"Poussette!"
With an injured expression, and a rapidity amazing for so fat a man, Poussette slipped round behind the counter and brought out two bottles of ginger ale; in a twinkling the tall tumblers were ready and he offered one to Ringfield with a deep and exaggerated bow.
"Ah—I see. I beg your pardon, Poussette. I thought you meant the other kind. Of course I will drink with you and with pleasure."
The glasses were placed side by side, each taking one and looking intently at one another. In that moment all selfishness died out of Ringfield; he felt the importance of the opportunity.
"Will you shake hands first, Poussette?"
"Mais oui, m'sieu!Certainement, but wait, sir, one moment!"
With repeated rubbings on the clean roller-towel behind him, turning back of cuffs and a general straightening of the person and freshening of the attire, the Frenchman at length proffered his fat hand, and Ringfield clasped it with a firm, bold grasp; his muscles were twice as strong as those of the Frenchman, for while the one had been chiefly employed in the kitchen, at a rude desk, and had rusted in long loafing and idling intervals, the other had maintained his rowing and paddling and his interest in other athletic pursuits; even a half-dozen lessons in boxing had he laid to his credit.
"Now I've got you," said he, smiling, as the fat hand lay tightly imprisoned in the lean one, "and I'm not going to let you go till you make me a promise. See here—Poussette—promise me now—not to touch a drop of liquor again for a whole year. We'll let it go at that; I won't say anything about beer. By degrees, man, we'll fight the Devil and all his works. By degrees, and by prayer, and by every argument in favour of right living that I can bring before you—we'll fight this thing out together, you and I. Don't wait for some hysterical occasion, but do your plain duty now, while I hold your hand in mine. If you should marry again, Poussette, and should ever have those little children playing about you—what then? You'd want to lead a straight life then—and before, I know you would. Come—make me the promise now—and if you break it, as you may do, come to me and tell me of it; make it a second time and so—each interval may be longer, do you see—if you 'take the pledge' as it is called, it is likely to be in public, and your friends and fellow-drinkers hear about it, and ridicule you and laugh at the idea, and so you are driven to drink again. What do you say, Poussette?"
"It is then—just between you and me, sir?"
"That's the idea. Of course I shall say nothing about it to a third person. Come—you promise!"
Poussette seemed uneasy.
"But—m'sieu—just you and me? That seems, sir, just same thing as go confess to Father Rielle. Beg pardon, Mr. Ringfield, but bigosh, sir—that is same sure as go on the confession."
Ringfield saw the point.
"I understand, Poussette. You are right. We must not be ashamed of trying to be good. Nothing done in the corner, eh? Well, then, you tell—anybody you like."
"The new lady—Mees Cordova! Will that be all right, sir?"
"Why Miss Cordova? Oh, well—never mind! So long as I've got your word, Poussette, the word of an honest man, eh?"
"I'll thry, sir."
"That's good. That's all right. You're aman, Poussette."
The Frenchman wiped the tumblers thoughtfully and gazed intently into space. Perhaps he saw there the future small Poussettes playing out of doors; perhaps too, he saw the faded, weary woman who bore his name, still watching the sick man in the old manor house.
"You see, m'sieu," he said impressively, "if Mme. Poussette was to come right, if she come again on me here, feex up things around the house, be well and jolly, I would not send her away, I would not thry get this divorce. Fonny things happens—but I don't know about my wife. Dr. Renaud think she will always be the same. It is hard for me, Mr. Ringfield, sir—me, jolly kind of man—have a wife go like silly person all over the place, sing and walk by herself, make up songs, fonnychansons. Ah, you don't know how I have hard tam with that one! But, I'll wait till I see how she is in two, three weeks; the doctor—he say Henry Clairville almost well now."
"And it is understood you will leave Miss Clairville alone—and Miss Cordova. Remember, Poussette, you have engaged me to preach in your church and to minister here in this parish. I must refuse to do either if you offend against common decency and morality. Besides—Miss Clairville will never, I am positive, listen to you. You must see as well as I do, her pride in her family connexions, however worthless these are to-day."
"Bien," said Poussette jauntily, "if not Mees Clairville, then Mees Cordova. That is for why I wear her ring. I can persuade, sir—bigosh,excusezm'sieu, I can persuade!"
"So it seems," said the other drily, and would have continued his lecture had not the two ladies, who had been in the hall laughing and smiling around the bar door, now appeared boldly on the scene, and Ringfield made his escape, not before he had promised to look in that evening during an improvised concert at which Miss Sadie Cordova would dance, and Miss Clairville act and sing.
"He sits aloneOn stormy waters in a little boatThat holds but him and can contain no more!"
Meanwhile the house of Clairville was undergoing drastic changes at the hands of Mme. Poussette. The patient, propped up in his ancient and tattered bed, was now strong enough to look at books; many hours he passed in this way while madame roamed over the doleful house, setting in order and cleaning as well as she could. Her strength, patience and endurance were remarkable; she could dust, sweep, scrub, hammer, all day long and never experience fatigue; walls were rubbed down, windows opened and washed, furniture drawn forth from dusty armoires and cupboards raked out—and still the work went on, each day bringing to light some dark, unfamiliar nook, some unexplored room or closet. At Poussette's she never worked at all; sensitiveness to strangers and fear of the servants mastered her; at Clairville she worked incessantly, and when her nursing was done, entered upon her labours in this Augean house with steady passionless activity.
Clairville was badly pitted and every remnant of good looks had left him, yet on the first day that he could put his feet to the floor he would have sent madame into the front room, saying:—
"Bring me the suit of clothes you will see hanging on a nail in the wall".
She stared at him, knowing his weakness of body better than he knew it himself.
"What for, m'sieu?"
"What for? What are clothes for, idiot of a woman! To put on, to wear. I shall habit myself as a gentleman. Faith—it is time, too!"
"But, m'sieu——!"
"Bring me that suit, I say."
Madame hesitated, because she had removed the suit in question a week before to an old trunk in an empty room—she was not very clear which one—and it would take her some minutes to find it.
"If m'sieu will get back into his bed——"
"I will do nothing so foolish. I was thinking of getting up. Iamup and should be holding a levee— How do you do, my Lord Marquis?—pray enter. M. le Chevalier de Repentigny; open there for my friend, the Intendant! Gentlemen, I greet you. You perceive me at my toilet—but these lackeys are too slow! Fetch me my clothes, I say! Ah—misery! I cannot stand! I cannot—cannot even sit! Help me to bed, you woman there—help me, quick!"
And madame, instead of running for the suit of Court clothes, managed to lay Henry Clairville down again before he fainted. However, the next day he was slightly stronger and the next and the next, so that on the fifth day he was nearly as well as ever, and again demanding the suit, she went to the room upstairs and hunted for it. Its colour was a faded claret, and lacings of dingy silver appeared on the front and round the stiffened skirt that stood out from the waist—a kind of cut to make even a meagre man look well among his fellows; a three-cornered hat went with it, and into this relic of strenuous days, madame soon assisted her charge.
"How does it fit?" he inquired anxiously
"It is without doubt large at present for m'sieu, but m'sieu has been ill. After a while it will fit better."
