"Mam"selle!" Margot seemed but half convinced. Then she glanced about the room. "M. Garis was in such haste for his boy"s clothes that I have done nothing but sew and sew. Marie has gone out to service and there are only the little ones. My own house has been neglected."
"Yes. Heaven will reward you for your goodness to her all this dreadful time, when you have had to work hard for your own."
Margot began to pick up articles and straighten the room, to gather the few unwashed dishes.
"Oh, Mam"selle, it made a great stir. The neighbors and the guards went out and searched. Some wild beast might have devoured you, but they found no trace. And they thought of Indians. Poor Pani! But all will be well now. Nay, Mam"selle," as Jeanne would have stopped her, "there will be people in, for strange news travels fast."
That was very likely. In a brief while they had the room tidy. Then Jeanne fixed a seat at the other side of the fireplace, spread the fur rug over it, and led the unresisting Pani thither, wrapped her in a fresh blanket, and took off the cap, smoothing out the neglected hair that seemed strangely white about the pale, brown face. The high cheek bones left great hollows underneath, but in spite of the furrows of age the skin was soft.
The woman gave a low, pleased laugh, and nodded.
"Father Rameau will come," she said.
"Father Rameau! Has he returned?" inquired the girl.
"Oh, yes, Mam"selle, and so glad to get back to Detroit. I cannot tell you all his delight. And then his sorrow for you. For we were afraid you were no longer living. What a strange story!"
"It has happened before, being carried away by Indians. Some time you shall hear all, Margot."
The woman nodded. "And if you do not want me, Mam"selle--" for there was much to do at home.
"I do not need you so much just now, but come in again presently. Oh, I can never repay you!"
"Wenonah has done more than I."
In the warmth of the fire and the comfortable atmosphere about her, Pani had fallen asleep. Jeanne glanced into the chamber. The beds were spread up, and, except dust, things were not bad, but she put them in the olden order. Then she bathed her face and combed the tangles out of her hair.
Here was her blue woolen gown, with the curious embroidery of beads and bright thread, that Wenonah had made for her last winter, and she slipped into it. Now she felt like herself. She would cook a little dinner for herself and Pani. And, as she was kneeling on the wide hearthstone stirring some broth, the woman opened her eyes.
"Jeanne," she said, and there was less wandering in her voice, "Jeanne, it was a dream. I have been asleep many moons, I think. The great evil spirits have had me, dragged me down into their dens, and I could not see you. Pani"s heart has been sore distressed. It was all a dream, little one."
"Yes, a dream!" Jeanne"s arms were about her neck.
"And you will never go away, not even if M. Bellestre sends for you!"
she entreated.
"I shall never go away from La Belle Detroit. Oh, Pani, there may be beautiful places in the world," and she thought of the island and Miladi, "but none so dear. No, we shall stay here always."
But the news had traveled, and suddenly there was an influx; M. De Ber going home to his midday meal could not believe until he had seen Jeanne with his own eyes. And the narrow street was filled as with a procession.
Jeanne kept to the simple story and let her listeners guess at motives or mysterious purposes. They had not harmed her. And a beautiful Indian maiden with much power over her red brethren had gained her freedom and sent her to a place of safety. Captain Mallard and the "Return" had brought her to the town, and that was all.
It was almost night when Father Rameau came. He had grown strangely old, it seemed to her, and the peaceful lines of his face were disturbed. He had come back to the home of years to find himself curiously supplanted and new methods in use that savored less of love and more of strict rule. He had known so much of the hardness of the pioneer lives, of the enjoyment and courage the rare seasons of pleasure gave them, of the ignorance that could understand little of the higher life, of the strong prejudices and superst.i.tions that had to be uprooted gently and perhaps wait for the next generation. Truth, honesty, and temperance were rare virtues and of slow growth. The new license brought in by the English was hard to combat, but he had worked in love and patience, and now he found his methods condemned and new ones inst.i.tuted. His heart ached.
But he was glad enough to clasp Jeanne to his heart and to hear her simple faith in the miracle that had been wrought. How great it was, and what her danger had been, he was never to know. For Owaissa"s sake and her debt to her she kept silence as to that part.
Certainly Jeanne had an ovation. When she went into the street there were smiles and bows. Some of the ladies came to speak to her, and invited her to their houses, and found her extremely interesting.
Madame De Ber was very gracious, and both Rose and Marie were friendly enough. But Madame flung out one little arrow that missed its mark.
"Your old lover soon consoled himself it seems. It is said he married a handsome Indian girl up at the Strait. I dare say he was pledged to her."
