Project Gutenberg's The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Complete, by Gilbert Parker This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Pomp of the Lavilettes, Complete Author: Gilbert Parker Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6217] Last Updated: August 27, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POMP OF THE LAVILETTES, *** Produced by David Widger
“O when you hear my little silver drum, And when I blow my little gold trompette-a, You must drop your work and come, You must leave your pride at home, And duck your heads before the Lavilette-a!”Gatineau the miller, and Baby the keeper of the bridge, gave their own reasons for the renewed progress of the Lavilettes. They met in conference at the mill on the eve of the marriage of Sophie Lavilette to Magon Farcinelle, farrier, farmer and member of the provincial legislature, whose house lay behind the piece of maple wood, a mile or so to the right of the Lavilettes’ farmhouse. Farcinelle’s engagement to Sophie had come as a surprise to all, for, so far as people knew, there had been no courting. Madame Lavilette had encouraged, had even tempted, the spontaneous and jovial Farcinelle. Though he had never made a speech in the House of Assembly, and it was hard to tell why he was elected, save because everybody liked him, his official position and his popularity held an important place in Madame Lavilette’s long-developed plans, which at last were to place her in a position equal to that of the old seigneur, and launch her upon society at the capital. They had gone more than once to the capital, where their family had been well-known fifty years before, but few doors had been opened to them. They were farmers—only farmers—and Madame Lavilette made no remarkable impression. Her dress was florid and not in excellent taste, and her accent was rather crude. Sophie had gone to school at the convent in the city, but she had no ambition. She had inherited the stolid simplicity of her English grandfather. When her schooling was finished she let her school friends drop, and came back to Bonaventure, rather stately, given to reading, and little inclined to bother her head about anybody. Christine, the younger sister, had gone to Quebec also, but after a week of rebellion, bad temper and sharp speaking, had come home again without ceremony, and refused to return. Despite certain likenesses to her mother, she had a deep, if unintelligible, admiration for her father, and she never tired looking at the picture of her great-grandfather in the dress of a chevalier of St. Louis—almost the only thing that had been saved from the old Manor House, destroyed so long before her time. Perhaps it was the importance she attached to her ancestry which made her impatient with their present position, and with people in the parish who would not altogether recognise their claims. It was that which made her give a little jerky bow to the miller and the postmaster when she passed the mill. “Come, dusty-belly,” said Baby, “what’s all this pom-pom of the Lavilettes?” The miller pursed out his lips, contracted his brows, and arranged his loose waistcoat carefully on his fat stomach. “Money,” said he, oracularly, as though he had solved the great question of the universe. “La! la! But other folks have money; and they step about Bonaventure no more louder than a cat.” “Blood,” added Gatineau, corrugating his brows still more. “Bosh!” “Both together—money and blood,” rejoined the miller. Overcome by his exertions, he wheezed so tremendously that great billows of excitement raised his waistcoat, and a perspiration broke out upon his mealy face, making a paste which the sun, through the open doorway, immediately began to bake into a crust. “Pah, the airs they have always had, those Lavilettes!” said Baby. “They will not do this because it is not polite, they will not do that because they are too proud. They say that once there was a baron in their family. Who can tell how long ago! Perhaps when John the Baptist was alive. What is that? Nothing. There is no baron now. All at once somebody die a year ago, and leave them ten thousand dollars; and then—mais, there is the grand difference! They have save and save twenty years to pay their debts and to buy a seigneury, like that baron who live in the time of John the Baptist. Now it is to stand on a ladder to speak to them. And when all’s done, they marry Ma’m’selle Sophie to a farrier, to that Magon Farcinelle—bah!” “Magon was at the Laval College in Quebec; he has ten thousand dollars; he is the best judge of horses in the province, and he’s a Member of Parliament to boot,” said the miller, puffing. “He is a great man almost.” “He’s no better judge of horses than M’sieu’ Nic Lavilette—eh, that’s a bully bad scamp, my Gatineau!” responded Baby. “He’s the best in the family. He is a grand sport; yes. It’s he that fetched Ma’m’selle Sophie to the hitching-post. Voila, he can wind them all round his finger!” Baby looked round to see if any one was near; then he drew the miller’s head down by pulling at his collar, and whispered in his ear: “He’s hot foot for the Rebellion; that’s one good thing,” he said. “If he wipes out the English—” “Hold your tongue,” nervously interrupted Gatineau, for just then two or three loiterers of the parish came shambling around the corner of the mill. Baby stopped short, and as they greeted the newcomers their attention was drawn to the stage-coach from St. Croix coming over the little hill near by. “Here’s M’sieu’ Nic now—and who’s with him?” said Baby, stepping about nervously in his excitement. “I knew there was something up. M’sieu’ Nic’s been writing long letters from Montreal.” Baby’s look suggested that he knew more than his position as postmaster entitled him to know; but the furtive droop at the corner of his eyes showed also that his secretiveness was equal to his cowardice. On the seat, beside the driver of the coach, was Nicolas Lavilette, black-haired, brown-eyed, athletic, reckless-looking, with a cast in his left eye, which gave him a look of drollery, in keeping with his buoyant, daring nature. Beside him was a figure much more noticeable and unusual. Lean, dark-featured, with keen-glancing eyes, and a body with a faculty for finding corners of ease; waving hair, streaked with grey, black moustache, and a hectic flush on the cheeks, lending to the world-wise face a wistful look-that, with near six feet of height, was the picture of his friend. “Who is it?” asked the miller, with bulging eyes. “An English nobleman,” answered Baby. “How do you know?” asked Gatineau. “How do I know you are a fat, cheating miller?” replied the postmaster, with cunning care and a touch of malice. Malice was the only power Baby knew.