"And how do you think I look in it?" he continued, gazing with fringeless expressionless eyes on her vacant but concerned countenance. "You see, to meet these gentlemen I must at least try to appear as well as they do. A Sieur de Clairville must guard the appearance at all costs! Where is my sister, Pauline-Archange—why does she not come and assist me in the entertainment of the Court? Of the Court, do I say?"
Here Clairville drew himself up as well as he could, and winking at his nurse gravely informed her that the most Christian King, Louis of France, being in North America for the good of his health, might call at the manor to see its master at any moment.
"If you will be very secret, my good woman, I will tell you this further, but it must be between us only—His Most Christian Majesty of France is just recovering from the 'Pic'. But do not alarm yourself; I have not been with him much. Fear not, madame, neither for yourself nor me."
Madame clasped her hands and looked upwards; she seemed to be crying, and yet she shed no tears. She knew there was something wrong.Shewas wrong. The Sieur de Clairville was wrong. The old habit of prayer, fervid, poetic, Catholic prayer, asserted itself and accordingly the mystic rosary of Our Lady returned to her.
"Priez pour nous, sainte Mère de Dieu. Mère aimable, priez pour nous. Mère adorable, priez pour nous. Vierge puissante, priez! Vierge fidèle, priez pour nous. Rose mystérieuse, priez pour nous. Maison d'or, Etoile du matin, priez pour nous. Santé des infirmes, priez pour nous."
Henry Clairville listened. Gradually he sank into the chair, and the tears, the slow, painful, smarting tears of weak mind and middle age—coursed down his thin, pitted cheeks. Madame sat down too and sobbed.
"Oh, have I offended you, m'sieu? Why did I pray? What makes us pray at all? Is there One who hears a poor woman like me? But she might hear you, m'sieu, a grand gentleman like you—and so I prayed."
"A grand gentleman! Thank you—madame, thank you," said he, trembling. "I believe I am that, or I was once. I have been very ill, I see. You must not take any notice if I go a little out of my head; it is nothing; Pauline is well accustomed to it, and so may you be if you remain here long. Only be lively with me, be always lively and pray aloud no more. I do not like these prayers. But why are you here? Where are my servants—Maman Archambault, Antoine, and the rest?"
"The servants of m'sieu left when m'sieu was taken sick."
"And you are doing their work?"
"As well as I can, m'sieu, when I can leave you. Just a little work I do, to amuse me, keep me from thinking."
Clairville trembled again and could not lift his eyes to this afflicted patient creature.
"I recollect now," he murmured, "you were always a kind woman. It was you who took the child away?"
"It was I, m'sieu."
"Eight years ago, was it not?"
"Nine, m'sieu."
"Nine, then. It was the year of the great snow. Does she—does my sister ever go to see it?"
"I cannot tell, m'sieu. She is not in St. Ignace often, and m'sieu knows that when ma'amselle goes abroad it is to Montreal and to the theatre."
"But you—you know about it, if it lives, if it is well, and has—has its mind?"
"It lives—yes, truly, m'sieu—it is never ill and it has its mind!"
"Mon Dieu!" muttered Henry Clairville. "Thathas its mind and I—I am sometimes bereft of mine. And you—you——" he pointed to madame, and though innocent and unoffending she quailed before the seigneurial finger. "You even—you woman there—you have not always your mind! Oh—it is dreadful to think of it! I would be ill again and forget. Tell me—is there, is there any resemblance? Say no, madame, say no!"
"I never go to Hawthorne, m'sieu, I cannot tell you. But I do not think so. I have never heard. They are nearly all English in that parish; they would not concern themselves much about that—the poorbébé, the poor Angéle. God made her too, m'sieu. Perhaps some day she will be taken away by mademoiselle to a place where such children are cared for. That is why Mademoiselle Pauline works so hard at the theatre to make much money."
"She would need to!" burst from Henry Clairville. "What she does with the money she makes I do not know, it never comes this way! I cannot make money. She ought to remember me sometimes, so that I could establish this place afresh, find new servants, for example. Alas—what shall I do without them?"
He raised his voice and the old peevish tone rang out.
"Be tranquil, m'sieu. It is I—I myself, nursing you, who shall do all that is required."
He sighed heavily, then a sudden fire leapt into his eyes. "Let us see how far I can walk. Open that door, I wish to see if I can cross the hall."
"After so long, m'sieu! It is not possible. May St. Anne give you courage, for it is assuredly six or seven years since m'sieu has left his apartment."
"Nine—nine!" said he impatiently. "The year the child came into this world. I vowed then and all St. Ignace knows I have kept the vow—I would never leave my room again."
"M'sieu, all know, it is true, of the vow, but none know the reason for it. I have kept my faith, m'sieu."
"But she, my sister, she is so flighty, so excitable—she may have told a thousand times!"
"I think not, m'sieu."
"Father Rielle is unsuspecting; likewise Dr. Renaud. Well, well, who gains by considering evil? Not one so weak and battered as I. Nevertheless, I will walk, madame. I will conquer this fear and this weakness and will show the strength and temper of a Clairville, of a De Clairville, I should say. Open then, madame."
Thus with his black skull-cap on his bald head, and the faded claret and silver habit upon his shrunken limbs, he tottered over the threshold of his disorderly, uncared for room which he had occupied without one moment's intermission, night and day, summer and winter, for eight years, ten months and four days, and madame, preceding him, watched in an agony of fear but also of hope—yonder was a new field for her powers of cleansing and purifying. Dust in thick rolls, cobwebs in floating black triangular and looped clusters, stale odours and rubbish—the apartment which had served as bedroom, dining-room,salonand study so long, would naturally be in a disgraceful condition. Henry Clairville's ghost it was that passed from that room to the hall, but the ghost walked—more than Henry Clairville had done for nine years.
The door of the chiefsalonwas open, and he entered, Mme. Poussette assisting him, still with clasped hands and awestruck eyes, and, although all the changes which had been wrought by her indefatigable fingers could not be appreciated by him, as it was so long since he had seen the room, he missed something. The suit, hanging for years upon its common nail, till it was encrusted with flyspecks, riddled with moth-holes, and tarnished, rusty and faded, now covered his meagre frame, but the other things he looked for he failed to find. He gazed at the walls, perceiving the one old, cracked and discoloured painting.
"Where are the others?" he demanded piteously. "There were four others, all valuable, all of great value."
"There was but this one when I came, m'sieu."
"Then Pauline has sold them—to keep that wretched child alive, to pay for its board and keep andtendresse—tendresse, perhaps, on part of some one while I—I have been neglected and kept short of the things I might have had—the wine, the comforts, the fruits! Ah—but I am a most unfortunate man, I who should be seigneur of the parish! Is it not so, madame? Here have I been starving and yet—there was money, you see—my sister had money all the time!"
Madame's lips moved; she said nothing. Far from having suffered privation during her stay at Clairville, she had been able to provide both for herself and the invalid, food and drink of the best quality procurable in that part—the Archambaults having hoarded large quantities of the supplies sent up by Poussette's "peep". The love of acquisition for its own sake had spread even among the youngest members of the family, and had one demanded suddenly of any of them the simplest meal, one would have been met by violent protestations that there was nothing in the house! To such an extent had this smuggling and hoarding spread that in looking through the kitchen and cellars madame had encountered a great store of provisions, mostly in good condition; sacks and barrels full of vegetables, apples, winter pears and nuts; tins full of bread and cakes, some mouldy, some fresh, and various kegs and bottles full of wine and spirits.
