CHRISTMAS AND A CONFESSION.
Ah, how the bells rang out on Christmas morning! A soft, muffled sound
coming through the roofs of white snow that looked like peaked army
tents, the old Latin melody that had rejoiced many a heart and carried
the good news round the world.
It was still dark when Jeanne heard Pani stirring, and she sprang out of
bed.
"I am going to church with you, Pani," she declared in a tone that left
no demur.
"Ah, child, if thou hadst listened to the good father and been
confirmed, then thou mightst have partaken of the mass."
Jeanne almost wished she had. But the schoolmaster had strengthened her
opposition, or rather her dread, a little, quite unknowingly, and yet he
had given her more reverence and a longing for real faith.
"But I shall be thinking of the shepherds and the glad tidings. I
watched the stars last night, they were so beautiful. 'And they came and
stood over the place,' the schoolmaster read it to me. That was way over
the other side of the world, Pani."
The Indian woman shook her head. She was afraid of this strange
knowledge, and she had a vague idea that it must have happened here in
Detroit, since the Christ was born anew every year.
The stars were not all gone out of the sky. The crisp snow crunched
under their feet, although the moccasins were soft and warm; and
everybody was muffled in furs, even to hoods and pointed caps. Some
people were carrying lanterns, but they could find their way, straight
along St. Anne's street. The bell kept on until they stood in the church
porch.
"Thou wilt sit here, child."
Jeanne made no protest. She rather liked being hidden here in the
darkness.
There were the De Bers, then Marie and her lover, then Rose and Pierre.
How much did dull Pierre believe and understand? The master's faith
seemed simpler to her.
A little later was the regular Christmas service with the altar decked
in white and gold and the two fathers in their beautiful robes of
rejoicing, the candlesticks that had been sent from France a century
before, burnished to their brightest and the candles lighted. Behind the
screen the sisters and the children sang hymns, and some in the
congregation joined, though the men were much more at home in the music
of the violins and in the jollity.
Jeanne felt strangely serious, and half wished she was among the
children. It was the fear of having to become a nun that deterred her.
She could not understand how Berthe Campeau could leave her ailing
mother and go to Montreal for religion's sake. Madame Campeau was not
able to stand the journey even if she had wanted to go, but she and her
sister had had some differences, and, since Berthe would go, her son's
wife had kindly offered to care for her.
"And what there is left thou shalt have, Catherine," she said to her
daughter-in-law. "None of my money shall go to Montreal. It would be
only such a little while for Berthe to wait. I cannot last long."
So she had said for three years and Berthe had grown tired of waiting.
Her imagination fed on the life of devotion and exaltation that her aunt
wrote about.
At noon Marie De Ber was married. She shivered a little in her white
gown, for the church was cold. Her veil fell all over her and no one
could see whether her face was joyful or not. Truth to tell, she was
sadly frightened, but everybody was merry, and her husband wrapped her
in a fur cloak and packed her in his sledge. A procession followed, most
of them on foot, for there was to be a great dinner at Tony Beeson's.
Then, although the morning had been so lovely, the sky clouded over with
leaden gray and the wind came in great sullen gusts from Lake Huron. You
could hear it miles away, a fierce roar such as the droves of bisons
made, as if they were breaking in at your very door. Pani hung the
bearskin against the door and let down the fur curtains over the
windows. There was a bright log fire and Jeanne curled up on one side in
a wolfskin, resting her head on a cushion of cedar twigs that gave out a
pleasant fragrance. Pani sat quietly on the other side. There was no
light but the blaze. Neither was the Indian woman used to the small
industries some of the French took up when they had passed girlhood. In
a slow, phlegmatic fashion she used to go over her past life, raising up
from their graves, as it were, Madame de Longueil, Madame Bellestre, and
then Monsieur, though he never came from the shadowy grave, but a garden
that bore strange fruit, and where it was summer all the year round. She
had the gift of obedient faith, so she was a good Catholic, as far as
her own soul was concerned, but her duty toward the child often troubled
her.
