The first summer at Penetang was full of new experiences for Helen. The
feminine loneliness was very trying, and if it had not been that her
hands and mind were always busy working and planning, she would have
felt the solitude even more than she did. The summer was half gone
before the first letters came; and the monotony of waiting was broken
only twice afterwards before the season was over. Fortunately, however,
they never came singly, and each bore reading again and again, before
the succeeding budget arrived.
The absence of congenial companionship of her own sex was what she felt
most keenly. Still the presence of the little French woman, Emmiline,
gave a break to the monotony. Her lively chatter whiled away many an
hour; and with little Emil came new life; for Helen was deeply
interested in the welfare of her little godson. Possibly, also, the best
substitute for an absent friend may be the presence of that friend's
lover; and as Maud Maxwell was the one who had expressed a desire to be
with her in her western home, she longed for her the most.
After Dr. Beaumont made Helen his confidant, they had many long talks,
and the more they talked the more she became convinced of his genuine
devotion. One afternoon this was particularly impressed upon her. It was
the day of the regular drill, and she was seated alone under an oak tree
in front of her cottage, re-reading one of her letters. Everything was
still around her, when being deeply absorbed, she was startled by the
approach of footsteps.
"I beg your pardon, Madam!" exclaimed the Doctor. He had just returned
with a string of bass from the bay. "I am sorry if I have disturbed
you."
"Don't mention it," she replied with a smile. "Everything was so still.
Why, what a catch you have had!"
"They bite well to-day. Aren't they beauties? Two of them will weigh
three pounds apiece. Why is it so quiet here? Are all the men away?"
"The soldiers, as you know, are drilling, and the habitants are
finishing the fallow."
"I thought it peculiar to find you entirely alone."
"None but the women and the sentinels are about."
"I saw you reading a letter," said Beaumont, laying his fish behind a
log in the shade, and taking a seat beside them. "Is it a new one, may I
ask?"
"No, I am sorry to say. I am foolish enough to read all these old ones
more than once."
"More than once," he echoed. "Why, I read mine every day, sometimes over
and over again."
"You extravagant man! You will wear them all out before the next supply
arrives."
"Ah, but I am careful!" he laughingly replied, "and then I have only had
two from her. They both came with yours."
"I hope another will come soon," she returned, following his wistful
gaze over the water.
"Oh, yes, mon ami," he cried passionately. "Eight months since we left
Halifax, and only two letters."
"It is three since our first ones went over the York trail, so we are
sure to receive others soon; and I know from the way Maud writes she is
interested in Penetang."
"Interest is one thing and love is another," said the Doctor, dubiously.
"If I felt sure that the first would develop into the second, I would
praise the gods. But what is there to make it possible? A thousand miles
between us! I did not think an _affaire du coeur_ could be so serious;
but now I know it. When so distant she may never care."
"You do not know the ways of a woman's heart, Doctor. She might not love
you then, but she loved no other; and before another man could win her
heart he would be weighed in the balance with yourself. Although absent,
rest assured you are not forgotten."
"But to be remembered is not to be loved," said Beaumont again, "and a
present suitor may win what an absent one has lost."
"Did it never strike you that distance itself might fan the flame of
love. My mother used to say that 'absence is the furnace in which true
love is tried! It tries the man but it tries the woman also.'"
"If absence has increased hers as it has mine, I shall be more than
satisfied," said the Doctor.
"Something in you appealed to her, that I know," said Helen.
"Ah! She is divine," cried Beaumont, again becoming ecstatic. "I can
never forget her."
"Did you never forget her?" asked Helen, demurely.
"No, never."
"Not even when dancing at the Citadel with Louise de Rochefort?" she
asked mischievously.
Beaumont's face flushed.
"Pardonnez, Madam, that was a little break--an hour's amusement--une
petite Mademoiselle of my own people, and in my own old city! What harm?
Surely you will not ask a Frenchman to stand at one side and allow all
the beauty and elite sweep past him in the gay valse without saying a
word. No, no, Madam, that would never do"; and he finished by shaking
his curls in a merry laugh.
"And you think you are deeply, earnestly, sincerely in love with Maud?"
"I swear it. She is divine, I say. Her glorious eyes, her ravishing
beauty, her inflexible will, her exquisite soul, make me her slave, and
I cannot help myself. Madam, I adore her. She is my patron saint, my
heavenly jewel on earth!"
"You deserve to win her," said Helen, gravely. "Why not press your suit
by letter more strongly than you have ever done?"
"That I cannot do. I gave her my word not to attempt it any more until I
see her. Of course I write; my letters are full of love. Mon Dieu! How
can I help it? But I am never to ask her to be mine until I see her."