"Then," he continued, "where are my choice books, myéditions de luxe? There were some splendid volumes here, rare, you understand, worth money. She must have sold them also. I recollect when she begged me to let her take them out of my room. And a violin—of the most superb—that is gone! You know nothing of all these?"
"I know nothing—truly—m'sieu."
"And my cats? Who has dared to interfere with my cats, my dear friends? Le Cid—Chateaubriand—Phédre—Montcalm—eh? What has been done with them? And the doors, the little doors I had made for them—nailed up, I see! Ah—ah, madame—this is your work! You have killed them! Say then, am I not right? Miserable wretch of a woman!"
He was staggering now about the room between weakness and temper and she assisted him to a chair.
"You have killed them!" he gasped repeatedly.
"No, m'sieu, not one. Indeed, m'sieu, I speak the truth. The cats of m'sieu were fourteen; how could I kill so many? No, but I fed them and put them away in the barns—yes—and nailed up the little doors, it is true, for I could not do my work with the cats of m'sieu always between the feet. I spoke of them once to you, because there were two who wished to enter your room, lie on the bed——"
"Yes, yes! Le Cid and Montcalm. Good cats, good friends!"
"Lie on the bed, but I could not allow them. Thus, for three days they sat outside the door of m'sieu."
"And the peacock? Is it that I shall find him banished also when I walk forth from my house? Mlle. Pauline has rid herself of him?"
"Not so, m'sieu. I have cared for the bird and indeed for all the animals."
Clairville, quieter now, was thinking.
"Did some one sing to me about cats as I lay there on my bed?"
Madame reddened.
"Yes, m'sieu—it was I who made a song about the 'Cats of Clairville'.To amuse myself only, m'sieu, I often do like that."
He looked at her, then down at his speckled, bony hands.
"We are both mad, I think," he said in the most matter-of-fact way, "but you, of course, more so than I am. Well, to-day I have walked in here. To-morrow I shall walk all over this house, and next week, madame, next week I shall walk to the village—well, half-way. Some day I may even go to church. Oh—you shall see, you shall see!"
And with that, natural fatigue, engendered by the wholly unusual exercise intervened; his nurse moved a sofa into the hall, and there he slept for many hours, while she routed out his room as well as she could; his physical recovery from that day was miraculously rapid, and in a fortnight he was as quick and light upon his feet and as much given to the open air and walking as he had been previously doggedly convinced that he could not use his legs and that the least breath or whiff of fresh air would destroy him. So much for the after-effects of the "Pic" and the sweet uses of adversity.
The fine November days that followed were the days that Canada can give in wonderful perfection—when the thick canopy of leaves has been caught up, shrivelled, and disappeared, when a great expanse of sky, forest and river lies before the enraptured vision, with every twig and branch, every stump and hollow in the ground, every undulation and hillock of withered grass, showing as clearly cut and sharply defined as in winter, while the air is frequently warmer than in June and a singular mellow haze fills all the forest paths. Now can be closely seen the different forms of the trees, each trunk and each limb no less interesting than the brilliant foliage which lately enveloped them; the abandoned nests are bare, some on the ground transfixed between the bushes, or pendant from the branches of tall trees. The evergreens of various kinds supply the note of colour which alone gives hope and promises relief from neutral brown and grey, and underneath what once was a leafy forest arcade are all the roots of spring—the spotted erythronium, the hepatica, the delicate uvularia, the starry trientalis. Through such spacious aisles and along such paths of promise Henry Clairville walked every day while the fine weather lasted, wearing the ancient suit and the black skull-cap, and often attended as far as Lac Calvaire by the white peacock and two cats, and always watched from window or door by the faithful Mme. Poussette. Fear of contagion kept the Archambaults away, all save Antoine, who, constituting himself a bodyguard for Pauline in the village, took messages to and fro the Manor House.
When M. Clairville had seen the stores and provisions in his cellar, sufficient, with a few additions, for the entire winter months at least, he demanded of madame if she would remain with him and manage his house, and the poor woman assented with delight. Poussette did not want her; she had no place in the world, no ties; only occasionally was she required to nurse sick people in the village; here was a comfortable remote haven where she might be of use, busied in exercising those faculties remaining to her, which at Poussette's were rotting and rusting away. She remained therefore, to cook and wait upon him; a new existence sprang up for both, and it was when this sort of thing had lasted for a month that the parish priest, Father Rielle, thought it his duty to call.
"—his moods Of pain were keen as those of better men, Nay, keener, as his fortitude was less."
The writer has elsewhere stated that the Roman Catholic clergy in this part of the world are easily divided into two classes, the rotund, rosy and jolly, and the thin, ascetic and reserved; thecuréof St. Ignace belonged to the latter, and possessed a strongly marked characteristic face, the droop of his bitter mouth and the curve of his chiselled nose being almost Dantesque in effect. He had conserved a type of feature which, common enough up to the present, seems to be in danger of extinction; the passing of the aquiline, the slow disappearance of the Roman nose, are facts patent to thoughtful observers of national traits. Any contemporaneous collection of portraits of representative men in the higher walks of life reveals the fact that this fine racial curve is rapidly becoming extinct. From the Duke of Wellington down, this nose has been associated with men prominent in military and naval affairs, in literature (notably poetry and criticism) and in finance and diplomacy, until the possession of such a significant organ has become almost thesine qua nonof an individual destined to be famous or successful. Varieties of course existed, such as when combined with beetling brows and sunken eyes one recognized the professor or arch-critic of his generation. Or, when taken with the square forehead, thin mouth and visionary eyes of the military genius, one saw some great general. Or simply existing in some silly scion of good family, and meaning nothing whatever, in this case usually over-high at the thin bridge, and in profile far too strong for the weak rest of the face. In women of gentle extraction this nose was found beautifully proportioned. In belles of the mid-Victorian era were the lineaments of Caesar clearly revealed, associated with the delicacy of colouring and rounded chin and cheek which redeemed them from hard masculinity, so that fifty years ago in any representative gathering of England's fairest and noblest the observer would note a similarity of feature, especially in profile, between peers and peeresses, poets and poetesses, statesmen and thegrandes damesof society. Caricatured, it lived in the drawings of Leech and Du Maurier. Taken seriously, it inspired creative artists both of pen and brush when dealing with the heroic. Superficial writers confused it with the Hebraic nose, and in prints of criminal and depraved characters one frequently found it distorted and wrenched to conditions of ugliness. Tennyson and the latest murderer apparently owned the same facial angle, if one corrected the droop of the eyebrow, the curve of the nostril, the set of the ear. Thus the Roman or aquiline nose made itself and its possessor known to the world. Other noses might, if they liked, take a back seat! this nose never. Sala, Lamb, Kingsley—all had varieties of the nose. The American variant is seen in hundreds of nineteeenth century writers, preachers, New England farmers, old Cape Cod characters, Gloucester fishermen, actors, especially of tragic mould; showmen, lecturers, bankers—the nose has prospered in the new world. The significance of the feature is matched by its endurance, by the persistency with which it appears in every decade up to the present.
