“What is it?” asked Fleda, opening the door of the house.
“I want to speak to you about m’sieu’,” replied the sad-faced woman.
She made a motion of her head backwards towards the wood. “About M’sieu’
Marchand.”
Fleda’s face hardened; she had had more than enough of “M’sieu’
Marchand.” She was bitterly ashamed that she had, even for a moment,
thought of using diplomacy with him. But this woman’s face was so
forlorn, apart, and lonely, that the old spirit of the Open Road worked
its will. In far-off days she had never seen a human being turned away
from a Romany tent, or driven from a Romany camp. She opened the door
and stood aside to admit the wayfarer.
A few moments later, the woman, tidied and freshened, sat at the ample
breakfast which was characteristic of Romany home-life. The woman’s
plate was bountifully supplied by Fleda, and her cup filled more than
once by Madame Bulteel, while old Gabriel Druse bulked friendly over
all. His face now showed none of the passion and sternness which had
been present when he passed the Sentence of the Patrin upon Jethro Fawe;
nothing of the gloom filling his eyes as he left Ingolby’s house. The
gracious, bountiful look of the patriarch, of the head of the clan, was
upon him.
The husband of one wife, the father of one child, yet the Ry of Rys had
still the overlooking, protective sense of one who had the care of great
numbers of people. His keen eyes foresaw more of the story the woman was
to tell presently than either of the women of his household. He had
seen many such women as this, and had inflexibly judged between them and
those who had wronged them.
“Where have you come from?” he asked, as the meal drew to a close.
“From Wind River and under Elk Mountain,” the woman answered with a
look of relief. Her face was of those who no longer can bear the soul’s
secrets.
There was silence while the breakfast things were cleared away, and the
window was thrown wide to the full morning sun. It broke through the
branches of pine and cedar and juniper; it made translucent the leaves
of the maples; it shimmered on Fleda’s brown hair as she pulled a rose
from the bush at the window, and gave it to the forlorn creature in the
grey “linsey-woolsey” dress and the loose blue flannel jacket, whose
skin was coarsened by outdoor life, but who had something of real beauty
in the intense blue of her eyes. She had been a very comely figure in
her best days, for her waist was small, her bosom gently and firmly
rounded, and her hands were finer than those of most who live and work
much in the open air.
“You said there was something you wished to tell me,” said Fleda, at
last.
The woman gazed slowly round at the three, as though with puzzled
appeal. There was the look of the Outlander in her face; of one who had
been exiled from familiar things and places. In manner she was like a
child. Her glance wandered over the faces of the two women, then her
eyes met those of the Ry, and stayed there.
“I am old and I have seen many sorrows,” said Gabriel Druse, divining
what was in her mind. “I will try to understand.”
“I have known all the bitterness of life,” interposed the low, soft
voice of Madame Bulteel.
“All ears are the same here,” Fleda added, looking the woman in the
eyes.
“I will tell everything,” was the instant reply. Her fingers twined and
untwined in her lap with a nervousness shown by neither face nor body.
Her face was almost apathetic in its despair, but her body had an
upright courage.
She sighed heavily and began.
“My name is Arabella Stone. I was married from my home over against Wind
River by the Jumping Sandhills.
“My father was a lumberman. He was always captain of the gang in the
woods, and captain of the river in the summer. My mother was deaf and
dumb. It was very lonely at times when my father was away. I loved
a boy--a good boy, and he was killed breaking horses. When I was
twenty-one years old my mother died. It was not good for me to be alone,
my father said, so he must either give up the woods and the river, or
he or I must marry. Well, I saw he would not marry, for my mother’s face
was one a man could not forget.”
The old man stirred in his seat. “I have seen such,” he said in his deep
voice.
“So it was I said to myself I would marry,” she continued, “though I
had loved the Boy that died under the hoofs of the black stallion. There
weren’t many girls at the Jumping Sandhills, and so there were men, now
one, now another, to say things to me which did not touch my heart; but
I did not laugh, because I understood that they were lonely. Yet I liked
one of them more than all the others.