"In that case you must keep your promise, and as a true woman she will
think all the more of you. But there is one thing I wanted to ask. Have
you anything to keep a wife upon besides your salary as surgeon? You see
how practical I am."
"Thank the Holy Virgin, I have. My father left me independent of any
income I may receive from the army."
"One other point, Doctor. As your confidant you must excuse my queries.
How can you, a Roman Catholic, expect so staunch a Churchwoman as Maud
Maxwell to consent to be your wife?"
"Truly a serious question--and one that I have not forgotten, but do you
know that religion is much more to a woman than it is to a man?"
"It ought not to be."
"That is true, though I am sorry to say it was not so in my mother's
case. My father was a French seigneur of Lower Canada and a Catholic,
while my mother was a Scotch Presbyterian. Why she joined my father's
Church I could never tell, except that my father was a dominant man, and
that there was no Presbyterian church within fifty miles of where we
lived. Consequently, my brothers and sisters and myself were all brought
up in the Catholic faith. What is more, Agatha, my sister, being
disappointed in love, entered a cloister, and is now a nun in a Montreal
convent."
"That is sad."
"Perhaps it is. Yet I would not say a word against the sisterhood or the
Romish Church. They are both maligned. But I am sorry that my only
sister, a bright and beautiful girl, should be hopelessly consigned to
the life of the cloister."
"I appreciate your feelings, Doctor. But will this influence your own
future?"
"It may. A sensible man should look to the future as well as the
present. If Maud Maxwell should ever become my wife, I would never ask
her to renounce her faith; I might even be willing to espouse
Protestantism, for which so many of my mother's ancestors died."
"And if you don't marry Maud Maxwell?"
"There's the rub!" exclaimed the Doctor, shrugging his shoulders. "I
shall probably stay where I am, for as I said, religion is not so much
to a man--I am broad enough to believe that if a man lives up to the
best that is in him--an upright and honorable life, and acknowledges the
eternal Fatherhood of God with Christ as his Saviour--whether he
believes in the Blessed Virgin or not--he is all right. He can follow
any creed he likes, from the simple Quaker faith of New England, right
up to that of the great Roman Church--the mother of them all."
"I congratulate you on the breadth of your creed, Doctor."
"A man's life is his creed."
"That will be in the doctrines of the future, but it is not now,
unfortunately," said Helen.
"Ah, hear the rifles, the target practice has commenced."
"Yes, and it is time my fish were looked after; bon jour, Madam," and he
took them off to the cookhouse at the officers' quarters.
In a few minutes Sir George and Captain Cummings came up from the target
field, leaving the other officers in charge; and as Helen had not yet
returned to her cottage, they joined her.
"And how goes the shooting, gentlemen?" she asked, looking at the
Colonel.
"Oh, bravely!" returned Sir George. "Your husband is one of the best
shots among the officers. They all take a round at it, you know."
"What of Lieutenant Smith? Some one told me he was a capital shot."
"So he is, the best in the regiment."
"Hurrah for the two lieutenants!" exclaimed Helen, with a laugh. "What
of your own success, Captain Cummings?"
"I don't profess to be an expert," he replied evasively; "if an officer
keeps his men up to the mark, he adequately fills the bill--Smith and
Manning have both done excellently, though."
Cummings was smiling serenely, but there was an accentuation in his
words that grated on Helen's ear.
"Do you know, my dear?" said Sir George, turning towards her, "that our
Fort will be ready in a week, and that we must have a grand opening to
do honor to the occasion?"
"With torchlight procession, grand ball and finest orchestra of the
season?" suggested Helen.
"Yes, more than that. We expect every lady within fifty miles at least
to accept our invitation."
"I' faith, that will be fine"; but her animation was gone. There was dew
upon her eyelids.
"I was joking," exclaimed the Colonel, "pray forgive. It is solitary
enough for you now, but it won't be for long. 'Twill be better
by-and-bye."
"Please excuse my foolishness," returned Helen, bravely keeping back the
tears, "but do you really mean to open the Fort then?"
"Yes, and joking aside, we intend to celebrate it with all eclat
possible, and we want you to do what you can to assist us."
"You may rest assured of that, Sir George," she replied, "however little
that may be."
"And I take this opportunity," he continued, swinging off his helmet
with a graceful bow, "to invite the first Lady of the land to be my
partner at the opening quadrille?"
Helen had conquered her emotion and, although amazed, was equal to the
occasion. With a sweeping courtesy, she replied:
"Your request is granted, sire." Although what in the world he could
mean by such an invitation she could scarcely imagine.
Captain Cummings gave the Colonel a sharp glance and bit his lip. Helen
noticed it and so did the senior officer.