For with the opening of a new century the nose, aquiline in its purest state, equine with its accompaniment of cruel gums and sharp teeth in its worst, seems on the point of disappearing. The contemporary portraits of great men and beautiful women no longer display it. There is a new nose. It is to be hoped that it retains the powers with which the organ was originally endowed; for example, we suppose that it still can detect and appreciate, repulse and define odours. But as a sign-post showing the path to glory, as an index of force of character or intellect, it is practically useless. The new nose is modest, retiring, seeketh not its own, is never puffed up. You would know it for a nose, certainly, but its ample and aristocratic proportions are wanting; it lacks a bridge, is spineless, immature, unfinished. Yet it is set in the faces of many eminent thinkers and workers among the younger men; it is already allied to keenness of vision and talent, and may or may not be associated with birth and good breeding. The query is—is it a new nose, or only one that has always been with us, but is now gradually supplanting the old one? Did the nose aquiline largely represent class, and does the phenomenon of the new semi-straight, semi-nothing nose represent the intrusion of mass? Against this timid and, it may be, spurious generalization, one may pit the working-man with the nose of a duke, and the young colonial ruler with the unformed, delicate feature of a school-girl. So we accept the fact that in our own day types are passing.
The English face is going. It has served its turn, perhaps. Infusion of American and colonial blood will help to change it. The high-nosed country gentleman or landed noble, with Berserk or Viking blood in his veins, finds that, like Alice in Wonderland, it takes all he can do to keep where he is, and the work entailed takes something, a good deal, out of him. One thing goes, then another; finally, he casts away his birthright, the arch or bridge of his nose, and his son and the younger members of his family appear shorn of that important feature. The plebeian nose, so long as it is neither pug nor pig, is safer, better. Men are not afraid of it. Syndicates and boards breathe more freely when the barriers of nose are broken down, and a good mediocrity of feature may yet avert a war or preserve a treaty. At all events, a study of our chief contemporaries will bear out a considerable portion of this reasoning. The beauties of society and the stage have a leaning to noses tiptilted like the petals of a flower, or to a nose which is a kind of modification of the Greek, frequently found among Americans. For instance, in Canada there is fast growing up a new type of head, clean-shaven, firm, expressionless young faces, who bring their thick, straight dark hair and blue-grey eyes from the country to the town. They are forsaking the plough and the roadside school for the warehouse and the pestle and mortar. It is not openly reported of such that they would rather wear a black coat and starve than wear fustian and do well, to quote Thomas Hardy, but the stress of things drives them. The rural communities are dull; amusements are lacking; there seems nothing to live for outside work. Nature poets and wild-animal delineators are not among these set, earnest, straight-featured faces. The former are more likely to be denizens of cities. In this slightly dour Canadian face there are but few aquiline noses, and yet such is the danger of generalizing that perhaps the first people readers of this page meet after perusing it might be a group of students, none with Celtic hair and eyes and all with Roman contours. Likewise, on opening the current number of a leading musical journal, the long, high, prominent nasal organ of Sir Edward Elgar confronts us, whose peculiar cast of thought confirms the impression that spirituality, fine artistic conception and capacity to achieve are still the dower of those possessing this fast-disappearing feature. Ringfield belonged to the tribe of straight-nosed, grey-eyed thinkers—a finished contrast to Father Rielle, whose worn profile suggested the wormwood and the gall. Looks, however, not being in all cases indications of the character within, the priest was an exceedingly simple and earnest man, constitutionally timid, and physically frail; thus, he passed for what is known as a "deep" man, when he was nothing of the sort, and although it may be a mooted point whether in a Catholic community the local priest has or has not the entire conscience of that community at his mercy by means of the confessional, it was certain that there were a few things that Father Rielle did not know. Had he been social, convivial, fond, like most of his brother priests, of a game of cards, of good living and long drinking, he might have worked more reforms in the countryside, and holding the reins of priestly government stern and tight prevented some lapses from the moral code. That is to say, a worse man might have achieved better results, but as it was not in his nature to haunt Poussette's, make friends with the guides and call at unconventional hours upon his parishioners, he missed several revelations that fell to Ringfield's share. Crabbe was not upon his visiting list, nor Pauline of late years; for Henry Clairville he entertained a certain sad respect, as for a gentleman and landed proprietor fallen from grace indeed, but by the Will of God rather than by personal shortcomings. His tendency to fatalism was Calvinistic in its intensity, and he trod his accustomed path baptizing, marrying, burying, with the sour curve of his thin profile growing sourer every day. Thus this silent, censorious-looking priest presented a strong contrast to the optimistic young Ontarian, yet one emotion was common to them both—Father Rielle had for years nursed a hopeless passion for Miss Clairville.
It happened that the knowledge of Mme. Poussette's remaining on at Clairville as housekeeper to its master came to Father Rielle as something of a shock. Certain things are right and certain things are wrong in certain places; some things are right and some things are wrong in all places. Madame had a husband who, although plainly tired of her, had not yet openly neglected her; she also had a good home, and in her condition of mind it was not wise, according to the priest, that she should leave her husband and home to live with Henry Clairville. Dr. Renaud was questioned, but as medical men are everywhere less concerned with the conventions than are lawyers or priests, he only intimated that madame was probably happier at Clairville than in her own home, and that he saw no reason for disturbing the arrangement.
"But," said Father Rielle in their common tongue, "is it because the wife of Poussette is a little afflicted, light of head while sad of heart, that rules and customs no longer apply to her? I take it—it will make a scandal in the village and every man who is sick must expect some other man's wife to come in and care for him, and finally live in his house and take care of it. Our society may be small, but in some matters it is best conducted as are large communities. I think M. de Clairville should be instructed that his conduct is wrong."
"You call him 'de' Clairville, I see," replied the doctor from his buggy outside Gagnon's carpenter shop. "Well, it does not matter! Faith—he is both vicious and mad enough to be in truth the seigneur of all the parish as he styles himself—as nobles and seigneurs used to go. I have little knowledge of such myself! I am a plain man! my father was Renaud the harness-maker of Three Rivers. First I was fond of horses, then I was fond of gathering herbs and flowers, then I was fond of mixing medicines and quacking my friends when they were ill; then my mother saved some money and sent me to college and then one fine day I awoke, and I am Dr. Renaud! And you—you are one of the three Rielle brothers, likewise from Three Rivers; one is a notary, one a priest—yourself—and the youngest keeps the Hôtel Jacques Cartier at Sorel-en-haut. That is funny, that! You should have made him something else."
"It is true," replied the priest mildly, "I am not in love with his calling, but people who travel must be lodged. I use his place myself once or twice a year; it is the Will of God that such places must be; it is clean, and his wife, at the age of seventeen, already cooks well; he is lately married at the age of thirty-five. I myself am four years older. But of M. de Clairville I would say—that he must be brought to see that he is doing this poor Mme. Poussette a wrong, and I was going to ask you if you would drive me out to visit him this afternoon. That is, if, as I hear, it is quite safe to go there now."
"It would afford me pleasure indeed,mon père," said Dr. Renaud, "but unfortunately I am waiting here for the young man who has charge of the new church by the river,—Poussette's fancy, Mr. Ringfield."
"You are driving him to Clairville?" A quick jealousy animated the priest's eager question.
