerted all his faculties and talents in general directions concerning conduct and character. The beautiful skies and water, the rocks and great Fall, were as impressive as before, but they no longer filled so much space in the mind of the young preacher, who now saw all things in the visible universe from the standpoint and through the jaundiced eye of the disappointed and unhappy lover. All Nature mocked him and it would go hard indeed with him should religion, too, fail him in such a juncture, but the spirit of work and priestly endeavour kept him as yet from sheer wretchedness; he prayed daily to think less of the world and more of his calling and it seemed as if the fate which brought him back to St. Ignace to love and suffer in loving would spare him further, since there was no sign of Miss Clairville's return. His preaching could not fail, because he brought to it a fine original gift and an automatic precision and certainty resulting from the excellent training of his Church, but between Sundays the time dragged. His labours among the few scattered and uneducated families of conflicting race and origin seemed unconvincing and empty, and a new shyness possessed him; he disliked hearing any mention of the Clairvilles, for Crabbe's story he had come to accept as true without a word of questioning; indeed, Miss Clairville's own words came back to him as a proof.
"Another patient of the soul," she had said. Also, she had referred to something dark and of sinister import, fatal yet compelling, which always drew her back from livelier and more congenial places, and, as he judged, from a sphere of work which paid, to the house at Lac Calvaire. That the society of her brother was the attraction, Ringfield could not admit, and what other ties or friends had she? So far as he could learn—none, and thus he read her story; growing up unprotected and motherless, without any standard to judge by, she must have accepted the attentions and fallen under the spell of a man who probably appealed to her pity and also to her intellect. Crabbe had been the only man in the neighbourhood capable of understanding her cultivated allusions; the remnants of the mixed education she had drawn from the school at Sorel and the pedantic dreary associations of the manor house. But in the contemplation of such a thing as her marriage to such a man Ringfield's fancy failed. The whole plan of creation was altered and blackened. He did not wish to know on what terms Pauline and this man now met. He tried to shut out all the images such a story conveyed, and thus he asked no questions nor did he hear any gossip, proving that the affair was old, and if once known to the country people, accepted and forgotten. Why could he not treat it in the same fashion? His faith was not shaken in the sense of belief in a Supreme Being, but he no longer lived so much for and by his faith; Nature and God were put back in the past, as he had said to Crabbe, and all his thought was for the duty of the hour and for the guidance and sustenance of others. He imagined he had lowered his own dignity by writing, on the first impulse of desperate first love, the letter which Crabbe had read with Pauline, and he strove to regain that clerical calm and judicial bearing that had suffered so violent a shock. But when six weeks of this repressed existence had sped and autumnal winds were sweeping down from the glacial north of Terrebonne, bringing cold rains and occasional snow flurries with them, he felt that he must at least call at the manor to inquire after Henry Clairville. Little at any time was heard of the latter except when "Ma'amselle" returned to her native heath, at which times the Archambaults were whipped into work and obedience by the forcible tongue and stormy temper of their mistress. Messages and parcels then passed between the domain and the village; Father Rielle made his call and the whole village andparoissequickened with energy under Pauline's determined sway. Crabbe—this Ringfield heard from Poussette—was also sent about his business; he was no longer encouraged to play cards and drink with Henry, who fared as he might at the hands of the tyrant family swarming all over the estate.
On a chilly October day, Ringfield once again traversed the muddy road leading to Lac Calvaire, his heart sore over the revelation that had reached him, and he could not repress a painful sigh as he came in sight of themétairie. The lake was dull grey, the maples were shedding their leaves without painting them red and yellow, and the pines looked unusually sombre against a pale and cheerless sky. A pair of kingfishers were flying from side to side of the road, and a forked object sailing high up in the air proclaimed itself a bird, otherwise there was no sign of life till, approaching the front of themétairie, he observed the peacock taking its airing in a neglected garden.