“What shall we do when the King comes home? What shall we do when he rides along With his slaves of Greece and his serfs of Rome? What shall we sing for a song— When the King comes home? “What shall we do when the King comes home? What shall we do when he speaks so fair? Shall we give him the house with the silver dome And the maid with the crimson hair When the King comes home?”A long, heavy sigh filled the room, but it was not the breath of Vanne Castine. The sound came from the corner where the huge brown bear huddled in savage ease. When it stirred, as if in response to Shangois’s song, the chains rattled. He was fastened by two chains to a staple driven into the foundation timbers of the house. Castine’s bear might easily be allowed too much liberty! Once he had killed a man in the open street of the City of Quebec, and once also he had nearly killed Castine. They had had a fight and struggle, out of which the man came with a lacerated chest; but since that time he had become the master of the bear. It feared him; yet, as he travelled with it, he scarcely ever took his eyes off it, and he never trusted it. That was why, although Michael was always near him, sleeping or waking, he kept him chained at night. As Shangois sang, Castine’s brow knotted and twitched and his hand clinched on his pipe with a sudden ferocity. “Name of a black cat, what do you sing that song for, notary?” he broke out peevishly. “Nose of a little god, are you making fun of me?” Shangois handed him some tea. “There’s no one to laugh—why should I make fun of you?” he asked, jeeringly, in English, for his English was almost as good as his French, save in the turn of certain idioms. “Come, my little punchinello, tell me, now, why have you come back?” Castine laughed bitterly. “Ha, ha, why do I come back? I’ll tell you.” He sucked at his pipe. “Bon’venture is a good place to come to-yes. I have been to Quebec, to St. John, to Fort Garry, to Detroit, up in Maine and down to New York. I have ride a horse in a circus, I have drive a horse and sleigh in a shanty, I have play in a brass band, I have drink whiskey every night for a month—enough whiskey. I have drink water every night for a year—it is not enough. I have learn how to speak English; I have lose all my money when I go to play a game of cards. I go back to de circus; de circus smash; I have no pay. I take dat damn bear Michael as my share—yes. I walk trough de State of New York, all trough de State of Maine to Quebec, all de leetla village, all de big city—yes. I learn dat damn funny song to sing to Michael. Ha, why do I come to Bon’venture? What is there to Bon’venture? Ha! you ask that? I know and you know, M’sieu’ Shangois. There is nosing like Bon’venture in all de worl’. “What is it you would have? Do you want nice warm house in winter, plenty pork, molass’, patat, leetla drop whiskey ‘hind de door in de morning? Ha! you come to Bon’venture. Where else you fin’ it? You want people say: ‘How you do, Vanne Castine—how you are? Adieu, Vanne Castine; to see you again ver’ happy, Vanne Castine.’ Ha, that is what you get in Bon’venture. Who say ‘God bless you’ in New York! They say ‘Damn you!’—yes, I know. “Where have you a church so warm, so ver’ nice, and everybody say him mass and God-have-mercy? Where you fin’ it like that leetla place on de hill in Bon’venture? Yes. There is anoser place in Bon’venture, ver’ nice place—yes, ha! On de side of de hill. You have small-pox, scarlet fev’, difthere; you get smash your head, you get break your leg, you fall down, you go to die. Ha, who is there in all de worl’ like M’sieu’ Vallier, the Cure? Who will say to you like him: ‘Vanne Castine, you have break all de commandments: you have swear, you have steal, you have kill, you have drink. Ver’ well, now, you will be sorry for dat, and say your prayer. Perhaps, after hunder fifty tousen’ years of purgator’, you will be forgive and go to Heaven. But first, when you die, we will put you way down in de leetla warm house in de ground, on de side of de hill, in de Parish of Bon’venture, because it is de only place for a gipsy like Vanne Castine.’ “You ask me-ah! I see you look at me, M’sieu’ le Notaire, you look at me like a leetla dev’. You t’ink I come for somet’ing else”—his black eyes flashed under his brow, he shook his head, and his hands clinched—“You ask me why I come back? I come back because there is one thing I care for mos’ in all de worl’. You t’ink I am happy to go about with a damn brown bear and dance trough de village? Moi?—no, no, no! What a Jack I look when I sing—ah, that fool’s song all down de street! I come back for one thing only, M’sieu’ Shangois. “You know that night—ah, four, five years ago? You remember, M’sieu’ Shangois? Ah! she was so beautiful, so sweet; her hair it fall down about her face, her eyes all black, her cheeks like the snow, her lips, her lips!—You rememb’ her father curse me, tell me to go. Why? Because I have kill a man! Eh bien, what if I kill a man! He would have kill me: I do it to save myself. I say I am not guilty; but her father say I am a sc’undrel, and turn me out de house. “De girl, Christine, she love me. Yes, she love Vanne Castine. She say to me, ‘I will go with you. Go anywhere, and I will go!’ “It is night and it is all dark. I wait at de place, an’ she come. We start to walk to Montreal. Ah! dat night, it is like fire in my heart. Well, a great storm come down, and we have to come back. We come to your house here, light a fire, and sit just in de spot where I am, one hour, two hour, three hour. Saprie, how I love her! She is in me like fire, like de wind and de sea. Well, I am happy like no other man. I sit here and look at her, and t’ink of to-morrow-for ever. She look at me; oh, de love of God, she look at me! So I kneel down on de floor here beside her and say, ‘Who shall take you from me, Christine, my leetla Christine?’ “She look at me and say: ‘Who shall take you from me, my big Vanne?’ “All at once the door open, and—” “And a little black notary take her from you,” said Shangois, dryly, and with a touch of malice also. “You, yes, you lawyer dev’, you take her from me! You say to her it is wicked. You tell her how her father will weep and her mother’s heart will break. You tell her how she will be ashame’, and a curse will fall on her. Then she begin to cry, for she is afraid. Ah, where is de wrong? I love her; I would go to marry her—but no, what is that to you! She turn on me and say, ‘I will go back to my father.’ And she go back. After that I try to see her; but she will not see me. Then I go away, and I am gone five years; yes.” Shangois came over, and with his thin beautiful hand (for despite the ill-kept finger nails, it was the one fine feature of his body-long, shapely, artistic) tapped Castine’s knee. “I did right to save Christine. She hates you now. If she had gone with you that night, do you suppose she would have been happy as your wife? No, she is not for Vanne Castine.” Suddenly Shangois’s manner changed; he laid his hand upon the other’s shoulder. “My poor, wicked, good-for-nothing Vanne Castine, Christine Lavilette was not made for you. You are a poor vaurien, always a poor vaurien. I knew your father and your two grandfathers. They were all vauriens; all as handsome as you can think, and all died, not in their beds. Your grandfather killed a man, your father drank and killed a man. Your grandfather drove his wife to her grave, your father broke your mother’s heart. Why should you break the heart of any girl in the world? Leave her alone. Is it love to a woman when you break all the commandments, and shame her and bring her down to where you are—a bad vaurien? When a man loves a woman with the true love, he will try to do good for her sake. Go back to that crazy New York—it is the place for you. Ma’m’selle Christine is not for you.” “Who is she for, m’sieu’ le dev’?” “Perhaps for the English Irishman,” answered Shangois, in a low suggestive tone, as he dropped a little brandy in his tea with light fingers. “Ah, sacre! we shall see. There is vaurien in her too,” was the half-triumphant reply. “There is more woman,” retorted Shangois; “much more.” “We’ll see about that, m’sieu’!” exclaimed Castine, as he turned towards the bear, which was clawing at his chain. An hour later, a scene quite as important occurred at Lavilette’s great farmhouse.