"I am, but we can make room for you. Certainly, my friend, we are neither of us so very stout and you are thin; you shall sit in our laps—oh yes, I take no denial! You shall come with us, Father Rielle, and we three shall descend upon this sick seigneur of yours and his housekeeper and see what they are doing. Drive her back in the evening, if you like."
While the priest hesitated, Ringfield and Poussette appeared at the door, and the instant the latter heard of the expedition he also wished to go.
"I cannot see why!" cried Dr. Renaud angrily. "Onecharrettewill not hold us all; it is going to snow and I must get back before dark. I'm calling here to leave an order for Gagnon about a coffin for old Telesphore Tremblay who died yesterday, and I have promised to see his poor wife to-night."
"Then I shall take my own buggy and Mr. Ringfield can go with me. Thecurécan go with you, sir."
"Well, if the whole village wishes to pay its respects to a crazy man all at the same time, let them come!" roared the irascible doctor. "You didn't care to go till you saw us going. But put your horse in, put him in; we will wait for you."
"Bien, M'sieu! I have three hams and a sack of potatoes; they shall go too."
This dialogue had been overheard by Pauline, sitting at cards with Miss Cordova in the front room, and with her natural impetuosity she jumped up, declaring that if Henry were well enough to see "these others," he was well enough to see her. Her impulsive movements sent the cards and counters flying up through the air, and one card hit Miss Cordova on the left eye directly over the pupil. As lightly as if flicked by a clever finger, but as unerringly as if deliberately and viciously aimed at her, one of the four sharp points of cardboard selected her dark eye for its target, and with a scream she too sprang up, overturning the table and seizing Pauline by the shoulder. The pain and distress were considerable, and Miss Clairville, opening the window, called for Dr. Renaud, who came at once to look at the eye and recommended bathing, bandages and complete rest. The exquisite tenderness of the inflamed organ gave Miss Cordova so much annoyance that after ten minutes she retired to her room, and the doctor again proposed himself ready to start for Lac Calvaire. The weather, fine and mild for so long, was changing now with every hour, and it was becoming strangely dark overhead.
"Whoever comes with me must prepare for a storm," said he, glancing at the blackening sky, "only a few flurries of snow, perhaps, but one cannot tell—it may prove more."
"You are sure there can be no danger of infection?" asked Ringfield, with an anxious glance at Pauline, who had raced to her room, stuck imitation solitaires in her ears, donned a worn-out but well-fitting seal jacket and muff and a dashing black and scarlet hat, and now stood in the village street—the embodiment of piquant French womanhood—quite conscious of her charms and insufferably weary of having no audience to show them off to! A certain disdain sprang into her treatment of Ringfield at this time, and it was a question with her, should he ever ask her to be his wife, whether she would not inevitably tire of the high aims and lofty ideals he no doubt would impose upon her.
"You don't suppose I'd be going if there were, do you?" she remarked in English tartly, curving her arching black brows at him; "how many are we—five? That's three too many, in my opinion. Father Rielle—I go with you in Mr. Poussette's buggy; you others there, you three messieurs—you can go how you please."
The priest flushed, then a sudden glance passed between him and Ringfield, and in that look each knew what the other wished and hated him for it! Still, Father Rielle followed Pauline instantly, and there was no opposition as she lightly leapt into Poussette's buggy, and with a wave of her muff, adorned by a bright scarlet bow, two of the five were soon out of sight.
"Snow is at the doorAssaulting and defending, and the wind,A sightless labourer, whistles at his work."
Dr. Renaud now called on the minister and Poussette to make haste; he had been delayed by the accident to Miss Cordova and already large flat flakes were falling.
"Just the size of half-dollars, eh? The idea is, Poussette, to bring madame home; that is to say, thecuré'sidea, but he's gone off with another woman. I suppose you are jealous now, of this one I mean, not the other."
"Not me, much. Father Rielle, he's no harm. He cannot marry mademoiselle nor any one else; besides, he has no money. Mlle. Pauline—she is for the money."
"Ah—ha, I believe you. We used to read or sing, I forget which, at college, about 'Les beaux yeux de sa Cassette'. I do not know the origin of the quotation, but you understand, Mr. Ringfield, what it means, and our young lady in front there has learnt in a bitter school the value of money.Cassette—cassette—cash-box; you will see, if she ever settles down, it will be, as our friend Poussette says, for the money."
Ringfield's throat was dry, he did not speak; his stern gaze, directed at the leafless landscape over which the first slow snows were falling, gave no indication of the tumult within; besides, the aspect of the road and condition of the elements were calculated to banish personal emotions, for even Poussette's hilarity was silenced by the increasing velocity of the wind and the darkness dropping upon them. It was only five miles to themétairie, but at the end of the second mile the sky was absolutely blank and the snow so thick that heaps of it lay on the horse's flanks and on their own laps and hands. It kept increasing at such magical rate that the roadway was obscured and twice Dr. Renaud found himself out on the rocky plateau at the left, instead of the middle path. The priest and Miss Clairville had vanished in front, but the three men could hear the sound of a horse on the slabs of rock behind them, coming very swiftly too, and in a few minutes a second buggy dashed madly by. The horse was running away, no doubt badly frightened by the violence of the storm, and Ringfield recognized Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn in the agonized couple holding bravely on, while the excitable little mare dashed through the snow.
"My hands are freezing!" cried Dr. Renaud. "This is a big surprise—a regular blizzard. We'll have to stop somewhere till it's over. I never beheld such darkness—at three o'clock in the afternoon—nor such sudden heaps of snow. Lucky for us if it does not turn to hail." He had scarcely uttered the words when the snow flagged, ceased to fall, then the hail began. Colder and colder grew the air with a strange, unnatural feel in it as if in the proximity of icebergs, or of the hour closest on dawn, and the hail, at first small and round, pretty and harmless, came gently chattering about the horse's ears and back, came faster and larger, came at last too fast and too large, came as stones come that are flung by enemies and rioting mobs of people anxious for vengeance. The doctor was afraid for his horse; one ear was cut and bleeding and the animal could no longer face the blinding streams of hail; he was covered and the men all got out, burying their heads in their coats; but Ringfield, the worst off, since he had come without gloves or muffler, was for ever casting anxious glances ahead, which Poussette and the doctor understood.
"Ibetteyou!" cried the former; "Mr. Ringfield, sir, thecuré—he don't know what to do with Miss Clairville. He'll never get her home, sure. He's no good with a horse—my horse too—I guess we better go after him, eh?"
"Stay where you are!" shouted the doctor. "Farther along the forest begins again, and these hailstones are snapping off the branches as if they had been slashed with axes. I can hear. You may be killed. Surely this cannot last long!"
But there seemed no diminution of the hail; it lay a foot deep in pieces the size of marbles or of small apples, and the autumnal grasses and bushes of juniper and sumach were beaten flat with the rocky ground from which they derived scant sustenance.
The three men were by this time suffering greatly from the sudden and unexpected cold, and as it was impossible to continue the drive to Calvaire in face of the biting hail, they were about to attempt to return to St. Ignace when the darkness partly lifted, the air grew gradually milder, and streams of steady rain came pouring down; overhead the clouds met, charged, and thunder raged at intervals.