Nothing had affected the pose and splendour of this radiant creature as it paraded up and down, gently swaying its lustrous and shimmering tail; the drooping fortunes of the house were not reflected in its mien or expression, and it was not until Ringfield was met by four lean cats prowling about him in evident expectation of food and petting that he descried unusual neglect in the appearance of house and garden. Three ugly blotched and snorting pigs ran out from under some bushes and followed him. He saw no smoke arising, no face at any window, heard no lively bustle in the farm-yard, no amusing and contentious chatter in Canadian French from the barns and out-buildings which sheltered the various members of the Archambault family. A curious feeling rushed over him and with it a conviction—the place was deserted. He went at once to the chain of farm buildings and examined them all; all were empty, with every sign of hurried and agitated flight rather than of orderly and complacent departure. The horses were gone, the two wagons and buggy, the buckboard. Traces of fright and apprehension were met at every step; a dirty hairbrush dropped on the ground; a clock abandoned on a bench outside the door as if too heavy; tins opened and rifled of their contents; a tub half full of soiled clothes in foul water. All these he saw, scarcely taking in their meaning, until returning to the manor he opened the front door and went in. There in the usual place he found Henry Clairville, alive, and no more. Still clad in the greasy dressing-gown and still seated in the tattered arm-chair, the unfortunate man was clearly very ill. Patches appeared on his face, which was both pallid and flushed; his neck showed red and sore and his body hung down limply over the side of the chair. Evidently he had tried to get to his bed which stood in a corner, and failed. His eyes were staring and full, yet glassy; sense and recognition alike were wanting, while the delirious accents which escaped now and then from his parched lips were altogether in French. In short, Ringfield, though unaccustomed to disease, knew that the man before him was very ill, of what did not enter his head, although there came to his mind a description of the plague in a boy's story-book. He did what he could, singlehanded, which was to snatch some warm clothing from the bed, cover up the sufferer so that draughts might not reach him, fetch water and leave it on the table near the chair and see that all animals were excluded. He then quickly sought for a secluded spot near the lake, hung his own clothes about on branches to air, and took a plunge into the clean, cool water, after which he was ready to return to St. Ignace and get assistance.
Dr. Renaud, the village practitioner, drove out at once, taking a woman with him, who, as soon as she learned she had to deal with the "Pic" ran screaming from the house, thus clearing up the mystery of the Archambaults.
"They knew," said Ringfield, "and I didn't. But I guessed something of the kind and took the only precaution open to me. I washed in pure water. And now what are we to do? Has M. Clairville no one belonging to him but his sister?"
"Not to my knowledge," said Dr. Renaud, who spoke good English, "and we do not wish her to return."
"Certainly not."
"Then I can only think of one person in the village."
"A nurse?"
"Not a professional nurse, but, as I say, the only person I know of close at hand who can do what is necessary until we get a nurse, if the man lives to require one. A male nurse would be better, but who is there here? No. I am thinking of the right one if I can only get her, if I can only get her?"
"She lives in the village?" Ringfield was curious; he thought he had met every one in the village, yet here was some paragon of female skill, virtue and strength with whom he was not acquainted.
"You must have met her. Of course you know her. I speak of Mme.Poussette. Ah! You shall smile and you shall frown, but you shall seewhat a miracle she can work! You shall yet envy this sick seigneur.Madame is noted for her care of the sick and dying. You are surprised?Yes?"
"I cannot help it. Anyone would be. She looks so frail, so delicate, and surely she is also what we call afflicted, peculiar. Is she a fit and sensible person for a case like this?"