“Qui va la! There’s some one in the orchard, There’s a robber in the apple-trees; Qui va la! He is creeping through the doorway. Ah, allez-vous-en! Va-t’-en!”She hurriedly put away the cordial and the seed-cakes. She picked up the bottle. It was empty. Ferrol had drunk near half a pint of the liqueur! She must get another bottle of it somehow. It would never do for Magon to know that the precious anniversary cordial was all gone—in this way. She hurried towards the other room. The voice of the farrier-farmer was more distinct now. She could hear clearly the words of the song. She looked out. The square-shouldered, blue-shirted Magon was skirting the turnip field, making a short cut home. His straw hat was pushed back on his head, his scythe was over his shoulder. He had cut the last swathe in the field—now for Sophie. He was not handsome, and she had known that always; but he seemed rough and coarse to-day. She did not notice how well he fitted in with everything about him; and he was so healthy that even three glasses of that cordial would have sent him reeling to bed. As she passed into the dining-room, the words of the song followed her:
“Qui va la! If you please, I own the mansion, And this is my grandfather’s gun! Qui va la! Now you’re a dead man, robber Ah, allez-vous-en! Va-t’-en!”
“Oh, hark how the wind goes, the wind goes (And dark goes the stream by the mill!) Oh, see where the storm blows, the storm blows (There’s a rider comes over the hill!) “He went with the sunshine one morning (Oh, loud was the bugle and drum!) My soldier, he gave me no warning (Oh, would that my lover might come!) “My kisses, my kisses are waiting (Oh, the rider comes over the hill!) In summer the birds should be mating (Oh, the harvest goes down to the mill!) “Oh, the rider, the rider he stayeth (Oh, joy that my lover hath come!) We will journey together he sayeth (No more with the bugle and drum!)”He caught sight of Christine for a moment as she passed through the garden towards the stable. Her gown was of white stuff, with little spots of red in it, and a narrow red ribbon was shot through the collar. Her hat was a pretty white straw, with red artificial flowers upon it. She wore at her throat a medallion brooch: one of the two heirlooms of the Lavilette family. It had belonged to the great-grandmother of Monsieur Louis Lavilette, and was the one security that this ambitious family did not spring up, like a mushroom, in one night. It had always touched Christine’s imagination as a child. Some native instinct in, her made her prize it beyond everything else. She used to make up wonderful stories about it, and tell them to Sophie, who merely wondered, and was not sure but that Christine was wicked; for were not these little romances little lies? Sophie’s imagination was limited. As the years went on Christine finally got possession of the medallion, and held it against all opposition. Somehow, with it on this morning, she felt diminish the social distance between herself and Ferrol. Ferrol himself thought nothing of social distance. Men, as a rule, get rather above that sort of thing. The woman: that was all that was in his mind. She was good to look at: warm, lovable, fascinating in her little daring wickednesses; a fiery little animal, full of splendid impulses, gifted with a perilous temperament: and she loved him. He had a kind of exultation at the very fierceness of her love for him, of what she had done to prove her love: her fury at Vanne Castine, the slaughter of the bear, and the intention to kill Vanne himself; and he knew that she would do more than that, if a great test came. Men feel surer of women than women feel of men. He sat down on the broad window-ledge, still sipping his whiskey and milk, as he looked at her. She was very good to see. Presently she had to cross a little plot of grass. The dew was still on it. She gathered up her skirts and tip-toed quickly across it. The action was attractive enough, for she had a lithe smoothness of motion. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of surprise. “White stockings—humph!” he said. Somehow those white stockings suggested the ironical comment of the world upon his proposed mesalliance; then he laughed good-humouredly. “Taste is all a matter of habit, anyhow,” said he to himself. “My own sister wouldn’t have had any better taste if she hadn’t been taught. And what am I? “What am I? I drink more whiskey in a day than any three men in the country. I don’t do a stroke of work; I’ve got debts all over the world; I’ve mulcted all my friends; I’ve made fools of two or three women in my time; I’ve broken every commandment except—well, I guess I’ve broken every one, if it comes to that, in spirit, anyhow. I’m a thief, a fire-eating highwayman, begad, and here I am, with a perforated lung, going to marry a young girl like that, without one penny in the world except what I stole! What beasts men are! The worst woman may be worse than the worst man, but all men are worse than most women. But she wants to marry me. She knows exactly what I am in health and prospects; so why shouldn’t I?” He drew himself up, thinking honestly. He