The Englishman rallied, pa.s.sed a hand across his brow, then rose unsteadily to his feet, looking around the cabin. Habit called for a drink at this juncture and he saw nothing to drink. Anger awoke in him; he grew maniacal, dangerous, and the late September shadows filled the room.
"What woman do you mean?" he cried. "_In vino veritas_! You thought I was sober. So I was. Sober enough before you, the preacher, to know that I"m getting drunk rapidly, beastly drunk too, and being so, and the gentleman I am, or meant to be, I don"t thank you for interference in my affairs. What woman are you thinking of? What woman pa.s.sed my window?"
"Mme. Poussette."
The guide"s face stared, then broke into unmistakable and contemptuous laughter.
"Didn"t I tell you I was a gentleman? You"ve made a big mistake, Ringfield. Even in my deterioration" (he had difficulty with this word) "I remember who I am, and I don"t go after married women.
Matrimony"s one of the Church"s sacraments, Ringfield, isn"t it?
Perhaps not; I have forgotten. Anyway, Mme. Poussette is the wife of my best friend, my best friend I tell you, and whoever cares for her faded hair and finicking ways it isn"t I. Sweeter pastures once were mine. Have I named the lady of my choice or have I not? The gay Pauline, the witty Pauline, the handsome Pauline! Ah! You admire her yourself. You wrote her a letter. I gave it to her and we read it together and laughed at it. "Yours in Christ." Ha-ha! We laughed at it, Ringfield."
Even in his foolish insults he paused, for an awful expression appeared for a moment on the other"s face. In that moment Ringfield realized what Miss Clairville had become to him. No one can bear to hear his love traduced, and he believed that in his cups this villain, Crabbe, was lying. They faced each other and Ringfield was not the cooler nor the saner of the two.
"Pauline! Miss Clairville! What can she be to you? Hanger on of womanly footsteps," burst from him, scarcely knowing what words formed in his brain and emptied themselves upon the darkening air of the cabin. "Stealthy and gloating admirer of her beauty, even the despised companion and disloyal friend of her brother--all these you may be, but surely nothing more to her."
"What I am to her I know well enough and can tell you easily enough.
She"s done with me, hates and fears me, won"t have anything to do with me, and yet she belongs to me and I"m not likely to forget it. And I belong to her. That"s another reason why I wouldn"t go after Mme.
Poussette."
"You mean--that she is, that you are--oh! impossible! You mean--what do you mean? Not that you are married to her?"
Extreme agony and repulsion gave shrillness to Ringfield"s voice. To have met and loved, to have coveted and dreamed of that warm, imperious yet womanly presence, and to hear this dreadful truth concerning her--if it were the truth.
"Well, you"ve guessed it. Yes, married to her, by heaven!" said Crabbe, and he lurched forward and fell.
Ringfield saw and heard him fall, but he was already out of the shack and speeding through the forest paths; dim arcades of larch and pine met over his head while upon the river and the great Fall were stealing long bars of bright silvery light from the level sun. Soon the silver would mellow to gold as the daily marvel of the sunset was accomplished, but Ringfield was beyond such matters now. Nature could do no more for him in this crisis than it had done for Edmund Crabbe, and the virginity, the silence and fragrance of the n.o.ble wood, brought him no solace. Yet as he sped he could not choose but breathe and the air filled his breast and then fed his mind so that presently coming upon a glade or opening in which was a large slab of grey lichened rock he lay down at length to think. And that Nature which could do nothing for him spiritually in this hour of trial conspired to comfort and restore him physically. He could not pray. His accustomed resources had failed him; instead, as it grew quite dark around, he fell asleep.
CHAPTER VIII
THE "PIC"
"How dreadful the dominion of the impure!"
