Monsieur and Madame Joubert.Monsieur and Madame Carcanal.Madame Rousillon.Madame Champigny.Monsieur Pipon.Mademoiselle La Rose.L’Abbe Durand.Monsieur Halboir.La Soeur Angelique.La Soeur Seraphine.
I know not why it was, but the last three names held my eyes. Each of the other names I knew, and their owners also. When I looked close, I saw that where “La Soeur Angelique” now was another name had been written and then erased. I saw also that the writing was recent. Again, where “Halboir” was written there had been another name, and the same process of erasure and substitution had been made. It was not so with “La Soeur Seraphine.” I said to the General at once, “Your excellency, it is possible you have been tricked.” Then I pointed out what I had discovered. He nodded.
“Will you let me go, sir?” said I. “Will you let me see this exchange?”
“I fear you will be too late,” he answered. “It is not a vital matter, I fancy.”
“Perhaps to me most vital,” said I, and I explained my fears.
“Then go, go,” he said kindly. He quickly gave directions to have me carried to Admiral Saunders’s ship, where the exchange was to be effected, and at the same time a general passport.
In a few moments we were hard on our way. Now the batteries were silent. By the General’s orders, the bombardment ceased while the exchange was being effected, and the French batteries also were still. A sudden quietness seemed to settle on land and sea, and there was only heard, now and then, the note of a bugle from a ship of war. The water in the basin was moveless, and the air was calm and quiet. This heraldry of war was all unnatural in the golden weather and sweet-smelling land.
I urged the rowers to their task, and we flew on. We passed another boat loaded with men, singing boisterously a disorderly sort of song, called “Hot Stuff,” set to the air “Lilies of France.” It was out of touch with the general quiet:
“When the gay Forty-Seventh is dashing ashore,While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar,Says Montcalm, ‘Those are Shirleys—I know the lapels.’‘You lie,’ says Ned Botwood, ‘we swipe for Lascelles!Though our clothing is changed, and we scout powder-puff,Here’s at you, ye swabs—here’s give you Hot Stuff!’”
While yet we were about two miles away, I saw a boat put out from the admiral’s ship, then, at the same moment, one from the Lower Town, and they drew towards each other. I urged my men to their task, and as we were passing some of Admiral Saunders’s ships, their sailors cheered us. Then came a silence, and it seemed to me that all our army and fleet, and that at Beauport, and the garrison of Quebec, were watching us; for the ramparts and shore were crowded. We drove on at an angle, to intercept the boat that left the admiral’s ship before it reached the town.
War leaned upon its arms and watched a strange duel. There was no authority in any one’s hands save my own to stop the boat, and the two armies must avoid firing, for the people of both nations were here in this space between—ladies and gentlemen in the French boat going to the town, Englishmen and a poor woman or two coming to our own fleet.
My men strained every muscle, but the pace was impossible—it could not last; and the rowers in the French boat hung over their oars also with enthusiasm. With the glass of the officer near me—Kingdon of Anstruther’s Regiment—I could now see Doltaire standing erect in the boat, urging the boatmen on.
All round that basin, on shore and cliff and mountains, thousands of veteran fighters—Fraser’s, Otway’s, Townsend’s, Murray’s; and on the other side the splendid soldiers of La Sarre, Languedoc, Bearn, and Guienne—watched in silence. Well they might, for in this entr’acte was the little weapon forged which opened the door of New France to England’s glory. So may the little talent or opportunity make possible the genius of the great.
The pain of this suspense grew so, that I longed for some sound to break the stillness; but there was nothing for minute after minute. Then, at last, on the halcyon air of that summer day floated the Angelus from the cathedral tower. Only a moment, in which one could feel, and see also, the French army praying, then came from the ramparts the sharp inspiring roll of a drum, and presently all was still again. Nearer and nearer the boat of prisoners approached the stone steps of the landing, and we were several hundred yards behind.
I motioned to Doltaire to stop, but he made no sign. I saw the cloaked figures of the nuns near him, and I strained my eyes, but I could not note their faces. My men worked on ardently, and presently we gained. But I saw that it was impossible to reach them before they set foot on shore. Now their boat came to the steps, and one by one they hastily got out. Then I called twice to Doltaire to stop. The air was still, and my voice carried distinctly. Suddenly one of the cloaked figures sprang towards the steps with arms outstretched, calling aloud, “Robert! Robert!” After a moment, “Robert, my husband!” rang out again, and then a young officer and the other nun took her by the arm to force her away. At the sharp instigation of Doltaire, instantly some companies of marines filed in upon the place where they had stood, leveled their muskets on us, and hid my beloved wife from my view. I recognized the young officer who had put a hand upon Alixe. It was her brother Juste.
“Alixe! Alixe!” I called, as my boat still came on.
“Save me, Robert!” came the anguished reply, a faint but searching sound, and then no more.
Misery and mystery were in my heart all at once. Doltaire had tricked me. “Those batteries can not harm her now!” Yes, yes, they could not while she was a prisoner in our camp. “Done with the world!” Truly, when wearing the garb of the Sister Angelique. But why that garb? I swore that I would be within that town by the morrow, that I would fetch my wife into safety, out from the damnable arts and devices of Master Devil Doltaire, as Gabord had called him.
The captain of the marines called to us that another boat’s length would fetch upon us the fire of his men. There was nothing to do, but to turn back, while from the shore I was reviled by soldiers and by the rabble. My marriage with Alixe had been made a national matter—of race and religion. So, as my men rowed back towards our fleet, I faced my enemies, and looked towards them without moving. I was grim enough that moment, God knows; I felt turned to stone. I did not stir when—ineffaceable brutality—the batteries on the heights began to play upon us, the shot falling round us, and passing over our heads, and musket-firing followed.