“So, for my father’s sake, I came nearer to Dennis, and at last it
seemed I could bear to look at him any time of the day or night he came
to me. He was built like a pine-tree, and had a playful tongue, and also
he was a ranchman like the Boy that was gone. It all came about on the
day he rode in from the range the wild wicked black stallion which all
range-riders had tried for years to capture. It was like a brother of
the horse which had killed my Boy, only bigger. When Dennis mastered him
and rode him to my door I made up my mind, and when he whispered to me
over the dipper of buttermilk I gave him, I said, ‘Yes.’ I was proud of
him. He did things that a woman likes, and said the things a woman loves
to hear, though they be the same thing said over and over again.”
Madame Bulteel nodded her head as though in a dream, and the Ry of Rys
sat with his two great hands on the chair-arm and his chin dropped on
his chest. Fleda’s hands were clasped in her lap, and her big eyes never
left the woman’s face.
“Before a month was gone I had married him,” the low, tired voice went
on. “It was a gay wedding; and my father was very happy, for he thought
I had got the desire of a woman’s life--a home of her own. For a time
all went well. Dennis was gay and careless and wilful, but he was easy
to live with, too, except when he came back from the town where he sold
his horses. Then he was different, because of the drink, and he was
quarrelsome with me--and cruel, too.
“At last when he came home with the drink upon him, he would sleep on
the floor and not beside me. This wore upon my heart. I thought that
if I could only put my hand on his shoulder and whisper in his ear, he
would get better of his bad feeling; but he was sulky, and he would not
bear with me. Though I never loved him as I loved my Boy, still I tried
to be a good wife to him, and never turned my eyes to any other man.”
Suddenly she stopped as though the pain of speaking was too great.
Madame Bulteel murmured something, but the only word that reached the
ears of the others was the Arabic word ‘mafish’. Her pale face was
suffused as she said it.
Two or three times the woman essayed to speak again, but could not.
At last, however, she overcame her emotion and said: “So it was when
M’sieu’ Felix Marchand came up from the Sagalac.”
The old man started and muttered harshly, but Fleda had foreseen the
entrance of the dissolute Frenchman into the tale, and gave no sign of
surprise.
“M’sieu’ Marchand bought horses,” the sad voice trailed on. “One day he
bought the mining-claims Dennis had been holding till he could develop
them or sell them for good money. When Dennis went to town again he
brought me back a present of a belt with silver clasps; but yet again
that night he slept upon the floor alone. So it went on. M. Marchand,
he goes on to the mountains and comes back; and he buys more horses,
and Dennis takes them to Yargo, and M. Marchand goes with him, but comes
back before Dennis does. It was then M’sieu’ begun to talk to me; to say
things that soothe a woman when she is hurt. I knew now Dennis did not
want me as when he first married me. He was that kind of man--quick to
care and quicker to forget. He was weak, he could not fasten where he
stood. It pleased him to be gay and friendly with me when he was sober,
but there was nothing behind it--nothing, nothing at all. At last I
began to cry when I thought of it, for it went on and on, and I was too
much alone. I looked at myself in the glass, and I saw I was not old
or lean. I sang in the trees beside the brook, and my voice was even
a little better than in the days when Dennis first came to my father’s
house. I looked to my cooking, and I knew that it was as good as ever. I
thought of my clothes, and how I did my hair, and asked myself if I
was as fresh to see as when Dennis first came to me. I could see no
difference. There was a clear pool not far away under the little hills
where the springs came together. I used to bathe in it every morning and
dry myself in the sun; and my body was like a child’s. That being so,
should my own man turn his head away from me day or night? What had I
done to be used so, less than two years after I had married!”
She paused and hung her head, weeping gently. “Shame stings a woman like
nothing else,” Madame Bulteel said with a sigh.
“It was so with me,” continued Dennis’s wife. “Then at last the thought
came that there was another woman. And all the time M. Marchand kept
coming and going, at first when Dennis was there, and always with some
good reason for coming--horses, cattle, shooting, or furs bought of the
Indians. When Dennis was not there, he came at first for an hour or two,
as if by chance, then for a whole day, because he said he knew I was
lonely. One day, I was sitting by the pool--it was in the evening. I
was crying because of the thought that followed me of another woman
somewhere, who made Dennis turn from me. Then it was M’sieu’ came and
put a hand on my shoulder--he came so quietly that I did not hear him
till he touched me. He said he knew why I cried, and it saddened his
soul.”