believed that he would live if he married Christine; that his “cold” would get better; that the hole in his lung would heal. It was only a matter of climate; he was sure of it. Christine had a few hundred dollars—she had told him so. Suppose he took three hundred dollars of the five thousand dollars: that would leave four thousand seven hundred dollars for his sister. He could go away south with Christine, and could live on five or six hundred dollars a year; then he’d be fit for something. He could go to work. He could join the Militia, if necessary. Anyhow, he could get something to do when he got well. He drank some more whiskey and milk. “Self-preservation, that’s the thing; that’s the first law,” he said. “And more: if the only girl I ever loved, ever really loved—loved from the crown of her head to the sole of her feet—were here to-day, and Christine stood beside her, little plebeian with a big heart, by Heaven, I’d choose Christine. I can trust her, though she is a little liar. She loves, and she’ll stick; and she’s true where she loves. Yes; if all the women in the world stood beside Christine this morning, I’d look them all over, from duchess to danseuse, and I’d say, ‘Christine Lavilette, I’m a scoundrel. I haven’t a penny in the world. I’m a thief; a thief who believes in you. You know what love is; you know what fidelity is. No matter what I did, you would stand by me to the end. To the last day of my life, I’ll give you my heart and my hand; and as you are faithful to me, so I will be faithful to you, so help me God!’ “I don’t believe I ever could have run straight in life. I couldn’t have been more than four years old when I stole the peaches from my mother’s dressing-table; and I lied just as coolly then as I could now. I made love to a girl when I was ten years old.” He laughed to himself at the remembrance. “Her father had a foundry. She used to wear a red dress, I remember, and her hair was brown. She sang like a little lark. I was half mad about her; and yet I knew that I didn’t really love her. Still, I told her that I did. I suppose it was the cursed falseness of my whole nature. I know that whenever I have said most, and felt most, something in me kept saying all the time: ‘You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying!’ Was I born a liar? “I wonder if the first words I ever spoke were a lie? I wonder, when I kissed my mother first, and knew that I was kissing her, if the same little devil that sits up in my head now, said then: ‘You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying.’ It has said so enough times since. I loved to be with my mother; yet I never felt, even when she died—and God knows I felt bad enough then! “I never felt that my love was all real. It had some infernal note of falseness somewhere, some miserable, hollow place where the sound of my own voice, when I tried to speak the truth, mocked me! I wonder if the smiles I gave, before I was able to speak at all, were only blarney? I wonder, were they only from the wish to stand well with everybody, if I could? It must have been that; and how much I meant, and how much I did not mean, God alone knows! “What a sympathy I have always had for criminals! I have always wanted, or, anyhow, one side of me has always wanted, to do right, and the other side has always done wrong. I have sympathised with the just, but I have always felt that I’d like to help the criminal to escape his punishment. If I had been more real with that girl in New York, I wonder whether she wouldn’t have stuck to me? When I was with her I could always convince her; but, I remember, she told me once that, when I was away from her, she somehow felt that I didn’t really love her. That’s always been the way. When I was with people, they liked me; when I was away from them, I couldn’t depend upon them. No; upon my soul, of all the friends I’ve ever had, there’s not one that I know of that I could go to now—except my sister, poor girl!—and feel sure that no matter what I did, they’d stick to me to the end. I suppose the fault is mine. If I’d been worth the standing by, I’d have been the better stood by. But this girl, this little French provincial, with a heart of fire and gold, with a touch of sin in her, and a thumping artery of truth, she would walk with me to the gallows, and give her life to save my life—yes, a hundred times. Well, then, I’ll start over again; for I’ve found the real thing. I’ll be true to her just as long as she’s true to me. I’ll never lie to her; and I’ll do something else—something else. I’ll tell her—” He reached out, picked a wild rose from the vine upon the wall, and fastened it in his button-hole, with a defiant sort of smile, as there came a tap to his door. “Come in,” he said. The door opened, and in stepped Shangois, the notary. He carried a jug under his arm, which, with a nod, he set down at the foot of the bed. “M’sieu’,” said he, “it is a thing that cured the bishop; and once, when a prince of France was at Quebec, and had a bad cold, it cured him. The whiskey in it I made myself—very good white wine.” Ferrol looked at the little man curiously. He had only