“Damned villains! Faithless brutes!” cried Kingdon beside me. I did not speak a word, but stood there defiant, as when we first had turned back. Now, sharply, angrily, from all our batteries, there came reply to the French; and as we came on with only one man wounded and one oar broken, the whole fleet cheered us. I steered straight for the Terror of France, and there Clark and I, he swearing violently, laid plans.
That night, at nine o’clock, the Terror of France, catching the flow of the tide, with one sail set and a gentle wind, left the fleet, and came slowly up the river, under the batteries of the town. In the gloom we passed lazily on with the flow of the tide, unquestioned, soon leaving the citadel behind, and ere long came softly to that point called Anse du Foulon, above which Sillery stood. The shore could not be seen distinctly, but I knew by a perfect instinct the cleft in the hillside where was the path leading up the mountain. I bade Clark come up the river again two nights hence to watch for my signal, which was there agreed upon. If I did not come, then, with General Wolfe’s consent, he must show the General this path up the mountain. He swore that all should be as I wished; and indeed you would have thought that he and his Terror of France were to level Quebec to the water’s edge.
I stole softly to the shore in a boat, which I drew up among the bushes, hiding it as well as I could in the dark, and then, feeling for my pistols and my knife, I crept upwards, coming presently to the passage in the mountain. I toiled on to the summit without a sound of alarm from above. Pushing forward, a light flashed from the windmill, and a man, and then two men, appeared in the open door. One of them was Captain Lancy, whom I had very good reason to remember. The last time I saw him was that famous morning when he would have had me shot five minutes before the appointed hour, rather than endure the cold and be kept from his breakfast. I itched to call him to account then and there, but that would have been foolish play. I was outside of the belt of light falling from the door, and stealing round I came near to the windmill on the town side. I was not surprised to see such poor watch kept. Above the town, up to this time, the guard was of a perfunctory sort, for the great cliffs were thought impregnable; and even if surmounted, there was still the walled town to take, surrounded by the St. Lawrence, the St. Charles, and these massive bulwarks.
Presently Lancy stepped out into the light, and said, with a hoarse laugh, “Blood of Peter, it was a sight to-day! She has a constant fancy for the English filibuster. ‘Robert! my husband!’ she bleated like a pretty lamb, and Doltaire grinned at her.”
“But Doltaire will have her yet.”
“He has her pinched like a mouse in a weasel’s teeth.”
“My faith, mademoiselle has no sweet road to travel since her mother died,” was the careless reply.
I almost cried out. Here was a blow which staggered me. Her mother dead!
Presently the scoffer continued: “The Duvarneys would remain in the city, and on that very night, as they sit at dinner, a shell disturbs them, a splinter strikes Madame, and two days after she is carried to her grave.”
They linked arms and walked on.
It was a dangerous business I was set on, for I was sure that I would be hung without shrift if captured. As it proved afterwards, I had been proclaimed, and it was enjoined on all Frenchmen and true Catholics to kill me if the chance showed.
Only two things could I depend on: Voban and my disguise, which was very good. From the Terror of France I had got a peasant’s dress, and by rubbing my hands and face with the stain of butternut, cutting again my new-grown beard, and wearing a wig, I was well guarded against discovery.
How to get into the city was the question. By the St. Charles River and the Palace Gate, and by the St. Louis Gate, not far from the citadel, were the only ways, and both were difficult. I had, however, two or three plans, and these I chewed as I went across Maitre Abraham’s fields, and came to the main road from Sillery to the town.
Soon I heard the noise of clattering hoofs, and jointly with this I saw a figure rise up not far ahead of me, as if waiting for the coming horseman. I drew back. The horseman passed me, and, as he came on slowly, I saw the figure spring suddenly from the roadside and make a stroke at the horseman. In a moment they were a rolling mass upon the ground, while the horse trotted down the road a little, and stood still. I never knew the cause of that encounter—robbery, or private hate, or paid assault; but there was scarcely a sound as the two men struggled. Presently, there was groaning, and both lay still. I hurried to them, and found one dead, and the other dying, and dagger wounds in both, for the assault had been at such close quarters that the horseman had had no chance to use a pistol.
My plans were changed on the instant. I drew the military coat, boots, and cap off the horseman, and put them on myself; and thrusting my hand into his waistcoat—for he looked like a courier—I found a packet. This I put into my pocket, and then, making for the horse which stood quiet in the road, I mounted it and rode on towards the town. Striking a light, I found that the packet was addressed to the Governor. A serious thought disturbed me: I could not get into the town through the gates without the countersign. I rode on, anxious and perplexed.
Presently a thought pulled me up. The courier was insensible when I left him, and he was the only one who could help me in this. I greatly reproached myself for leaving him while he was still alive. “Poor devil,” thought I to myself, “there is some one whom his death will hurt. He must not die alone. He was no enemy of mine.” I went back, and, getting from the horse, stooped to him, lifted up his head, and found that he was not dead. I spoke in his ear. He moaned, and his eyes opened.
“What is your name?” said I.
“Jean—Labrouk,” he whispered.
Now I remembered him. He was the soldier whom Gabord had sent as messenger to Voban the night I was first taken to the citadel.
“Shall I carry word for you to any one?” asked I.
There was a slight pause; then he said, “Tell my—Babette—Jacques Dobrotte owes me ten francs—and—a leg—of mutton. Tell—my Babette—to give my coat of beaver fur to Gabord the soldier. Tell”...he sank back, but raised himself, and continued: “Tell my Babette I weep with her.... Ah, mon grand homme de Calvaire—bon soir!” He sank back again, but I roused him with one question more, vital to me. I must have the countersign.