“His soul--the jackal!” growled the old man in his beard.
The woman nodded wearily and went on. “For all of ten days I had been
alone, except for the cattlemen camping a mile away and an old Indian
helper who slept in his tepee within call. Loneliness makes you weak
when there’s something tearing at the heart. So I let M’sieu’ Marchand
talk to me. At last he told me that there was a woman at Yargo--that
Dennis did not go there for business, but to her. Everyone knew it
except me, he said. He told me to ask old Throw Hard, the Indian helper,
if he had spoken the truth. I was shamed, and angry and crazy, too, I
think, so I went to old Throw Hard and asked him. He said he could not
tell the truth, and that he would not lie to me. So I knew it was all
true.
“How do I know what was in my mind? Is a woman not mad at such a time!
There I was, tossed aside for a flyaway, who was for any man that would
come her way. Yes, I think I was mad. The pride in me was hurt--as only
a woman can understand.” She paused and looked at the two women who
listened to her. Fleda’s eyes were on the world beyond the window of the
room.
“Surely we understand,” whispered Madame Bulteel.
The woman’s courage returned, and she continued: “I could not go to my
father, for he was riding the river scores of miles away. I was terribly
alone. It was then that M’sieu’ Marchand, who had bribed the woman to
draw Dennis away, begged me to go away with him. He swore I should marry
him as soon as I could be free of Dennis. I scarcely knew what I said
or thought; but the place I had loved was hateful to me, so I went away
with him.”
A sharp, pained exclamation broke from the lips of Madame Bulteel, but
presently she reached out and laid a hand upon the woman’s arm. “Of
course you went with him,” she said. “You could not stay where you were
and face the return of Dennis. There was no child to keep you, and the
man that tempted you said he adored you?”
The woman looked gratefully at her. “That was what he said,” she
answered. “He said he was tired of wandering, and that he wanted a
home-and there was a big house in Montreal.”
She stopped suddenly upon an angry, smothered word from Fleda’s lips.
A big house in Montreal! Fleda’s first impulse was to break in upon the
woman’s story and tell her father what had happened just now outside
their own house; but she waited.
“Yes, there was a big house in Montreal?” said Fleda, her eyes now
resting sadly upon the woman.
“He said it should be mine. But that did not count. To be far away from
all that had been was more than all else. I was not thinking of the man,
or caring for him, I was flying from my shame. I did not see then the
shame to which I was going. I was a fool, and I was mad and bad also.
When I waked--and it was soon--there was quick understanding between us.
The big house in Montreal--that was never meant for me. He was already
married.”
The old man stretched heavily to his feet, leaned both hands on the
table, and looked at the woman with glowering eyes, while Fleda’s heart
seemed to stop beating.
“Married!” growled Gabriel Druse, with a blur of passion in his voice.
He knew that Felix Marchand had followed his daughter as though he were
a single man.
Fleda saw what was working in his mind. Since her father suspected, he
should know all.
“He almost offered me the big house in Montreal this morning,” she said
evenly and coldly.
A malediction broke from the old man’s lips.
“He almost thought he wanted me to marry him,” Fleda added scornfully.
“And what did you say?” Druse asked.
“There could only be one thing to say. I told him I had never thought of
making my home in a sewer.” A grim smile broke over the old man’s face,
and he sat down again.
“Because I saw him with you I wanted to warn you,” the woman continued.
“Yesterday, I came to warn him of his danger, and he laughed at me. From
Madame Thibadeau I heard he had said he would make you sing his song.
When I came to tell you, there he was with you. But when he left you
I was sure there was no need to speak. Still I felt I must tell
you--perhaps because you are rich and strong, and will stop him from
doing more harm.”
“How do you know we are rich?” asked Druse in a rough tone.
“It is what the world says,” was the reply. “Is there harm in that? In
any case it was right to tell you all; so that one who had herded with a
woman like me should not be friends with you.”