"Ah! Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the doctor with a slight impatience. "These afflicted ones, these peculiar ones—they are still capable of something. Many times have I seen it; the old, old totteringgrandmère, the crazy aunt, the bad-tempered husband, even the inebriate, can find, when they are guided, work which suits and maintains them. Even when the mind is shaken, if it is only a little, just a little, to care for others, a bird or a cat, or a sick person, this will keep the wits steady. A case like this moreover!" repeated Dr. Renaud, laying his finger to his nose. He was round, jolly, bow-legged, and brusque, with pronounced features overstrong for his height, merry eyes, and a red birthmark. "This is the case. We are, you and I and presently Father Rielle, responsible for M. Clairville. He must not be moved except to his bed; he is too far gone for more. The wife of Poussette is, to my knowledge, the only person we can get to sit here, administer drink and medicine, make him comfortable. Well, not even she can do that but—youcomprenez. And she is capable, I know her well. She is as she is" (and the doctor made the sign of the Cross), "yet she is worth ten saner women, for she has no nerves, no fears, no imagination. Tell her what to do, place her here to do it, and she will not fail; I have seen her a dozen times in the village nursing sick women and their babies. She's as good as most doctors and better than most nurses. Yes, yes, we will get madame to him at once."
"But she may take it!"
"I think not. Her body like her mind is purged of all evil humours,mon ami. She is already more than half spirit and waits in peace for old age and quiet decay."
Ringfield got into the doctor's buggy in silent surprise.
"Besides, if she did take it, and it killed her, I cannot see any great calamity. I will tell you her history. She was well educated at a good convent near Montreal; her father was a doctor, as I am, but a far cleverer one. Yes, I lift thechapeauto that one, that old Dr. Pacquette as regards the great art and science of medicine. But as a father—ah! God pity him where he is now, according to our belief, in purgatory for many long years to come.Bien! Dr. Pacquette had lost his wife, and his daughter, a fairy thing, was allowed, even encouraged, to grow up as she pleases. They have grand friends in Montreal, her father's people still live on Rue St. Denis, great rich people; if you go there, drive out over the mountain and you shall see her old home, the Pacquette Château. Well, this Mme. Poussette when she is a girl (Natalie-Elmire-Alexandre, I don't give you all her name) she is very pretty, and the old doctor wish her to make a grand marriage, and he has every one up to the house and make a big time for them, and introduce her to all the young men, all therichyoung men. But while she has been at that convent she has met with Amable Poussette, who was not so stout then, had a good figure and a lively tongue, and the end is, they are married at Ancien Lorette by a young priest, who might have known better. Some months after, she goes home to her father to be taken in and forgiven and nursed, for she has by this time a young infant about six weeks old. Well, you can perhaps imaginele vieuxPacquette when it is all explained. He is enraged, he drives her from his door, she passes all one long, cold night in the snow outside thechâteauon Cote des Neiges hill and when she is found by the servants two days later, she is as you see her, monsieur, and the baby is dead! Never again the bright little Natalie-Elmire, but instead, a pale, faded, vacant-eyed, timid woman. Ah! If I ever meetle vieuxPacquette in the next world!"
The doctor nodded his bald head sagaciously; as for Ringfield, he was thinking that here was the opportunity for which he unconsciously had been waiting, to ask for and probably receive Miss Clairville's equally dramatic story, when he beheld another buggy coming around a corner of the road driven recklessly by one of the Archambault boys and in the buggy sat mademoiselle herself. Her attire, always so different from village modes, was true on this occasion to her theatrical calling, for to Ringfield's eye at least she appeared like some Oriental personage, caught and brought home in native garb, coupled with a very bad temper. Red and black was her habit and black and red her eyes and angry compressed lips.
The doctor stood up in his buggy and Miss Clairville in hers, and, as for a quarter of an hour the excited talk was in rapid French, Ringfield could only gather that the doctor was endeavouring to restrain her from going to see her brother. At last, turning away from Renaud with an imperious wave of the hand, she addressed herself to the minister in English.
"I understand it is to you the doctor owes his knowledge of my poor brother's sickness. I only heard of it myself last night on the stage at eleven o'clock, but I came at once—look at me in all this sinful finery, I can see you are calling it! Oh, yes, you are. Well, now that I have come and thrown up my part and my place in the company in Montreal, he will not allow me to finish my journey and go on to Clairville!"
"Certainly, you must not think of going!" cried Ringfield. "On no account must you do such a thing. Do you know what is the matter with him?"