“Labrouk! Labrouk!” said I sharply.
He opened his dull, glazed eyes.
“Qui va la?” said I, and I waited anxiously.
Thought seemed to rally in him, and, staring—alas! how helpless and how sad: that look of a man brought back for an instant from the Shadows!—his lips moved.
“France,” was the whispered reply.
“Advance and give the countersign!” I urged.
“Jesu—” he murmured faintly. I drew from my breast the cross that Mathilde had given me, and pressed it to his lips. He sighed softly, lifted his hand to it, and then fell back, never to speak again.
After covering his face and decently laying the body out, I mounted the horse again. Glancing up, I saw that this bad business had befallen not twenty feet from a high Calvary at the roadside.
I was in a painful quandary. Did Labrouk mean that the countersign was “Jesu,” or was that word the broken prayer of his soul as it hurried forth? So strange a countersign I had never heard, and yet it might be used in this Catholic country. This day might be some great feast of the Church—possibly that of the naming of Christ (which was the case, as I afterwards knew). I rode on, tossed about in my mind. So much hung on this. If I could not give the countersign, I should have to fight my way back again the road I came. But I must try my luck. So I went on, beating up my heart to confidence; and now I came to the St. Louis Gate. A tiny fire was burning near, and two sentinels stepped forward as I rode boldly on the entrance.
“Qui va la?” was the sharp call.
“France,” was my reply, in a voice as like the peasant’s as possible.
“Advance and give the countersign,” came the demand.
Another voice called from the darkness of the wall: “Come and drink, comrade; I’ve a brother with Bougainville.”
“Jesu,” said I to the sentinel, answering his demand for the countersign, and I spurred on my horse idly, though my heart was thumping hard, for there were several sturdy fellows lying beyond the dull handful of fire.
Instantly the sentinel’s hand came to my bridle-rein. “Halt!” roared he.
Surely some good spirit was with me then to prompt me, for, with a careless laugh, as though I had not before finished the countersign, “Christ,” I added—“Jesu Christ!”
With an oath the soldier let go the bridle-rein, the other opened the gates, and I passed through. I heard the first fellow swearing roundly to the others that he would “send yon courier to fires of hell, if he played with him again so.”
The gates closed behind me, and I was in the town which had seen the worst days and best moments of my life. I rode along at a trot, and once again beyond the citadel was summoned by a sentinel. Safely passed on, I came down towards the Chateau St. Louis. I rode boldly up to the great entrance door, and handed the packet to the sentinel.
“From whom?” he asked.
“Look in the corner,” said I. “And what business is’t of yours?”
“There is no word in the corner,” answered he doggedly. “Is’t from Monsieur le General at Cap Rouge?”
“Bah! Did you think it was from an English wolf?” I asked.
His dull face broke a little. “Is Jean Labrouk with Bougainville yet?”
“He’s done with Bougainville; he’s dead,” I answered.
“Dead! dead!” said he, a sort of grin playing on his face.
I made a shot at a venture. “But you’re to pay his wife Babette the ten francs and the leg of mutton in twenty-four hours, or his ghost will follow you. Swallow that, pudding-head! And see you pay it, or every man in our company swears to break a score of shingles on your bare back.”
“I’ll pay, I’ll pay,” he said, and he took to trembling.
“Where shall I find Babette?” asked I. “I come from Isle aux Coudres; I know not this rambling town.”
“A little house hugging the cathedral rear,” he explained. “Babette sweeps out the vestry, and fetches water for the priests.”
“Good,” said I. “Take that to the Governor at once, and send the corporal of the guard to have this horse fed and cared for, and he’s to carry back the Governor’s messenger. I’ve further business for the General in the town. And tell your captain of the guard to send and pick up two dead men in the highway, just against the first Calvary beyond the town.”
He did my bidding, and I dismounted, and was about to get away, when I saw the Chevalier de la Darante and the Intendant appear at the door. They paused upon the steps. The Chevalier was speaking most earnestly:
“To a nunnery—a piteous shame! it should not be, your Excellency.”
“To decline upon Monsieur Doltaire, then?” asked Bigot, with a sneer.
“Your Excellency believes in no woman,” responded the Chevalier stiffly.
“Ah yes, in one!” was the cynical reply.
“Is it possible? And she remains a friend of your Excellency?” came back in irony.
“The very best; she finds me unendurable.”
“Philosophy shirks the solving of that problem, your Excellency,” was the cold reply.
“No, it is easy. The woman to be trusted is she who never trusts.”
“The paragon—or prodigy—who is she?”
“Even Madame Jamond.”
“She danced for you once, your Excellency, they tell me.”
“She was a devil that night; she drove us mad.”
So Doltaire had not given up the secret of that affair! There was silence for a moment, and then the Chevalier said, “Her father will not let her go to a nunnery—no, no. Why should he yield to the Church in this?”
Bigot shrugged a shoulder. “Not even to hide—shame?”
“Liar—ruffian!” said I through my teeth. The Chevalier answered for me:
“I would stake my life on her truth and purity.”
“You forget the mock marriage, dear Chevalier.”
“It was after the manner of his creed and people.”
“It was after a manner we all have used at times.”
“Speak for yourself, your Excellency,” was the austere reply. Nevertheless, I could see that the Chevalier was much troubled.
“She forgot race, religion, people—all, to spend still hours with a foreign spy in prison,” urged Bigot, with damnable point and suggestion.
“Hush, sir!” said the Chevalier. “She is a girl once much beloved and ever admired among us. Let not your rancour against the man be spent upon the maid. Nay, more, why should you hate the man so? It is said, your Excellency, that this Moray did not fire the shot that wounded you, but one who has less reason to love you.”