"Yes. It was Owaissa who freed me from captivity. She came down to Bois Blanc and heard the story and sent me away in her own canoe with her favorite servant. Louis Marsac was up at St. Ignace getting a priest while she waited. I cannot think he was at all honest in proposing marriage to me when another had the right. But there was a grand time it was said, and they were very happy."
Madame stared. "It was a good thing for you that you did not care for him. I had a distrust for him. He was too handsome. And then he believed nothing and laughed at religion. But the Marsacs are going to be very rich it is said. You did not see them married?"
"Oh, no." Jeanne laughed with a bitterness she had not meant to put into her voice. "He was away when Owaissa came to me and heard my plight. And then there was need of haste. I had to go at once, and it would not have been pleasant even if I could have waited."
"No, no. Men are much given to make love to young girls who have no one to look after them. They think nothing of it."
"So it was fortunate that it was distasteful to me."
Jeanne had a girl"s pride in wanting this woman to understand that she was in no wise hurt by Marsac"s recreancy. Then she added, "The girl was beautiful as Indian girls go, and it seems a most excellent marriage.
She will be fond of that wild northern country. I could not be content in it."
Jeanne felt that she was curiously changed, though sometimes she longed pa.s.sionately for the wild little girl who had been ready for every kind of sport and pleasure. But the children with whom she had played were grown now, boys great strapping fellows with manners both coa.r.s.e and shy, going to work at various businesses, and the girls had lovers or husbands,--they married early then. So she seemed left alone. She did not care for their chatter nor their babies of which they seemed so proud.
So she kept her house and nursed Pani back to some semblance of her former self. But often it was a touch of the childhood of old age, and she rambled about those she had known, the De Longueils and Bellestres, and the night Jeanne had been left in her arms.
Jeanne liked the chapel minister and his wife very much. The lady had so many subjects to converse about that never led to curious questions. The minister lent her books and they talked them over afterward. This was the world she liked.
But she had not lost her love for that other world of freedom and exhilaration. After a brief Indian summer with days of such splendor that it seemed as if the great Artist was using his most magnificent colors, winter set in sharp and with a snap that startled every one.
Snow blocked the roads and the sparkling expanse of crust on the top was the delight of the children, who walked and slid and pulled each other in long loads like a chain of dogs. And some of the lighter weight young people skated over it like flying birds. In the early evening all was gayety. Jeanne was not lacking in admirers. Young Loisel often called for her, and Martin Lavosse would easily have verged on the sentimental if Jeanne had not been so gay and unconscious. He was quite sore over the defection of Rose De Ber, who up in one of the new streets was hobn.o.bbing with the gentry and quite looking down on the Beesons.
Then the minister and his wife often joined these outdoor parties. Since he neither played cards, danced, nor drank in after-dinner symposiums, this spirited amus.e.m.e.nt stirred his blood. Pani went to bed early, and Margot would bring in her sewing and see that nothing untoward happened.
Few of the stores were open in the evenings. Short as the day was, all the business could be done in it. Now and then one saw a feeble light in a window where a man stayed to figure on some loss or gain.
Fleets were laid up or ventured only on short journeys. From the northern country came stories of ice and snow that chilled one"s marrow.
Yet the great fires, the fur rugs and curtains and soft blankets kept one comfortable within.
There were some puzzling questions for Jeanne. She liked the freedom of conscience at the chapel, and then gentle Father Rameau drew her to the church.
"If I had two souls," she said one day to the minister, "I should be quite satisfied. And it seems to me sometimes as if I were two different people," looking up with a bright half smile. "In childhood I used to lay some of my wildnesses on to the Indian side. I had a curious fancy for a strain of Indian blood."
"But you have no Indian ancestry?"
"I think not. I am not so anxious for it now," laughing gayly. "But that side of me protests against the servitude Father Gilbert so insists upon. And I hate confession. To turn one"s self inside out, to give away the sacred trusts of others--"
"No, that is not necessary," he declared hastily.
"But when the other lives are tangled up with yours, when you can only tell half truths--"
He smiled then. "Mademoiselle Jeanne, your short life has not had time to get much entangled with other lives, or with secrets you are aware of."
"I think it has been curiously entangled," she replied. "M"sieu Bellestre, whom I have almost forgotten, M. Loisel--and the old schoolmaster I told you of, who I fancy now was a sad heretic--"
She paused and flushed, while her eyes were slowly downcast. There was Monsieur St. Armand. How could she explain this to a priest? And was not Monsieur a heretic, too? That was her own precious, delightful secret, and she would give it into no one"s keeping.