"You might, but I do not think you will. Our Church can be loving and restful and harmonious and beautiful (thus the jargon of the heretic) but it can also be masterful and tyrannical and terrible, even cruel, so they say, although I do not go that far myself. And the call of it, the memory of it, the significance of it, the power and majesty and awfulness of it will draw you back. Oh! Have no fear, monsieur! If I may charge myself with your conversion I will stake a great deal, a very great deal indeed, on the chances of your absolute and final surrender, with even temporary reversion an impossibility. You will decide quickly then, monsieur, although we do not ask for haste. We can wait."
And with emphasis in his thrilling voice the priest murmured again: "The Church of Rome can always wait."
This statement and the other predictions concerning Ringfield were verified in course of time, for without seeing Pauline again he made instant preparation for the solemn and extraordinary step which closed his career in the world as we know it. Poor Pauline! The promise given to Henry Clairville on his death-bed was kept, it is needless to say, but only half kept, as she did not admit the child to her confidence, nor show it affection, and only kept at all because she could not help herself. Very gradually her strength returned after nearly two years of invalidism, and then the streaks of grey in her hair, her altered figure and expression, told part of her story to those who thought they knew all. Who at St. Ignace could enter into her feelings or offer her consolation?
"No one could be sorrier than I am for doing the young lady an injustice," was the loudly expressed opinion of Enderby. "Not but what there was grounds. There is, they tell me, often a more striking likeness between cousins, aunts, and such, than between mother and daughter and father and son. What I done any one might have done, and what I said I"ve long ago took back."
These remarks were made with characteristic magnanimity at the annual Hawthorne festival, a couple of years after the picnic tea at which Ringfield had a.s.sisted; held this year on 20th October, a warm sun flooded the valley, the women wore their lightest dresses, and Mrs.
Abercorn was particularly gay in a flowered muslin, dating from the time of William the Fourth, with _honi soit qui mal y pense_ on a blue ribbon worked into the design of the material; a garden hat was tied under her chin and a fur cape lay over her shoulders. No one was present from St. Ignace, but a good deal of talk might have been heard which signified that Miss Clairville was still the interesting central figure of the neighbourhood.
"She spends very little time, they tell me, with the child yonder, although it is her brother"s own. The child sits in one room and her aunt in another; one draws pictures of every mortal thing, and some things not mortal, and the other looks out of window and rarely speaks.
"Tis a sad sight, they say, that members of one family are thus as far removed in feeling and ways of talking as--as----" the speaker paused in perplexity, vainly searching for a suitable and sufficiently strong simile.
"What can ye expect, ma"am?" said Enderby loftily, with his habitual consideration for the aristocracy. "Miss Clairville has been cruelly treated. Her brother to marry, to marry, look you, ma"am, with one of a menial family--"twas hard on one by nature so genteel, and the manner of her long sickness was not to be wondered at; had she only gone through the form of marriage with the one her heart was interested in and then lost him the next moment; I think I may say, without fear of exaggeration, she would then have had something to live for; she could have claimed his money. But no marriage, no man, no money--and in place of it all, sickness and poverty and the care of the unwelcome child--why, I"ve never known a harder thing!"
Crabbe"s expectations had often been referred to among the villagers and had grown to astonishing dimensions in the minds of the simple, but the idea of Miss Clairville"s share in them was new and afforded plenty of material for conjecture.
"Though what a lone thing like her would have done with all that money, I cannot think!" said Mrs. Enderby, who in company with Mrs. Abercorn had always harboured a suspicious and jealous dislike of the handsome and dashing Pauline.
"Cannot think!" echoed her husband. "Why, them"s the ones to know what to do with any power of money coming to them. I"ll warrant she has had plans enough, to keep the old place up, maybe, to dress herself and travel to foreign lands and never act no more. That would all take money, bless ye! Before I settled here, as some of ye know, I kept butcher shop in Blandville, a bigger place far, than this, all English and all so pleasant too, so--so equalizing like, that when parties did run into debt (and some were pretty deep in my books) you could almost forgive it to them, they were so plausible and polite about it. Eighty dollars a month was what one family took out in the best meats procurable and "ow could you refuse it, knowing they were not going to run away owing it! "Some day, Mr. Enderby," they would say, "you shall have it. You shall "ave it, sir, some day.""