The September days gave place to October ones and still Miss Clairville remained away. The tourists had departed and Ringfield could judge more accurately of the mental and moral status of the countryside. The congregation of Sunday scarcely numbered two score, but Amable Poussette and wife were always present and the rule seemed to be that any who had tired of Father Rielle came to Ringfield whether they understood him or not; poor Catholics were thus in danger of becoming even worse Methodists, and he exerted all his faculties and talents in general directions concerning conduct and character. The beautiful skies and water, the rocks and great Fall, were as impressive as before, but they no longer filled so much s.p.a.ce in the mind of the young preacher, who now saw all things in the visible universe from the standpoint and through the jaundiced eye of the disappointed and unhappy lover. All Nature mocked him and it would go hard indeed with him should religion, too, fail him in such a juncture, but the spirit of work and priestly endeavour kept him as yet from sheer wretchedness; he prayed daily to think less of the world and more of his calling and it seemed as if the fate which brought him back to St. Ignace to love and suffer in loving would spare him further, since there was no sign of Miss Clairville"s return. His preaching could not fail, because he brought to it a fine original gift and an automatic precision and certainty resulting from the excellent training of his Church, but between Sundays the time dragged. His labours among the few scattered and uneducated families of conflicting race and origin seemed unconvincing and empty, and a new shyness possessed him; he disliked hearing any mention of the Clairvilles, for Crabbe"s story he had come to accept as true without a word of questioning; indeed, Miss Clairville"s own words came back to him as a proof.
"Another patient of the soul," she had said. Also, she had referred to something dark and of sinister import, fatal yet compelling, which always drew her back from livelier and more congenial places, and, as he judged, from a sphere of work which paid, to the house at Lac Calvaire. That the society of her brother was the attraction, Ringfield could not admit, and what other ties or friends had she? So far as he could learn--none, and thus he read her story; growing up unprotected and motherless, without any standard to judge by, she must have accepted the attentions and fallen under the spell of a man who probably appealed to her pity and also to her intellect. Crabbe had been the only man in the neighbourhood capable of understanding her cultivated allusions; the remnants of the mixed education she had drawn from the school at Sorel and the pedantic dreary a.s.sociations of the manor house. But in the contemplation of such a thing as her marriage to such a man Ringfield"s fancy failed. The whole plan of creation was altered and blackened. He did not wish to know on what terms Pauline and this man now met. He tried to shut out all the images such a story conveyed, and thus he asked no questions nor did he hear any gossip, proving that the affair was old, and if once known to the country people, accepted and forgotten. Why could he not treat it in the same fashion? His faith was not shaken in the sense of belief in a Supreme Being, but he no longer lived so much for and by his faith; Nature and G.o.d were put back in the past, as he had said to Crabbe, and all his thought was for the duty of the hour and for the guidance and sustenance of others. He imagined he had lowered his own dignity by writing, on the first impulse of desperate first love, the letter which Crabbe had read with Pauline, and he strove to regain that clerical calm and judicial bearing that had suffered so violent a shock. But when six weeks of this repressed existence had sped and autumnal winds were sweeping down from the glacial north of Terrebonne, bringing cold rains and occasional snow flurries with them, he felt that he must at least call at the manor to inquire after Henry Clairville. Little at any time was heard of the latter except when "Ma"amselle" returned to her native heath, at which times the Archambaults were whipped into work and obedience by the forcible tongue and stormy temper of their mistress. Messages and parcels then pa.s.sed between the domain and the village; Father Rielle made his call and the whole village and _paroisse_ quickened with energy under Pauline"s determined sway.
Crabbe--this Ringfield heard from Poussette--was also sent about his business; he was no longer encouraged to play cards and drink with Henry, who fared as he might at the hands of the tyrant family swarming all over the estate.
On a chilly October day, Ringfield once again traversed the muddy road leading to Lac Calvaire, his heart sore over the revelation that had reached him, and he could not repress a painful sigh as he came in sight of the _metairie_. The lake was dull grey, the maples were shedding their leaves without painting them red and yellow, and the pines looked unusually sombre against a pale and cheerless sky. A pair of kingfishers were flying from side to side of the road, and a forked object sailing high up in the air proclaimed itself a bird, otherwise there was no sign of life till, approaching the front of the _metairie_, he observed the peac.o.c.k taking its airing in a neglected garden.