Bigot smiled wickedly, but said nothing.
The Chevalier laid a hand on Bigot’s arm. “Will you not oppose the Governor and the bishop? Her fate is sad enough.”
“I will not lift a finger. There are weightier matters. Let Doltaire, the idler, the Don Amato, the hunter of that fawn, save her from the holy ambush. Tut, tut, Chevalier. Let her go. Your nephew is to marry her sister; let her be swallowed up—a shame behind the veil, the sweet litany of the cloister.”
The Chevalier’s voice set hard as he said in quick reply, “My family honour, Francois Bigot, needs no screen. And if you doubt that, I will give you argument at your pleasure;” so saying, he turned and went back into the chateau.
Thus the honest Chevalier kept his word, given to me when I released him from serving me on the St. Lawrence.
Bigot came down the steps, smiling detestably, and passed me with no more than a quick look. I made my way cautiously through the streets towards the cathedral, for I owed a duty to the poor soldier who had died in my arms, through whose death I had been able to enter the town.
Disarray and ruin met my sight at every hand. Shot and shell had made wicked havoc. Houses where, as a hostage, I had dined, were battered and broken; public buildings were shapeless masses, and dogs and thieves prowled among the ruins. Drunken soldiers staggered past me; hags begged for sous or bread at corners; and devoted priests and long-robed Recollet monks, cowled and alert, hurried past, silent, and worn with labours, watchings, and prayers. A number of officers in white uniforms rode by, going towards the chateau, and a company of coureurs de bois came up from Mountain Street, singing:
“Giron, giran! le canon grand—Commencez-vous, commencez-vous!”
Here and there were fires lighted in the streets, though it was not cold, and beside them peasants and soldiers drank and quarreled over food—for starvation was abroad in the land.
By one of these fires, in a secluded street—for I had come a roundabout way—were a number of soldiers of Languedoc’s regiment (I knew them by their trick of headgear and their stoutness), and with them reckless girls, who, in their abandonment, seemed to me like those revellers in Herculaneum, who danced their way into the Cimmerian darkness. I had no thought of staying there to moralize upon the theme; but, as I looked, a figure came out of the dusk ahead, and moved swiftly towards me.
It was Mathilde. She seemed bent on some errand, but the revellers at the fire caught her attention, and she suddenly swerved towards them, and came into the dull glow, her great black eyes shining with bewildered brilliancy and vague keenness, her long fingers reaching out with a sort of chafing motion. She did not speak till she was among them. I drew into the shade of a broken wall, and watched. She looked all round the circle, and then, without a word, took an iron crucifix which hung upon her breast, and silently lifted it above their heads for a moment. I myself felt a kind of thrill go through me, for her wild beauty was almost tragical. Her madness was not grotesque, but solemn and dramatic. There was something terribly deliberate in her strangeness; it was full of awe to the beholder, more searching and painfully pitiful than melancholy.
Coarse hands fell away from wanton waists; ribaldry hesitated; hot faces drew apart; and all at once a girl with a crackling laugh threw a tin cup of liquor into the fire. Even as she did it, a wretched dwarf sprang into the circle without a word, and, snatching the cup out of the flames, jumped back again into the darkness, peering into it with a hollow laugh. As he did so a soldier raised a heavy stick to throw at him; but the girl caught him by the arms, and said, with a hoarse pathos, “My God, no, Alphonse! It is my brother!”
Here Mathilde, still holding out the cross, said in a loud whisper, “‘Sh, ‘sh! My children, go not to the palace, for there is Francois Bigot, and he has a devil. But if you have no cottage, I will give you a home. I know the way to it up in the hills. Poor children, see, I will make you happy.”
She took a dozen little wooden crosses from her girdle, and, stepping round the circle, gave each person one. No man refused, save a young militiaman; and when, with a sneering laugh, he threw his into the fire, she stooped over him and said, “Poor boy! poor boy!”
She put her fingers on her lips, and whispered, “Beati immaculati—miserere mei, Deus,” stray phrases gathered from the liturgy, pregnant to her brain, order and truth flashing out of wandering and fantasy. No one of the girls refused, but sat there, some laughing nervously, some silent; for this mad maid had come to be surrounded with a superstitious reverence in the eyes of the common people. It was said she had a home in the hills somewhere, to which she disappeared for days and weeks, and came back hung about the girdle with crosses; and it was also said that her red robe never became frayed, shabby, or disordered.
Suddenly she turned and left them. I let her pass, unchecked, and went on towards the cathedral, humming an old French chanson. I did this because now and then I met soldiers and patrols, and my free and careless manner disarmed notice. Once or twice drunken soldiers stopped me and threw their arms about me, saluting me on the cheeks a la mode, asking themselves to drink with me. Getting free of them, I came on my way, and was glad to reach the cathedral unchallenged. Here and there a broken buttress or a splintered wall told where our guns had played upon it, but inside I could hear an organ playing and a Miserere being chanted. I went round to its rear, and there I saw the little house described by the sentinel at the chateau. Coming to the door, I knocked, and it was opened at once by a warm-faced, woman of thirty or so, who instantly brightened on seeing me. “Ah, you come from Cap Rouge, m’sieu’,” she said, looking at my clothes—her own husband’s, though she knew it not.
“I come from Jean,” said I, and stepped inside.
She shut the door, and then I saw, sitting in a corner, by a lighted table, an old man, bowed and shrunken, white hair and white beard falling all about him, and nothing of his features to be seen save high cheek-bones and two hawklike eyes which peered up at me.