spoken with him once or twice, but he had heard the numberless legends about him, and the Cure had told him many of his sayings, a little weird and sometimes maliciously true to the facts of life. Ferrol thanked the little man, and motioned to a chair. There was, however, a huge chest against the wall near the window, and Shangois sat down on this, with his legs hunched up to his chin, looking at Ferrol with steady, inquisitive eyes. Ferrol laughed outright. A grotesque thought occurred to him. This little black notary was exactly like the weird imp which, he had always imagined, sat high up in his brain, dropping down little ironies and devilries—his personified conscience; or, perhaps, the truth left out of him at birth and given this form, to be with him, yet not of him. Shangois did not stir, nor show by even the wink of an eyelid that he recognised the laughter, or thought that he was being laughed at. Presently Ferrol sat down and looked at Shangois without speaking, as Shangois looked at him. He smiled more than once, however, as the thought recurred to him. “Well?” he said at last. “What if she finds out about the five thousand dollars—eh, m’sieu’?” Ferrol was completely dumfounded. The brief question covered so much ground—showed a knowledge of the whole case. Like Conscience itself, the little black notary had gone straight to the point, struck home. He was keen enough, however, had sufficient self-command, not to betray himself, but remained unmoved outwardly, and spoke calmly. “Is that your business—to go round the parish asking conundrums?” he said coolly. “I can’t guess the answer to that one, can you?” Shangois hated cowards, and liked clever people—people who could answer him after his own fashion. Nearly everybody was afraid of his tongue and of him. He knew too much; which was a crime. “I can find out,” he replied, showing his teeth a little. “Then you’re not quite sure yourself, little devilkin?” “The girl is a riddle. I am not the great reader of riddles.” “I didn’t call you that. You’re only a common little imp.” Shangois showed his teeth in a malicious smile. “Why did you set me the riddle, then?” Ferrol continued, his eyes fixed with apparent carelessness on the other’s face. “I thought she might have told you the answer.” “I never asked her the puzzle. Have you?” By instinct, and from the notary’s reputation, Ferrol knew that he was in the presence of an honest man at least, and he waited most anxiously for an answer, for his fate might hang on it. “M’sieu’, I have not seen her since yesterday morning.” “Well, what would you do if you found out about the five thousand dollars?” “I would see what happened to it; and afterwards I would see that a girl of Bonaventure did not marry a Protestant, and a thief.” Ferrol rose from his chair, coughing a little. Walking over to Shangois, he caught him by both ears and shook the shaggy head back and forth. “You little scrap of hell,” he said in a rage, “if you ever come within fifty feet of me again I’ll send you where you came from!” Though Shangois’s eyes bulged from his head, he answered: “I was only ten feet away from you last night under the elm!” Suddenly Ferrol’s hand slipped down to Shangois’s throat. Ferrol’s fingers tightened, pressed inwards. “Now, see, I know what you mean. Some one has robbed Nicolas Lavilette of five thousand dollars. You dare to charge me with it, curse you. Let me see if there’s any more lies on your tongue!” With the violence of the pressure Shangois’s tongue was forced out of his mouth. Suddenly a paroxysm of coughing seized Ferrol, and he let go and staggered back against the window ledge. Shangois was transformed—an animal. No human being had ever seen him as he was at this moment. The fingers of his one hand opened and shut convulsively, his arms worked up and down, his face twitched, his teeth showed like a beast’s as he glared at Ferrol. He looked as though he were about to spring upon the now helpless man. But up from the garden below there came the sound of a voice—Christine’s—singing. His face quieted, and his body came to its natural pose again, though his eyes retained an active malice. He turned to go. “Remember what I tell you,” said Ferrol: “if you publish that lie, you’ll not live to hear it go about. I mean what I say.” Blood showed upon his lips, and a tiny little stream flowed down the corner of his mouth. Whenever he felt that warm fluid on his tongue he was certain of his doom, and the horror of slowly dying oppressed him, angered him. It begot in him a desire to end it all. He had a hatred of suicide; but there were other ways. “I’ll have your life, or you’ll have mine. I’m not to be played with,” he added. The sentences were broken by coughing, and his handkerchief was wet and red. “It is no concern of the world,” answered Shangois, stretching up his throat, for he still felt the pressure of Ferrol’s fingers—“only of the girl and her brother. The girl—I saved her once before from your friend Vanne Castine, and I will save her from you—but, yes! It is nothing to the world, to Bonaventure, that you are a robber; it is everything to her. You are all robbers—you