Nothing had affected the pose and splendour of this radiant creature as it paraded up and down, gently swaying its l.u.s.trous and shimmering tail; the drooping fortunes of the house were not reflected in its mien or expression, and it was not until Ringfield was met by four lean cats prowling about him in evident expectation of food and petting that he descried unusual neglect in the appearance of house and garden. Three ugly blotched and snorting pigs ran out from under some bushes and followed him. He saw no smoke arising, no face at any window, heard no lively bustle in the farm-yard, no amusing and contentious chatter in Canadian French from the barns and out-buildings which sheltered the various members of the Archambault family. A curious feeling rushed over him and with it a conviction--the place was deserted. He went at once to the chain of farm buildings and examined them all; all were empty, with every sign of hurried and agitated flight rather than of orderly and complacent departure. The horses were gone, the two wagons and buggy, the buckboard. Traces of fright and apprehension were met at every step; a dirty hairbrush dropped on the ground; a clock abandoned on a bench outside the door as if too heavy; tins opened and rifled of their contents; a tub half full of soiled clothes in foul water. All these he saw, scarcely taking in their meaning, until returning to the manor he opened the front door and went in. There in the usual place he found Henry Clairville, alive, and no more. Still clad in the greasy dressing-gown and still seated in the tattered arm-chair, the unfortunate man was clearly very ill. Patches appeared on his face, which was both pallid and flushed; his neck showed red and sore and his body hung down limply over the side of the chair.
Evidently he had tried to get to his bed which stood in a corner, and failed. His eyes were staring and full, yet gla.s.sy; sense and recognition alike were wanting, while the delirious accents which escaped now and then from his parched lips were altogether in French.
In short, Ringfield, though unaccustomed to disease, knew that the man before him was very ill, of what did not enter his head, although there came to his mind a description of the plague in a boy"s story-book. He did what he could, singlehanded, which was to s.n.a.t.c.h some warm clothing from the bed, cover up the sufferer so that draughts might not reach him, fetch water and leave it on the table near the chair and see that all animals were excluded. He then quickly sought for a secluded spot near the lake, hung his own clothes about on branches to air, and took a plunge into the clean, cool water, after which he was ready to return to St. Ignace and get a.s.sistance.
Dr. Renaud, the village pract.i.tioner, drove out at once, taking a woman with him, who, as soon as she learned she had to deal with the "Pic"
ran screaming from the house, thus clearing up the mystery of the Archambaults.
"They knew," said Ringfield, "and I didn"t. But I guessed something of the kind and took the only precaution open to me. I washed in pure water. And now what are we to do? Has M. Clairville no one belonging to him but his sister?"
"Not to my knowledge," said Dr. Renaud, who spoke good English, "and we do not wish her to return."
"Certainly not."
"Then I can only think of one person in the village."
"A nurse?"
"Not a professional nurse, but, as I say, the only person I know of close at hand who can do what is necessary until we get a nurse, if the man lives to require one. A male nurse would be better, but who is there here? No. I am thinking of the right one if I can only get her, if I can only get her?"
"She lives in the village?" Ringfield was curious; he thought he had met every one in the village, yet here was some paragon of female skill, virtue and strength with whom he was not acquainted.
"You must have met her. Of course you know her. I speak of Mme.
Poussette. Ah! You shall smile and you shall frown, but you shall see what a miracle she can work! You shall yet envy this sick seigneur.
Madame is noted for her care of the sick and dying. You are surprised?
Yes?"
"I cannot help it. Anyone would be. She looks so frail, so delicate, and surely she is also what we call afflicted, peculiar. Is she a fit and sensible person for a case like this?"
"Ah! Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the doctor with a slight impatience. "These afflicted ones, these peculiar ones--they are still capable of something. Many times have I seen it; the old, old tottering _grandmere_, the crazy aunt, the bad-tempered husband, even the inebriate, can find, when they are guided, work which suits and maintains them. Even when the mind is shaken, if it is only a little, just a little, to care for others, a bird or a cat, or a sick person, this will keep the wits steady. A case like this moreover!" repeated Dr. Renaud, laying his finger to his nose. He was round, jolly, bow-legged, and brusque, with p.r.o.nounced features overstrong for his height, merry eyes, and a red birthmark. "This is the case. We are, you and I and presently Father Rielle, responsible for M. Clairville.