“So, so, from Jean,” he said in a high, piping voice. “Jean’s a pretty boy—ay, ay, Jean’s like his father, but neither with a foot like mine—a foot for the Court, said Frotenac to me—yes, yes, I knew the great Frotenac—”
The wife interrupted his gossip. “What news from Jean?” said she. “He hoped to come one day this week.”
“He says,” responded I gently, “that Jacques Dobrotte owes you ten francs and a leg of mutton, and that you are to give his great beaver coat to Gabord the soldier.”
“Ay, ay, Gabord the soldier, he that the English spy near sent to heaven.” quavered the old man.
The bitter truth was slowly dawning upon the wife. She was repeating my words in a whisper, as if to grasp their full meaning.
“He said also,” I continued, “‘Tell Babette I weep with her.’”
She was very still and dazed; her fingers went to her white lips, and stayed there for a moment. I never saw such a numb misery in any face.
“And last of all, he said, ‘Ah, mon grand homme de Calvaire—bon soir!’”
She turned round, and went and sat down beside the old man, looked into his face for a minute silently, and then said, “Grandfather, Jean is dead; our Jean is dead.”
The old man peered at her for a moment, then broke into a strange laugh, which had in it the reflection of a distant misery, and said, “Our little Jean, our little Jean Labrouk! Ha! ha! There was Villon, Marmon, Gabriel, and Gouloir, and all their sons; and they all said the same at the last, ‘Mon grand homme—de Calvaire—bon soir!’ Then there was little Jean, the pretty little Jean. He could not row a boat, but he could ride a horse, and he had an eye like me. Ha, ha! I have seen them all say good-night. Good-morning, my children, I will say one day, and I will give them all the news, and I will tell them all I have done these hundred years. Ha, ha, ha—”
The wife put her fingers on his lips, and, turning to me, said with a peculiar sorrow, “Will they fetch him to me?”
I assured her that they would.
The old man fixed his eyes on me most strangely, and then, stretching out his finger and leaning forward, he said, with a voice of senile wildness, “Ah, ah, the coat of our little Jean!”
I stood there like any criminal caught in his shameful act. Though I had not forgotten that I wore the dead man’s clothes, I could not think that they would be recognized, for they seemed like others of the French army—white, with violet facings. I can not tell to this day what it was that enabled them to detect the coat; but there I stood condemned before them.
The wife sprang to her feet, came to me with a set face, and stared stonily at the coat for an instant. Then, with a cry of alarm, she made for the door; but I stepped quickly before her, and bade her wait till she heard what I had to say. Like lightning it all went through my brain. I was ruined if she gave an alarm: all Quebec would be at my heels, and my purposes would be defeated. There was but one thing to do—tell her the whole truth, and trust her; for I had at least done fairly by her and by the dead man.
So I told them how Jean Labrouk had met his death; told them who I was, and why I was in Quebec—how Jean died in my arms; and, taking from my breast the cross that Mathilde had given me, I swore by it that every word which I said was true. The wife scarcely stirred while I spoke, but with wide dry eyes and hands clasping and unclasping heard me through. I told her how I might have left Jean to die without a sign or message to them, how I had put the cross to his lips as he went forth, and how by coming here at all I placed my safety in her hands, and now, by telling my story, my life itself.
It was a daring and a difficult task. When I had finished, both sat silent for a moment, and then the old man said, “Ay, ay, Jean’s father and his uncle Marmon were killed a-horseback, and by the knife. Ay, ay, it is our way. Jean was good company—none better, mass over, on a Sunday. Come, we will light candles for Jean, and comb his hair back sweet, and masses shall be said, and—”
Again the woman interrupted, quieting him. Then she turned to me, and I awaited her words with a desperate sort of courage.
“I believe you,” she said. “I remember you now. My sister was the wife of your keeper at the common jail. You shall be safe. Alas! my Jean might have died without a word to me all alone in the night. Merci mille fois, monsieur!” Then she rocked a little to and fro, and the old man looked at her like a curious child. At last, “I must go to him,” she said. “My poor Jean must be brought home.”
I told her I had already left word concerning the body at headquarters. She thanked me again. Overcome as she was, she went and brought me a peasant’s hat and coat. Such trust and kindness touched me. Trembling, she took from me the coat and hat I had worn, and she put her hands before her eyes when she saw a little spot of blood upon the flap of a pocket. The old man reached out his hands, and, taking them, he held them on his knees, whispering to himself.
“You will be safe here,” the wife said to me. “The loft above is small, but it will hide you, if you have no better place.”
I was thankful that I had told her all the truth. I should be snug here, awaiting the affair in the cathedral on the morrow. There was Voban, but I knew not of him, or whether he was open to aid or shelter me. His own safety had been long in peril; he might be dead, for all I knew. I thanked the poor woman warmly, and then asked her if the old man might not betray me to strangers. She bade me leave all that to her—that I should be safe for a while, at least.
Soon afterwards I went abroad, and made my way by a devious route to Voban’s house. As I did so, I could see the lights of our fleet in the Basin, and the camp-fires of our army on the Levis shore, on Isle Orleans, and even at Montmorenci, and the myriad lights in the French encampment at Beauport. How impossible it all looked—to unseat from this high rock the Empire of France! Ay, and how hard it would be to get out of this same city with Alixe!
Voban’s house stood amid a mass of ruins, itself broken a little, but still sound enough to live in. There was no light. I clambered over debris, made my way to his bedroom window, and tapped on the shutter. There was no response. I tried to open it, but it would not stir. So I thrust beneath it, on the chance of his finding it if he opened the casement in the morning, a little piece of paper, with one word upon it—the name of his brother. He knew my handwriting, and he would guess where to-morrow would find me, for I had also hastily drawn upon the paper the entrance of the cathedral.