English—cochons!” He opened the door and went out. Ferrol was about to follow him, but he had a sudden fit of weakness, and he caught up a pillow, and, throwing it on the chest where Shangois had sat, stretched himself upon it. He lay still for quite a long time, and presently fell into a doze. In those days no event made a lasting impression on him. When it was over it ended, so far as concerned any disturbing remembrances of it. He was awakened (he could not have slept for more than fifteen minutes) by a tapping at his door, and his name spoken softly. He went to the door and opened it. It was Christine. He thought she seemed pale, also that she seemed nervous; but her eyes were full of light and fire, and there was no mistaking the look in her face: it was all for him. He set down her agitation to the adventure they were about to make together. He stepped back, as if inviting her to enter, but she shook her head. “No, not this morning. I will meet you at the old mill in half an hour. The parish is all mad about the Rebellion, and no one will notice or talk of anything else. I have the best pair of horses in the stable; and we can drive it in two hours, easy.” She took a paper from her pocket. “This is—the—license,” she added, and she blushed. Then, with a sudden impulse, she stepped inside the room, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him, and he clasped her to his breast. “My darling Tom!” she said, and then hastened away, with tears in her eyes. He saw the tears. “I wonder what they were for?” he said musingly, as he opened up the official blue paper. “For joy?” He laughed a little uneasily as he said it. His eyes ran through the document. “The Honourable Tom Ferrol, of Stavely Castle, County Galway, Ireland, bachelor, and Christine Marie Lavilette, of the Township of Bonaventure, in the Province of Lower Canada, spinster, Are hereby granted,” etc., etc., etc., “according to the laws of the Province of Upper Canada,” etc., etc., etc. He put it in his pocket. “For better or for worse, then,” he said, and descended the stairs. Presently, as he went through the village, he noticed signs of hostility to himself. Cries of Vive la Canada! Vive la France! a bas l’Anglais! came to him out of the murmuring and excitement. But the Regimental Surgeon took off his cap to him, very conspicuously advancing to meet him, and they exchanged a few words. “By the way, monsieur,” the Regimental Surgeon added, as he took his leave, “I knew of this some days ago, and, being a justice of the peace, it was my duty to inform the authorities—yes of course! One must do one’s duty in any case,” he said, in imitation of English bluffness, and took his leave. Ten minutes later Christine and Ferrol were on their way to the English province to be married. That afternoon at three o’clock, as they left the little English-speaking village man and wife, they heard something which startled them both. It was a bear-trainer, singing to his bear the same weird song, without words, which Vanne Castine sang to Michael. Over in another street they could see the bear on his hind feet, dancing, but they could not see the man. Christine glanced at Ferrol anxiously, for she was nervous and excited, though her face had also a look of exultant happiness. “No, it’s not Castine!” he said, as if in reply to her look. In a vague way, however, she felt it to be ominous.
“God have mercy upon the passing soul! God have mercy upon the passing soul! Hear the prayer of the sinner, O Lord; Listen to the voice of those that mourn; Have mercy upon the sinner, O Lord!”When Ferrol turned to Sophie again, both her hands were clasping the calvary, and she had dropped her head upon them. “I must go,” he said. She did not move. Again he spoke to her; but she did not lift her head. Presently, however, as he stood watching her, she moved away from the calvary, and, with her back still turned to him, stepped out into the road and hurried on towards her home, never once turning her head. He stood looking after her for a moment, then turned and, sitting on a log behind the shrubbery, he tore a few pieces of paper out of a note-book and began writing. He wrote swiftly for about twenty minutes or more, then, arising, he moved on towards the village, where crowds had gathered—excited, fearful, tumultuous; for the British soldiers had just entered the place. Ferrol seemed almost oblivious of the threatening crowd, which once or twice jostled him more than was accidental. He came into the post-office, got an envelope, put his letter inside it, stamped it, addressed it to Christine, and dropped it into the letter-box.
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: After which comes steady happiness or the devil to pay (wedding) All men are worse than most women I always did what was wrong, and liked it—nearly always Illusive hopes and irresponsible deceptions Men feel surer of women than women feel of men She lacked sense a little and sensitiveness much To be popular is not necessarily to be contemptible Who say ‘God bless you’, in New York! they say ‘Damn you!’
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