Ringfield, now greatly alarmed and fancying he heard noises from the wood in front, even cries of distress, could no longer be detained, but bidding farewell to the others strode forward in the direction of the forest, slipping as he walked and already drenched to the skin, his clothes freezing upon him and clogging his difficult steps. Fortunately, for one who did not know the locality well, the daylight had partly returned. He judged that by keeping to the road he ran no risk of losing his way, but when a turn revealed another road, he was naturally perplexed, as the face of the country had greatly changed since he had made his last visit to the Manor House. Afraid to stand long, for trees were thick about him and the lightning still flashing, he went on again up the new road, and after a few minutes running saw a deserted barn in a hollow and made for it. In this dell or glade the trees had been thinned out, either by forest fires or by the owner, but one tall pine remained beside the forlorn and ruined barn as if for companionship—a lonely sentinel.
Ringfield, wet and shivering, rushed up to the barn door, and finding it half-open had nearly flung himself through it when he was arrested by voices within, or rather a voice—that of a woman. He did not immediately think of Miss Clairville, for no horse nor conveyance were outside, but, had he listened more carefully, he would have recognized her educated accents; as it was, in a moment or two she herself came to the door, and upon seeing Ringfield started, but asked him to enter.
The barn contained some old boxes and rusty tools, a short ladder led to a loft above full of dry hay, and there Miss Clairville explained she had taken refuge when the hail first began.
"But Father Rielle——" said Ringfield looking vaguely around.
"Oh, you shall not meet with him here. He left me and said he would try to go on to Clairville, get a fresh horse—Poussette's was badly cut—and come back for me. You have not met him?"
"No, then you are alone?"
"Of course, and neither wet nor frightened, while you appear to be both!" said she, gaily at first, but catching her breath as she observed his stern, anxious gaze.
Ringfield, drawing a deep sigh, suddenly lost his self-control.
"Oh, how you torture me!" he cried, extending his arms as if to enfold her, then dropping them as he recollected his condition.
"Torture you? You—Mr. Ringfield, so calm and self-contained, the Reverend Mr. Ringfield of St. Ignace! I torture YOU! Why what have I done to-day, then? Have I made the weather or caused the storm? Is it MY snow or MY rain, or MY hail, andecoutez bien—MY thunder and MY lightning raging there?"
"No—no—but to run off like that, and with that poor priest—poor fellow—I saw how it was with him! You are sure he is not here now?" Ringfield cast an eye up at the loft.
"Certainly not! Would he let you talk like that about him? But listen to this fearful storm! How can we think of anything else—and you—you so wet—wet and tired! It seems a little calmer now; perhaps you had better try again and walk on to Clairville. There you may fall in with thecuréor Dr. Renaud and then come back for me."
"I will not leave you in this desolate place for a moment! Yet I feel as if we were surrounded by people—why is it—I cannot understand why! To whom were you talking while I was outside?"
"Ah, there,tais-toi, mon ami!"
Miss Clairville pushed him down on one of the boxes and tried to draw off his stiff and dripping coat, but he restrained her; their hands meeting sent him beside himself, and, seizing one, he pressed a warm, lingering kiss upon it. Adept in these matters, Pauline kept up a gay chatter, and as she drew her hand away seemed only uneasy—neither fluttered nor deeply moved.
"I assure you," she exclaimed brightly, "I am quite safe here. I am not in the least wet, my old coat has done me good service—voyez—my feet are dry, and all I would ask is a light to cheer me while you are absent, but that I cannot have and I must be content. Although that unnatural dark is over, the shades of the true night will soon be falling and it is lonely here. So the sooner you go the better."
"But where can I go? Will it not be better to remain here with you until Father Rielle returns?"
"I think not—he is slow—that priest! See—if you go now, you will surely overtake him. Keep to your right after regaining the road and you will soon find the lake."
"Well, then, I will go," said Ringfield rising. "But if I might speak to you now, might tell you all I hope and fear and think almost continually, if I might ask you, too, to think about it, and tell me—tell me—it is so difficult for me to say what I wish to—you seem so gay, so satisfied, so——" His voice broke off, for her face changed ominously, and the strongest argument he could have adduced, the folding of her to his heart, the silent embrace which should make her his, was still denied him. To the outsider there might have been a touch of humour in the situation, but not so to either person concerned. She echoed his last words.
"Satisfied! Me! You think I am that? My God, yes, I have to say it in English—it means more! I—satisfied! Happy—you will say next, I suppose. Me—happy and satisfied. I'm the most miserable woman on God's earth! I have had ideals, aspirations—but how could I fulfil, achieve them, living in this place and with my temper, my heredity. Look at Henry. I tell you he is mad—mad and worse! Think of having lived with him! Think of Clairville! You do not know half of what I have gone through!"
A dreadful thought, a dreadful question occurred to Ringfield as he marked the dark wave of hair on Miss Clairville's brow, and again he saw the child in the basket chair at Hawthorne, but he frantically stifled the thought and forbore to question, and the next moment she was weeping and pushing him towards the door.
"Go now," she sobbed. "Go before it gets darker. You might lose your way. Go—go."
He went out at once, pulling the door after him as well as he could and ran through the hollow till he reached the road, where it seemed brighter. The rain gave signs of falling less steadily, when, as often occurs after a protracted storm, there came a lull, followed by one terrific and astounding burst and explosion of thunder, accompanied by a vivid blue and orange blaze and afterwards complete silence and a great calm. The storm now rolled onward, having spent itself in that locality; but knowing from the sound that some place or object had been struck, Ringfield stopped, stepped behind a mass of boulders and juniper bushes and looked back down into the little hollow. The barn was apparently uninjured but the noble pine had suffered. The ripping, tearing sound he had heard was explained by the sight of a broad orange-coloured strip or band that ran longitudinally from the top of the tree to the bottom, indicating where the bark had been peeled off by the force of the fierce current. As he stood gazing thus at the seared and stricken pine, the door opened from the side of the barn and Miss Clairville slowly stepped out, followed by a man in whom, with an exclamation of extremest repulsion and surprise, Ringfield clearly recognized Edmund Crabbe.
The shock of this and the full meaning of it set Ringfeld's nerves and pulses tingling, and he stepped farther back into the shade as he watched them. They advanced to the great pine, examined it, and he could see that Crabbe's arm went around her waist. The guide himself seemed, even at that distance, to be more neatly dressed than usual, he wore a tweed cap with coat to match and did not look as if he had been drinking, but as with him that was the sign that he was about at his worst, Ringfield could only turn away in disgust and pursue his way to Clairville. It was not a pleasant thought that Crabbe must have been in the loft, while a somewhat tender scene had been enacted, and he suddenly felt a contempt and pity for the woman who could play two men at the same time in such barefaced fashion. Then, as lovers will, he rebuked himself for this; perhaps Crabbe had taken refuge in the loft without her knowledge, and the great final crash had brought him down; perhaps she had known he was there, but was ashamed of producing him in a semi-drunken condition, perhaps—then Ringfield saw the distant lights of the Manor House and hastened towards them. A little farther on he overtook the priest, leading Poussette's horse and buggy, and it was not long before they were able to take off their wet clothes at madame's fire and exchange confidences about the storm.