I went back to the little house by the cathedral, and was admitted by the stricken wife. The old man was abed. I climbed up to the small loft, and lay there wide-awake for hours. At last came the sounds that I had waited for, and presently I knew by the tramp beneath, and by low laments floating up, that a wife was mourning over the dead body of her husband. I lay long and listened to the varying sounds, but at last all became still, and I fell asleep.
I awoke with the dawn, and, dressing, looked out of the window, seeing the brindled light spread over the battered roofs and ruins of the Lower Town. A bell was calling to prayers in the Jesuit College not far away, and bugle-calls told of the stirring garrison. Soldiers and stragglers passed down the street near by, and a few starved peasants crept about the cathedral with downcast eyes, eager for crumbs that a well-fed soldier might cast aside. Yet I knew that in the Intendant’s Palace and among the officers of the army there was abundance, with revelry and dissipation.
Presently I drew to the trap-door of my loft, and, raising it gently, came down the ladder to the little hallway, and softly opened the door of the room where Labrouk’s body lay. Candles were burning at his head and his feet, and two peasants sat dozing in chairs near by. I could see Labrouk’s face plainly in the flickering light: a rough, wholesome face it was, refined by death, yet unshaven and unkempt, too. Here was work for Voban’s shears and razor. Presently there was a footstep behind me, and, turning, I saw in the half-light the widowed wife.
“Madame,” said I in a whisper, “I too weep with you. I pray for as true an end for myself.”
“He was of the true faith, thank the good God,” she said sincerely. She passed into the room, and the two watchers, after taking refreshment, left the house. Suddenly she hastened to the door, called one back, and, pointing to the body, whispered something. The peasant nodded and turned away. She came back into the room, stood looking at the face of the dead man for a moment, and bent over and kissed the crucifix clasped in the cold hands. Then she stepped about the room, moving a chair and sweeping up a speck of dust in a mechanical way. Presently, as if she again remembered me, she asked me to enter the room. Then she bolted the outer door of the house. I stood looking at the body of her husband, and said, “Were it not well to have Voban the barber?”
“I have sent for him and for Gabord,” she replied. “Gabord was Jean’s good friend. He is with General Montcalm. The Governor put him in prison because of the marriage of Mademoiselle Duvarney, but Monsieur Doltaire set him free, and now he serves General Montcalm.
“I have work in the cathedral,” continued the poor woman, “and I shall go to it this morning as I have always gone. There is a little unused closet in a gallery where you may hide, and still see all that happens. It is your last look at the lady, and I will give it to you, as you gave me to know of my Jean.”
“My last look?” I asked eagerly.
“She goes into the nunnery to-morrow, they say,” was the reply. “Her marriage is to be set aside by the bishop to-day—in the cathedral. This is her last night to live as such as I—but no, she will be happier so.”
“Madame,” said I, “I am a heretic, but I listened when your husband said, ‘Mon grand homme de Calvaire, bon soir!’ Was the cross less a cross because a heretic put it to his lips? Is a marriage less a marriage because a heretic is the husband? Madame, you loved your Jean; if he were living now, what would you do to keep him. Think, madame, is not love more than all?”
She turned to the dead body. “Mon petit Jean!” she murmured, but made no reply to me, and for many minutes the room was silent. At last she turned, and said, “You must come at once, for soon the priests will be at the church. A little later I will bring you some breakfast, and you must not stir from there till I come to fetch you—no.”
“I wish to see Voban,” said I.
She thought a moment. “I will try to fetch him to you by-and-bye,” she said. She did not speak further, but finished the sentence by pointing to the body.
Presently, hearing footsteps, she drew me into another little room. “It is the grandfather,” she said. “He has forgotten you already, and he must not see you again.”
We saw the old man hobble into the room we had left, carrying in one arm Jean’s coat and hat. He stood still, and nodded at the body and mumbled to himself; then he went over and touched the hands and forehead, nodding wisely; after which he came to his armchair, and, sitting down, spread the coat over his knees, put the cap on it, and gossiped with himself:
“In eild our idle fancies all return,The mind’s eye cradled by the open grave.”
A moment later, the woman passed from the rear of the house to the vestry door of the cathedral. After a minute, seeing no one near, I followed, came to the front door, entered, and passed up a side aisle towards the choir. There was no one to be seen, but soon the woman came out of the vestry and beckoned to me nervously. I followed her quick movements, and was soon in a narrow stairway, coming, after fifty steps or so, to a sort of cloister, from which we went into a little cubiculum, or cell, with a wooden lattice door which opened on a small gallery. Through the lattices the nave amid choir could be viewed distinctly.
Without a word the woman turned and left me, and I sat down on a little stone bench and waited. I saw the acolytes come and go, and priests move back and forth before the altar; I smelt the grateful incense as it rose when mass was said; I watched the people gather in little clusters at the different shrines, or seek the confessional, or kneel to receive the blessed sacrament. Many who came were familiar—among them Mademoiselle Lucie Lotbiniere. Lucie prayed long before a shrine of the Virgin, and when she rose at last her face bore signs of weeping. Also I noticed her suddenly start as she moved down the aisle, for a figure came forward from seclusion and touched her arm. As he half turned I saw that it was Juste Duvarney. The girl drew back from him, raising her hand as if in protest, and it struck me that her grief and her repulse of him had to do with putting Alixe away into a nunnery.