"Oh, the 'Pic' I suppose, but I'm not afraid of it."
"Yet you have not been vaccinated, I fear!"
"Who told you that? Dr. Renaud, I suppose. Of course. No! No one is ever vaccinated here, no good Catholics at any rate. Good orthodox ones, like myself."
The doctor frowned, for he disliked the tone of bravado in which these words were uttered.
"It's no question of faith. It's a question of common sense and precaution. I have charge of the case and I will not permit you or anyone else to cross the threshold of Clairville Manor."
"You would class me then with the Archambaults! My own people, who eat and drink at my expense and who turn their backs on me in the hour of trial! Poor Henry, it will finish him, I fear, yet I and none other must be there to nurse him.Mon Dieu, but it is a shame!"
"Silly girl!" snapped Renaud. "There is no nursing for you in this case. Assuredly, Mlle. Pauline, you do not enter the house, I cannot allow it. Besides, mademoiselle, you return home too late. If you remained at Clairville longer, and had the place cleaned out, and saw to it that it was kept clean, your brother might escape these sicknesses, but poor girl, poor girl, I find it hard to blame you. Antoine! turn back and drive to the village. Mademoiselle goes now along with us."
His allusions if they pained did not soften her, but it was atRingfield she continued to look.
"I shall have no place to stay," she said poutingly.
"It's a pity you came at all," said the doctor. "They can find you a room at Poussette's."
"I will die sooner than go to that man's house. It is a common place, not fit for me."
"Come, come, you are excited. We know Poussette's weakness for a pretty face and a fine figure, but here is our new and true friend to look after you."
"Mine is not a pretty face, Dr. Renaud, and I prefer to look after myself. You do not understand, I am out of a position by coming here. I only heard last night that Henry was ill and I came at once, expecting to be in my own home; I did not know what was the sickness he had; I have left the theatre to come here and now I have nowhere to go."
Ringfield spoke at last.
"There need be no difficulty at all about your going to Poussette's, Miss Clairville. You will oblige me by taking my room, which is the largest and best in the house. As for me, I can do with anything. If you wish I will go back to your house, sleep there in place of the servants, and keep you aware of all that goes on, of your brother's progress at least."
"Quite unnecessary," broke in the doctor testily. "I am in charge of this case, and one patient at one time is all I care for. Drive back, Antoine, to Poussette's, where you will leave ma'amselle. Drive quick, too, for I wish to see the carpenter, Alexis Gagnon, next door to M. Poussette, where I think a room can be got for Mr. Ringfield. Allons! we have wasted one good half-hour already!"
"You blame me of course for that!" said Pauline, still gazing atRingfield, but talking to the doctor.
"Faith, I do," said the latter grimly, and she said no more.
In the Maison Pension of Alexis Gagnon, the village wag, carpenter and undertaker, Ringfield was accommodated with a room which had a balcony at the back looking on a square of Arctic garden, where amid circles and triangles of whitewashed stones the tobacco plant and some sunflowers lasted into the autumn. The news of monsieur's serious illness had now filtered through the parish, and Poussette's was full of men discussing the affair, as Pauline, looking like an outraged and defeated savage queen, passed into the hall, trailing her cheap red silken draperies up to Ringfield's room. The door to the bar was partly open; whisky was going round as supposed to be good to ward off the "Pic," and prominent in the noisy crowd was the shambling figure of Crabbe, who did not appear to notice Pauline, nor she him, and Ringfield, observing them both, could hardly bring himself to believe their extraordinary story. The brilliant if wayward actress, with her fine carriage and white hands, could never have belonged to that derelict of a man, lower even than the rough Frenchmen from the rafts and chantiers now demanding more "visky blanc". Yet in youth many things are possible, and the recital of Mme. Poussette's history seemed to prepare the way for Pauline's. Meanwhile Dr. Renaud had spoken to madame, and within an hour she was ready, and, being driven to Lac Calvaire, entered upon her labours without qualm or protest.