In the large kitchen were also Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn, Dr. Renaud andPoussette, and the priest, who was naturally held accountable forPauline's safety, reported her as resting comfortably in the barn.
Ringfield did not say much; of Crabbe no mention was made by the others, and it was probable that nobody had seen him, or dreamt of his being out in the neighbourhood on such a day.
"Poor now in tranquil pleasure, he gave wayTo thoughts of troubled pleasure."
Pauline had yielded to an erratic but harmless impulse in driving off recklessly with the priest; her nature, so long restrained by residence in a dull, circumscribed village instead of a lively town, needed some such prank to reanimate and amuse it. She seized the reins dramatically, insisted upon driving, and Father Rielle was nothing loath since he did not care about nor understand horses very well, and since it was dangerously novel and bitterly pleasant to sit and watch Miss Clairville. Her fine features and splendid colouring showed well against the dull background of sky and forest; the ribbon on which her muff was slung, tied moreover in a dashing bow, was a bit of true scarlet matching some rosettes in her hat. As she looked behind for a wilful instant she caught sight of Ringfield sitting up stiffly on the two fat laps provided by Amable Poussette and the doctor, and her laugh rang musically in the priest's ear.
"Poussette's is the fastest horse in the village!" cried she. "See—I will give him a little of the whip.Voilà—now he will think he has his master behind him.March-ch, donc, animal. Get up—bigosh,excusez, mon père. That's it! Watch him now! I'm not an actress for nothing. See now—he'll be galloping presently, but trotting is all we care for, my good beast! So you are going to bring Mme. Poussette back with you, I understand,—tear the fair lady from my poor brother!"
"Who has told you thatcanard?" said the priest, folding his arms and leaning back as far as the littlecalèchewould allow. "No, I did not think of doing so to-day; you doubtless heard me talking of the matter to Dr. Renaud. I cannot tell what you think of it, but in the absence of all servants it seems to me that Poussette's wife should return to her home while you both make new arrangements for managing his house. But perhaps you intend remaining there to-night, mademoiselle?"
"I have no such intention,mon père, I assure you. I am glad Henry has recovered; I shall see him once or twice, of course, and then I shall return to Montreal and not come back here for years—if I can help it. But look at the snow! It is coming faster and faster and growing darker and darker. The wolf's throat is sunshine compared to this. Shall we turn back?"
"No!" said thecuréwith his sour face steadily turned toward her. "I do not mind the snow nor shall you. I would drive so—like this—beside you and looking at you, to the end of the world, of life. Drive faster, faster yet, till we leave those others behind. Take that opening there on your left. I know of a shelter that will serve—Leduc's barn—you may remember it. Arrived there, you must hear me."
Pauline, irritated though not greatly surprised, stooped, and making a small hard ball of the wet snow lying thickly around their feet, flung it backwards into the priest's face; he caught her left wrist, held it in a tight grip, and although she was a strong woman, he was the stronger, being a man, and she could not escape. The darkness closed down upon them, the snow came down in blinding, tickling clouds, and in her anger and distress she could not drive properly. Poussette's horse being accustomed to being driven to the barn, went in that direction of his own accord, and thus they arrived in a whirlwind of snow—the priest still holding her wrist with something else than sourness showing in his thin features—a few minutes before the hail commenced falling. Pauline, dragging herself as she descended to the ground from an over-zealous admirer, ran into the shelter and tried to fasten the door, but the other, leaving Poussette's horse andvoitureto fare as best they might, was quick upon her heels and followed her inside the barn.
Thus they escaped the worst portion of the storm, but the darkness endured; they remained standing looking at one another, and Pauline, though she was both cold and frightened, managed to give her habitual laugh.
"Because you are 'Father Rielle,'" she exclaimed, "you think you are entitled to pursue a recreant sheep of the flock even over here! Oh! it is not on account of the storm—I know that—that you follow me! I have seen this coming for some time, and I have feared it!"
The priest staggered, passed his hands over his eyes and made a hasty sign of the cross. Opportunity, propinquity, a sudden temptation—these had assailed him and for one moment all the devils of hell were let loose in this good man's brain and heart. The silence seemed eternal that followed on his movement; as the air lightened around them she fancied his countenance distorted by suffering, and his averted eyes spoke of his shame and contrition.
"My daughter," he said at length, "fear what you will but never again fear me. You witness my remorse, my tears—yes, behold, my daughter—and you know, you tell yourself that I cannot, will not harm you—nor any woman. But now you would hear what I would say, because you must not refuse. You have left our Holy Catholic communion, you are no longer daughter of the true Church, is it not so, my daughter?"
An old habit asserting itself, Pauline automatically answered; "Oui, mon père."
"You have gone on the stage, you have developed into a brilliant but wayward coquette; you have for your friend a woman who has left her husband and thinks about marrying another. Is this not so, my daughter?"
And again, despite her experience of his singular lapse from conduct,Pauline's lips answered: "Oui, mon père."
"Worst of all, you have set yourself to fascinate and wound this young man, this stranger among us, and you are leading him on to think of you night and day, I suppose, as I do!"
"Mon père—do not confess it!"
"Why not? You will not use your knowledge of my secret since you will not be believed. I—thanks to my training and the example of my glorious Church—can choke, can bridle, can conceal this passion—but not so this other. Can you deny that you have been with him, encouraged him?"
Pauline would have answered hotly, her rudimentary fear of thecurédisappearing before the mention of Ringfield, when her eyes fell upon a book that lay at the foot of the ladder, a small green book that she knew well by sight, having read in it with Edmund Crabbe years before, when he was known as "Mr. Hawtree" and had been her lover. The book was a collection of poems by Edwin Arnold, and back into her memory stole those passionate lines:—
The one prize I have longed forWas once to find the goal of those dear lips;Then I could rest, not else; but had you frownedAnd bade me go, and barred your door upon me,Oh, Sweet! I think I should have come with lampsAnd axes, and have stolen you like gold!
She stood staring at the cover, for upon it lay three or four large spreading dark patches; were these wet spots caused by the snow? Her eyes, then traversing the ladder, noticed footprints, and cakes of blackened snow upon the steps. To whom belonged these tell-tale signs of occupation? Glancing farther up she saw the end of a stick protruding from the loose piles of straw that trickled over the top of the ladder, and she recognized the stick, a stout one with a peculiar ferule that also belonged to Crabbe. He must be in the loft, either sleeping or keeping silence, and now she found herself in the most uncomfortable position a woman can possibly occupy; to her already crowded list of lovers had been added another, and as the quarry of four strongly contrasted men, each possessing more than average persistence of character, she must have excited pity and sympathy in the breasts of women less fatally attractive, but scarcely one thrill of envy. She recognized in the priest potentially the fiercest lover of them all; a man of only two or three ideas, this one of cruel, hopeless, unattainable passion for herself would easily dominate him and render him, fresh to the emotions and therefore ignorant of how to control and deal with them, utterly unreasonable, even it might be violent and offensive. What wonder then if her thoughts like her eyes turned toward the loft above her. Despite her flighty tendencies, her town and theatre friendships and quarrels, her impulsive and emotional nature, Crabbe was the only man who had gained an ascendancy over her; for him she had forsaken prudence, but for him only, and strongest of associations, closest of ties—he alone had appealed to and satisfied her physical side. She had given him much but not all, and now in this moment of hatred of thecuré, of herself, and a moving disgust at the conflicting facts of her difficult life, she thought of the Englishman as a desired refuge. There came crowding into her mind those small delicate acts and gestures which make as we say "the gentleman." She recollected Crabbe as he was when he first presented himself at themétairie, the self-possession of his easy manner, subtly tinctured with that dose of romance necessary to her imagination; the unconscious way, to do him justice, in which his talk of blight and exile and ruined fortunes had aroused all her dormant sympathies.