I sat hungry and thirsty for quite three hours, and then the church became empty, and only an old verger kept a seat by the door, half asleep, though the artillery of both armies was at work, and the air was laden with the smell of powder. (Until this time our batteries had avoided firing on the churches.) At last I heard footsteps near me in the dark stairway, and I felt for my pistols, for the feet were not those of Labrouk’s wife. I waited anxiously, and was overjoyed to see Voban enter my hiding-place, bearing some food. I greeted him warmly, but he made little demonstration. He was like one who, occupied with some great matter, passed through the usual affairs of life with a distant eye. Immediately he handed me a letter, saying:
“M’sieu’, I give my word to hand you this—in a day or a year, as I am able. I get your message to me this morning, and then I come to care for Jean Labrouk, and so I find you here, and I give the letter. It come to me last night.”
The letter was from Alixe. I opened it with haste, and, in the dim light, read:
MY BELOVED HUSBAND: Oh, was there no power in earth or heaven to bring me to your arms to-day?
To-morow they come to see my marriage annulled by the Church. And every one will say it is annulled—every one but me. I, in God’s name, will say no, though it break my heart to oppose myself to them all.
Why did my brother come back? He has been hard—O, Robert, he has been hard upon me, and yet I was ever kind to him! My father, too, he listens to the Church, and, though he likes not Monsieur Doltaire, he works for him in a hundred ways without seeing it. I, alas! see it too well, and my brother is as wax in monsieur’s hands. Juste loves Lucie Lotbiniere—that should make him kind. She, sweet friend, does not desert me, but is kept from me. She says she will not yield to Juste’s suit until he yields to me. If—oh, if Madame Jamond had not gone to Montreal!
... As I was writing the foregoing sentence, my father asked to see me, and we have had a talk—ah, a most bitter talk!
“Alixe,” said he, “this is our last evening together, and I would have it peaceful.”
“My father,” said I, “it is not my will that this evening be our last; and for peace, I long for it with all my heart.”
He frowned, and answered, “You have brought me trouble and sorrow. Mother of God! was it not possible for you to be as your sister Georgette? I gave her less love, yet she honours me more.”
“She honours you, my father, by a sweet, good life, and by marriage into an honourable family, and at your word she gives her hand to Monsieur Auguste de la Darante. She marries to your pleasure, therefore she has peace and your love. I marry a man of my own choosing, a bitterly wronged gentleman, and you treat me as some wicked thing. Is that like a father who loves his child?”
“The wronged gentleman, as you call him, invaded that which is the pride of every honest gentleman,” he said.
“And what is that?” asked I quietly, though I felt the blood beating at my temples.
“My family honour, the good name and virtue of my daughter.”
I got to my feet, and looked my father in the eyes with an anger and a coldness that hurts me now when I think of it, and I said, “I will not let you speak so to me. Friendless though I be, you shall not. You have the power to oppress me, but you shall not slander me to my face. Can not you leave insults to my enemies?”
“I will never leave you to the insults of this mock marriage,” answered he, angrily also. “Two days hence I take command of five thousand burghers, and your brother Juste serves with General Montcalm. There is to be last fighting soon between us and the English. I do not doubt of the result, but I may fall, and your brother also, and, should the English win, I will not leave you to him you call your husband. Therefore you shall be kept safe where no alien hands may reach you. The Church will hold you close.”
I calmed myself again while listening to him, and I asked, “Is there no other way?”
He shook his head.
“Is there no Monsieur Doltaire?” said I. “He has a king’s blood in his veins!”
He looked sharply at me. “You are mocking,” he replied. “No, no, that is no way, either. Monsieur Doltaire must never mate with daughter of mine. I will take care of that; the Church is a perfect if gentle jailer.”
I could bear it no longer. I knelt to him. I begged him to have pity on me. I pleaded with him; I recalled the days when, as a child, I sat upon his knee and listened to the wonderful tales he told; I begged him, by the memory of all the years when he and I were such true friends to be kind to me now, to be merciful—even though he thought I had done wrong—to be merciful. I asked him to remember that I was a motherless girl, and that if I had missed the way to happiness he ought not to make my path bitter to the end. I begged him to give me back his love and confidence, and, if I must for evermore be parted from you, to let me be with him, not to put me away into a convent.
Oh, how my heart leaped when I saw his face soften! “Well, well,” he said, “if I live, you shall be taken from the convent; but for the present, till this fighting is over, it is the only safe place. There, too, you shall be safe from Monsieur Doltaire.”
It was poor comfort. “But should you be killed, and the English take Quebec?” said I.
“When I am dead,” he answered, “when I am dead, then there is your brother.”
“And if he speaks for Monsieur Doltaire?” asked I.
“There is the Church and God always,” he answered.
“And my own husband, the man who saved your life, my father,” I urged gently; and when he would have spoken I threw myself into his arms—the first time in such long, long weeks!—and, stopping his lips with my fingers, burst into tears on his breast. I think much of his anger against me passed, yet before he left he said he could not now prevent the annulment of the marriage, even if he would, for other powers were at work; which powers I supposed to be the Governor, for certain reasons of enmity to my father and me—alas! how changed is he, the vain old man!—and Monsieur Doltaire, whose ends I knew so well. So they will unwed us to-morrow, Robert; but be sure that I shall never be unwed in my own eyes, and that I will wait till I die, hoping you will come and take me—oh, Robert, my husband—take me home.
If I had one hundred men, I would fight my way out of this city, and to you; but, dear, I have none, not even Gabord, who is not let come near me. There is but Voban. Yet he will bear you this, if it be possible, for he comes to-night to adorn my fashionable brother. The poor Mathilde I have not seen of late. She has vanished. When they began to keep me close, and carried me off at last into the country, where we were captured by the English, I could not see her, and my heart aches for her.
God bless you, Robert, and farewell. How we shall smile, when all this misery is done! Oh, say we shall, say we shall smile, and all this misery cease. Will you not take me home? Do you still love thy wife, thy
ALIXE?