He must not be moved except to his bed; he is too far gone for more.
The wife of Poussette is, to my knowledge, the only person we can get to sit here, administer drink and medicine, make him comfortable.
Well, not even she can do that but--you _comprenez_. And she is capable, I know her well. She is as she is" (and the doctor made the sign of the Cross), "yet she is worth ten saner women, for she has no nerves, no fears, no imagination. Tell her what to do, place her here to do it, and she will not fail; I have seen her a dozen times in the village nursing sick women and their babies. She"s as good as most doctors and better than most nurses. Yes, yes, we will get madame to him at once."
"But she may take it!"
"I think not. Her body like her mind is purged of all evil humours, _mon ami_. She is already more than half spirit and waits in peace for old age and quiet decay."
Ringfield got into the doctor"s buggy in silent surprise.
"Besides, if she did take it, and it killed her, I cannot see any great calamity. I will tell you her history. She was well educated at a good convent near Montreal; her father was a doctor, as I am, but a far cleverer one. Yes, I lift the _chapeau_ to that one, that old Dr.
Pacquette as regards the great art and science of medicine. But as a father--ah! G.o.d pity him where he is now, according to our belief, in purgatory for many long years to come. _Bien_! Dr. Pacquette had lost his wife, and his daughter, a fairy thing, was allowed, even encouraged, to grow up as she pleases. They have grand friends in Montreal, her father"s people still live on Rue St. Denis, great rich people; if you go there, drive out over the mountain and you shall see her old home, the Pacquette Chateau. Well, this Mme. Poussette when she is a girl (Natalie-Elmire-Alexandre, I don"t give you all her name) she is very pretty, and the old doctor wish her to make a grand marriage, and he has every one up to the house and make a big time for them, and introduce her to all the young men, all the _rich_ young men.
But while she has been at that convent she has met with Amable Poussette, who was not so stout then, had a good figure and a lively tongue, and the end is, they are married at Ancien Lorette by a young priest, who might have known better. Some months after, she goes home to her father to be taken in and forgiven and nursed, for she has by this time a young infant about six weeks old. Well, you can perhaps imagine _le vieux_ Pacquette when it is all explained. He is enraged, he drives her from his door, she pa.s.ses all one long, cold night in the snow outside the _chateau_ on Cote des Neiges hill and when she is found by the servants two days later, she is as you see her, monsieur, and the baby is dead! Never again the bright little Natalie-Elmire, but instead, a pale, faded, vacant-eyed, timid woman. Ah! If I ever meet _le vieux_ Pacquette in the next world!"
The doctor nodded his bald head sagaciously; as for Ringfield, he was thinking that here was the opportunity for which he unconsciously had been waiting, to ask for and probably receive Miss Clairville"s equally dramatic story, when he beheld another buggy coming around a corner of the road driven recklessly by one of the Archambault boys and in the buggy sat mademoiselle herself. Her attire, always so different from village modes, was true on this occasion to her theatrical calling, for to Ringfield"s eye at least she appeared like some Oriental personage, caught and brought home in native garb, coupled with a very bad temper.
Red and black was her habit and black and red her eyes and angry compressed lips.
The doctor stood up in his buggy and Miss Clairville in hers, and, as for a quarter of an hour the excited talk was in rapid French, Ringfield could only gather that the doctor was endeavouring to restrain her from going to see her brother. At last, turning away from Renaud with an imperious wave of the hand, she addressed herself to the minister in English.
"I understand it is to you the doctor owes his knowledge of my poor brother"s sickness. I only heard of it myself last night on the stage at eleven o"clock, but I came at once--look at me in all this sinful finery, I can see you are calling it! Oh, yes, you are. Well, now that I have come and thrown up my part and my place in the company in Montreal, he will not allow me to finish my journey and go on to Clairville!"
"Certainly, you must not think of going!" cried Ringfield. "On no account must you do such a thing. Do you know what is the matter with him?"
"Oh, the "Pic" I suppose, but I"m not afraid of it."