"Oh," she cried, hoping that if in the loft he would hear, "all this is so dreadful, so different from the life I meant to lead, from the life I believe I was intended to lead! Hear me, Father Rielle: all men I hate and abhor, all, save one, and not the one you are thinking of! Hear me again: if I can find the money I will leave Clairville as I said, for good, for ever. I shall leave the theatre in Montreal, leave Canada, and I will go where my talents shall be understood and requited. It is true I have a temper and a tongue. It is true I am hard to teach and hard to get on with, and how do I know—perhaps there lurks in me a trace of that I fear so in Henry—yet I am resolved to try. If you mean what you say, and are not mad in your turn, will you help me to carry this out? I would leave at once, make my way abroad, study and become the actress I know I could if I got my chance. Perhaps in another country, perhaps if I could reach Paris, where I am not known, where it is not known, where——"
She stopped, following the priest's gaze so that both saw now what happened, the heap of straw at the top of the ladder was dislodged, the stick belonging to Crabbe slid down to the floor of the barn and the moment after he himself appeared. His face was somewhat red and swollen but his attire was neater than usual, and the step with which he descended the ladder almost normally steady, besides, he appeared on the side of morality, and as champion of feminine rights made a better figure than one would have deemed possible in so broken a man.
"Sorry to interrupt thistête-à-tête," said he, stopping to pick bits of straw off himself, "but it seemed about time that somebody interfered. I perceive Miss Clairville is rather tired, and—look here, Father Rielle—I give you two minutes by this old turnip or hour-glass of mine—it was with me on the prairie and may not keep very good time, but it ticks—I give you two minutes to apologize to mademoiselle for your—ah—detention of her, and then you may leave us for the Arctic regions outside. Polar, by Heaven, hail falling as big as walnuts!"
It was true; the darkness still reigned and a terrific noise, caused by the large stones rattling on the roof and splintering the distant forest branches. The priest on hearing that authoritative drawl behind him, cowered, his fear of personal violence from Crabbe, who bore a bad name, mastering his ecclesiastical dignity; but as he perceived that the guide was fairly sober he gathered courage and replied in rapid French:—
"You will not I hope be so evil-minded, monsieur, as to misunderstand my sentiments towards Mademoiselle Clairville, whom I have known from her childhood. I am only saying to her what I have felt for a long time—I would be the means of saving her from herself, from such friends as you, and from the ills attendant on the profession she has chosen. My affection for her is solely that of the parish priest who has watched her career and felt saddened by it, yet who would reward evil by good."
"How would you reward her? By making love to her?"
"I have been in communication with the Mother Superior of a convent near Three Rivers, my birthplace. There is a fine appointment there, waiting for a person of talent—gifted—to instruct in elocution and possibly music. I thought——"
"You thought it would suit me!" cried Pauline, in a frenzy of disgust and irritation. "Me! For the stage and its triumphs a convent with simpering nuns! For Paris with its gay shops and drives, the town of Three Rivers, Province of Quebec,dans le Bas Canada! Oh! I see myself, thank you, in thatgalère, I assure you! No—no—that honourable extinction is not for me yet awhile.Après, mon pere, après—après, I may return and be glad of the haven, but not now."
"The two minutes are up," said Crabbe laconically. "I'm sorry to turn you out in such an afternoon, Father Rielle, but it is best for you and for mademoiselle. The hail's not quite so big as it was. I advise you to go at once."
The priest, divining some understanding between Crabbe and Pauline, and gradually calling to mind certain episodes of several years back, glanced from one to the other.
"I am not sure that I am not myself in the way," he said grimly. "Such rapid and excessive sensitiveness on behalf of Mlle. Clairville is creditable, but scarcely, I should think, its own reward."
"Do you deny that your being here is a menace to Miss Clairville's peace and that you—you a frocked and tonsured priest—have addressed words of love to her? If I did not utterly despise you, I should kick you out into the storm."
"You need do neither. I do not deny that I love Miss Clairville; I deny only that I have menaced or threatened her in any form. I say this to you—man of unclean, unholy habits—the priest is human. He is as God made him. He lives or dies, loves or hates by the will of God. When I look at Miss Clairville, I think of her as the possible helpmeet of my life, had it been spent in the service of this world instead of in the service of God. I think of her, monsieur, even reverently, purely, as the possible mother of my children."
This astonishing speech had much effect upon Pauline, who commenced weeping; the priest's voice—always a beautiful one—had dropped with a mournful cadence on the four last words, and Crabbe did not reply.
"Who can do more than that?" resumed thecuré. "But that I cannot offer. Such care and worship, such devotion and tenderness I may not give. What then! I can at least be the instrument which shall shape her future career. I can point the way and deliver her from all these temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil. I do so now. I ask her to renounce the world now, at this moment, and to enter upon a new life to which it shall be my high and glorious privilege to introduce her."
The subtlety of the priest saved him. The noble melancholy of his words and gestures was abundantly convincing, and suddenly the situation, at one time threatening to become unpleasantly melodramatic, became normal. The reversion to the light commonplaces and glib phrases of society was felt in Crabbe's careless tones as he spoke of the weather, adding:—
"'Tis never too late to be polite. I'm putting my watch back into my pocket, and I'll go with you, Father Rielle. My refuge—a temporary one—is no longer needed, it's lightening very considerably, and I suppose you'll be going on to Clairville."
"But what am I to do?" exclaimed Pauline. "I would rather not be left here alone!"
"I am afraid you must make up your mind to that. Poussette's horse is hardly fit to be driven. Let Father Rielle take him to the Manor House and then come back for you with one of the others."
This was agreed upon, the two men left at once and for the space of ten or fifteen minutes she was alone. At the end of that time she could hear footsteps on a rapid run, and soon Edmund Crabbe re-entered the barn. The cool air had invigorated him, and he flung off his cap and faced her.
"I could not leave you in that summary fashion, after so long," he said, "after so long, Pauline! Well—I have lived to be of some service to you—or so I think. Whether Platonic or not, you had better not encourage his reverence to that extent again, do you hear? A veritable Cassius of a man! And, by the way, you are looking very well just now, lady dear. I never saw you handsomer, Pauline!"
Miss Clairville's colour, already high, leaped more redly in her cheeks and she trembled; the ancient power that this man held over her, the ring of his rich English inflections, the revival of habit and association made her weak as water, so that she suddenly sat down and could find nothing to say. But Crabbe was quite at his ease, the encounter with Father Rielle had sharpened his wits and given him a restored opinion of himself, and in Pauline he saw a very handsome and attractive, warm-hearted and talented woman, still young and once very dear to him. The dormant affection in both was near the surface and Crabbe, knowing from her silence and downcast eyes how she felt, put some check on himself.