I bade Voban come to me at the little house behind the church that night at ten o’clock, and by then I should have arranged some plan of action. I knew not whether to trust Gabord or no. I was sorry now that I had not tried to bring Clark with me. He was fearless, and he knew the town well; but he lacked discretion, and that was vital.
Two hours of waiting, then came a scene which is burned into my brain. I looked down upon a mass of people, soldiers, couriers of the woods, beggars, priests, camp followers, and anxious gentlefolk, come from seclusion, or hiding, or vigils of war, to see a host of powers torture a young girl who by suffering had been made a woman long before her time. Out in the streets was the tramping of armed men, together with the call of bugles and the sharp rattle of drums. Presently I heard the hoofs of many horses, and soon afterwards there entered the door, and way was made for him up the nave, the Marquis de Vaudreuil and his suite, with the Chevalier de la Darante, the Intendant, and—to my indignation—Juste Duvarney.
They had no sooner taken their places than, from a little side door near the vestry, there entered the Seigneur Duvarney and Alixe, who, coming down slowly, took places very near the chancel steps. The Seigneur was pale and stern, and carried himself with great dignity. His glance never shifted from the choir, where the priests slowly entered and took their places, the aged and feeble bishop going falteringly to his throne. Alixe’s face was pale and sorrowful, and yet it had a dignity and self-reliance that gave it a kind of grandeur. A buzz passed through the building, yet I noted, too, with gladness that there were tears on many faces.
A figure stole in beside Alixe. It was Mademoiselle Lotbiniere, who immediately was followed by her mother. I leaned forward, perfectly hidden, and listened to the singsong voices of the priests, the musical note of the responses, heard the Kyrie Eleison, the clanging of the belfry bell as the host was raised by the trembling bishop. The silence which followed the mournful voluntary played by the organ was most painful to me.
At that moment a figure stepped from behind a pillar, and gave Alixe a deep, scrutinizing look. It was Doltaire. He was graver than I had ever seen him, and was dressed scrupulously in black, with a little white lace showing at the wrists and neck. A handsomer figure it would be hard to see; and I hated him for it, and wondered what new devilry was in his mind. He seemed to sweep the church with a glance. Nothing could have escaped that swift, searching look. His eyes were even raised to where I was, so that I involuntarily drew back, though I knew he could not see me.
I was arrested suddenly by a curious disdainful, even sneering smile which played upon his face as he looked at Vaudreuil and Bigot. There was in it more scorn than malice, more triumph than active hatred. All at once I remembered what he had said to me the day before: that he had commission from the King through La Pompadour to take over the reins of government from the two confederates, and send them to France to answer the charges made against them.
At last the bishop came forward, and read from a paper as follows:
“Forasmuch as a well-beloved child of our Holy Church, Mademoiselle Alixe Duvarney, of the parish of Beauport and of this cathedral parish, in this province of New France, forgetting her manifest duty and our sacred teaching, did illegally and in sinful error make feigned contract of marriage with one Robert Moray, captain in a Virginian regiment, a heretic, a spy, and an enemy to our country; and forasmuch as this was done in violence of all nice habit and commendable obedience to Mother Church and our national uses, we do hereby declare and make void this alliance until such time as the Holy Father at Rome shall finally approve our action and proclaiming. And it is enjoined upon Mademoiselle Alixe Duvarney, on peril of her soul’s salvation, to obey us in this matter, and neither by word or deed or thought have commerce more with this notorious and evil heretic and foe of our Church and of our country. It is also the plain duty of the faithful children of our Holy Church to regard this Captain Moray with a pious hatred, and to destroy him without pity; and any good cunning or enticement which should lure him to the punishment he so much deserves shall be approved. Furthermore, Mademoiselle Alixe Duvarney shall, until such times as there shall be peace in this land, and the molesting English are driven back with slaughter—and for all time, if the heart of our sister incline to penitence and love of Christ—be confined within the Convent of the Ursulines, and cared for with great tenderness.”
He left off reading, and began to address himself to Alixe directly; but she rose in her place, and while surprise and awe seized the congregation, she said:
“Monseigneur, I must needs, at my father’s bidding, hear the annulment of my marriage, but I will not hear this public exhortation. I am but a poor girl, unlearned in the law, and I must needs submit to your power, for I have no one here to speak for me. But my soul and my conscience I carry to my Saviour, and I have no fear to answer Him. I am sorry that I have offended against my people and my country and Holy Church, but I repent not that I love and hold to my husband. You must do with me as you will, but in this I shall never willingly yield.”
She turned to her father, and all the people breathed hard; for it passed their understanding, and seemed most scandalous that a girl could thus defy the Church, and answer the bishop in his own cathedral. Her father rose, and then I saw her sway with faintness. I know not what might have occurred, for the bishop stood with hand upraised and a great indignation in his face, about to speak, when out of the desultory firing from our batteries there came a shell, which burst even at the cathedral entrance, tore away a portion of the wall, and killed and wounded a number of people.
Then followed a panic which the priests in vain tried to quell. The people swarmed into the choir and through the vestry. I saw Doltaire with Juste Duvarney spring swiftly to the side of Alixe, and, with her father, put her and Mademoiselle Lotbiniere into the pulpit, forming a ring round it, and preventing the crowd from trampling on them, as, suddenly gone mad, they swarmed past. The Governor, the Intendant, and the Chevalier de la Darante did as much also for Madame Lotbiniere; and as soon as the crush had in a little subsided, a number of soldiers cleared the way, and I saw my wife led from the church. I longed to leap down there among them and claim her, but that thought was madness, for I should have been food for worms in a trice, so I kept my place.