“I have seen worse women than you,” murmured the old man.
“What danger did you come to warn M. Marchand about?” asked Fleda.
“To his life,” answered the woman.
“Do you want to save his life?” asked the old man.
“Ah, is it not always so?” intervened Madame Bulteel in a low, sad
voice. “To be wronged like that does not make a woman just.”
“I am just,” answered the woman. “He deserves to die, but I want to save
the man that will kill him when they meet.”
“Who will kill him?” asked Fleda. “Dennis--he will kill Marchand if he
can.”
The old man leaned forward with puzzled, gloomy interest. “Why? Dennis
left you for another. You say he had grown cold. Was that not what he
wanted--that you should leave him?”
The woman looked at him with tearful eyes. “If I had known Dennis
better, I should have waited. What he did is of the moment only. A man
may fall and rise again, but it is not so with a woman. She thinks and
thinks upon the scar that shows where she wounded herself; and she never
forgets, and so her life becomes nothing--nothing.”
No one saw that Madame Bulteel held herself rigidly, and was so white
that even the sunlight was gold beside her look. Yet the strangest,
saddest smile played about her lips; and presently, as the eyes of the
others fastened on the woman and did not leave her, she regained her
usual composure.
The woman kept looking at Gabriel Druse. “When Dennis found that I had
gone, and knew why--for I left word on a sheet of paper--he went mad
like me. Trailing to the south, to find M’sieu’ Marchand, he had an
accident, and was laid up in a shack for weeks on the Tanguishene River,
and they could not move him. But at last a ranchman wrote to me, and the
letter found me on the very day I left M’sieu’. When I got that letter
begging me to go to the Tanguishene River, to nurse Dennis who loved me
still, my heart sank. I said to myself I could not go; and Dennis and
I must be apart always to the end of time. But then I thought again. He
was ill, and his body was as broken as his mind. Well, since I could do
his mind no good, I would try to help his body. I could do that much for
him. So I went. But the letter to me had been long on the way, and when
I got to the Tanguishene River he was almost well.”
She paused and rocked her body to and fro for a moment as though in
pain.
“He wanted me to go back to him then. He said he had never cared for the
woman at Yargo, and that what he felt for me now was different from what
it had ever been. When he had settled accounts we could go back to the
ranch and be at peace. I knew what he meant by settling accounts, and it
frightened me. That is why I am here. I came to warn the man, Marchand,
for if Dennis kills him, then they will hang Dennis. Do you not see?
This is a country of law. I saw that Dennis had the madness in his
brain, and so I left him again in the evening of the day I found him,
and came here--it is a long way. Yesterday, M’sieu’ Marchand laughed at
me when I warned him. He said he could take care of himself. But such
men as Dennis stop at nothing; there will be killing, if M’sieu’ stays
here.”
“You will go back to Dennis?” asked Fleda gently. “Some other woman will
make him happy when he forgets me,” was the cheerless, grey reply.
The old man got up and, coming over, laid a hand upon her shoulder.
“Where did you think of going from here?” he asked.
“Anywhere--I don’t know,” was the reply.
“Is there no work here for her?” he asked, turning to Madame Bulteel.
“Yes, plenty,” was the reply. “And room also?” he asked again.
“Was ever a tent too full, when the lost traveller stumbled into camp
in the old days?” rejoined Fleda. The woman trembled to her feet, a
glad look in her eyes. “I ought to go, but I am tired and I will gladly
stay,” she said and swayed against the table.
Madame Bulteel and Fleda put their arms round her, steadying her.
“This is not the way to act,” said Fleda with a touch of sharp reproof.
Had she not her own trouble to face?
The stricken woman drew herself up and looked Fleda in the eyes. “I will
find the right way, if I can,” she said with courage.
A half-hour later, as the old man sat alone in the room where he had
breakfasted, a rifle-shot rang out in the distance.
“The trouble begins,” he said, as he rose and hastened into the hallway.
Another shot rang out. He caught up his wide felt hat, reached for a
great walking-stick in the corner, and left the house hurriedly.