"And did you ever get it?" said a thin woman, the Hawthorne milliner, edging to the front of the group in some anxiety. "Did you?"
"I did, ma"am. They owned considerable property round about there, and when they wanted anything they would sell off a little, piece by piece.
Just as they needed things they sold it, and by and by they came to me and my little account was paid off--honourable."
"All at once?" said the anxious woman, and Enderby nodded.
"What a state of things though!" remarked his wife. "I remember it quite distinctly. When they wanted to give a party they would sell off a piece of land, or when they needed a new carpet. "Twould make me so nervous like."
"So it would me," said the milliner, "so it would me."
"Because you were not born to it. It"s what you must expect from the gentry."
"Gentry? There"s not many around here, but I recognize them when I meet them and the lady at the Manor House is one of them and I"m sorry for her, ma"am, in her disappointment and sickness."
"Who is that you are sorry for, Enderby?" said Mrs. Abercorn shrilly, having caught some of his remarks. "And how do you come to be talking about gentry of all things! My good man, if you are alluding to Miss Clairville, let me tell you she got just what she deserved."
And directly a chorus arose, chiefly from the feminine voices present: "Just what she deserved. She got just what she deserved."
The state of affairs at Clairville was much as described; Pauline, during her long, dreary convalescence, gave no sign of temper or of suffering, but had apparently changed to a listless, weak, silent creature, occupied almost altogether with her own thoughts, by turns ignoring and pa.s.sively tolerating her sister-in-law and the child. The latter grew brighter and stronger every day, and Dr. Renaud was of the opinion that she would live to womanhood and become physically fit in many ways, although retaining her deformity, and even achieve some professional success, as her talent for the pencil was of unusual order. Sadie Cordova and her children were firmly established at Poussette"s, and this chronicle would be incomplete without a glance at the future of the good-hearted couple. Poussette, who had never meant any harm either in the case of Miss Clairville or Miss Cordova, appeared to be considerably impressed by the events of a certain winter, and after the arrival of Maisie and Jack treated them as his own and gave up the idea of a divorce. The pranks and escapades of two irresponsible, spoilt and active children kept him on the look-out a good deal of his time, and before very long he had decided that children after all were occasionally in the way, and like other good things on this earth, best had in moderation. Still, he never failed to treat them with all kindness, and towards their mother he remained to the last, upon hearing her story of two cruel husbands, one of whom might claim her any day, the very pattern of chivalrous honour. Who shall p.r.o.nounce the final word as to happiness--the quest of it, the failure to find it, the rapture with which it sometimes announces itself attained! This is no morbid tale, after all, although we may have lingered at times over scenes neither pleasant nor cheerful, for behold!--Mme. Poussette is happy, in her hospital: Dr. Renaud is happy among his patients; Angeel is deliriously happy, with her crayons and paper; all the Archambaults are happy; Maisie and Jack, Poussette and Miss Cordova are all happy, happy in their rude health, with plenty of good food, fun and excitement; even Father Rielle is happy, in his work, having conquered his pa.s.sion for Miss Clairville, and perhaps when a few years have flown and her health is restored the dweller against her will in the gloomy house of her fathers will emerge from her torpor and engage in some active work that will afford her restless spirit a measure of happiness. Often she cries in the dead of night:--
"Have I deserved this? Have I done wrong that I am punished like this?" and she answers herself, saying: "Yes, I did wrong, although not so wrong as others, and therefore am I punished." No other answer ever occurs to her, and all she knows is that she must work out her fate as best she can and try and be kinder to the child.
And Ringfield--is he happy, behind his high wall, listening for the solemn bell, kneeling on the cold floor, sleeping on the hard bed, working in the quiet garden? No one knows, for where he entered we do not enter, and if we did we should not be able to distinguish him from his brother monks, all clad alike, all silent, all concentrated on the duty of the moment.
The Church of Rome has him and she will keep him--we may be sure of that. _Ainsi soit-il_.