Jeanne watched the blaze in a strange mood, her heart hot and angry at
one moment, proud and indifferent at the next. She said a dozen times a
day to herself that she didn't care a dead leaf for Marie, who had grown
so consequential and haughty, and Rose, who was full of her own
pleasure. It seemed as if other children had dropped out as well, but
then in this cold weather she could not run out to the farms or lead a
group of eager young people to see her do amazing feats. For she could
walk out on the limb of a tree and laugh while it swung up and down with
her weight, and then catch the limb of the next tree and fling herself
over, amid their shouts. No boy dared climb higher. She had caught
little owls who blinked at her with yellow eyes, but she always put them
back in the trees again.
"You wouldn't like to be carried away by fierce Indians," she said when
the children begged they might keep them. "They like their homes and
their mothers."
"As if an owl could tell who its mother was!" laughed a boy
disdainfully.
She had hardly known the feeling of loneliness. What did she do last
winter, she wondered? O yes, she played with the De Ber children, and
there were the Pallents, whom she seldom went to visit now, they seemed
so very ignorant. Ah--if it would come summer again!
"For the trees and the flowers and the birds are better than most
people," she ruminated. It must be because everybody had gone out of her
life that it appeared wide and strange. After all she did not care for
the De Bers and yet it seemed as if she had been stabbed to the heart.
Pierre and Marie had pretended to care so much for her. Then, in spite
of her sadness, she laughed.
"What is it amuses thee so, little one?" asked the Indian woman.
"I am not old enough to have a lover, Pani, am I?" and she looked out of
her furry wrap.
"No, child, no. What folly! Marie's wedding has set thee astray."
"And Pierre is a slow, stupid fellow."
"Pierre would be no match for thee, and I doubt if the De Bers would
countenance such a thing if he were older. That is nonsense."
"Pierre asked me to be his wife. He said twice that he wanted to marry
me--at the raising of the flag, when we were on the water, and one
Sunday in the autumn. I am not as old as Rose De Ber, even, so Marie
need not feel set upon a pinnacle because Tony Beeson marries her when
she is barely fifteen."
"Jeanne!" Pani's tone was horror stricken. "And it will make no end of
trouble. Madame De Ber is none too pleasant now."
"It will make no trouble. I said 'no' and 'no' and 'no,' until it was
like this mighty wind rushing through the forest, and he was very angry.
So I should not go to the De Bers any more. And, Pani, if I had a father
who would make me marry him when I was older, I should go and throw
myself into the Strait."
"His father sends him up in the fur country in the spring."
"What makes people run crazy when weddings are talked of? But if I
wanted to hold my head high and boast--"
"Oh, child, you could not be so silly!"
"No, Pani. And I shall be glad to have him go away. I do not want any
lovers."
The woman was utterly amazed, and then consoled herself with the thought
that it was merely child's play. They both lapsed into silence again.
But Jeanne's thoughts ran on. There was Louis Marsac. What if he
returned next summer and tormented her? A perplexing mood, half pride,
half disgust, filled her, and a serious elation at her own power which
thrills young feminine things when they first discover it; as well as
the shrinking into a new self-appropriation that thrusts out all such
matters. But she did not laugh over Louis Marsac. She felt afraid of
him, and she scrubbed her mouth where he had once kissed it.
There was another kiss on her hand. She held it up in the firelight. Ah,
if she had a father like M. St. Armand, and a brother like the young
man!
She was seized with an awful pang as if a swift, dark current was
bearing her away from every one but Pani. Why had her father and mother
been wrenched out of her life? She had seen a plant or a young shrub
swept out of its rightful place and tossed to and fro until some
stronger wave threw it upon the sandy edge, to droop and die. Was she
like that? Where had she been torn from? She had been thrown into Pani's
lap. She had never minded the little jeers before when the children had
called her a wild Indian. Was she nobody's child?
She had an impulse to jump about and storm around the room, to drag some
secret out of Pani, to grasp the world in her small hands and compel it
to disclose its knowledge. She looked steadily into the red fire and her
heart seemed bursting with the breath that could not find an outlet.
The bells began to ring again. "Come," "come," they said. Had she better
not go to the sisters and live with them? The Church would be father and
mother.
She bent down her head and cried very softly, for it seemed as if all
joy had gone out of her life. Pani fell asleep and snored.
But the next morning the world was lovelier than ever with the new
fallen snow. Men were shoveling it away from doorways and stamping it
down in the streets with their great boots, the soles being wooden and
the legs of fur. And they snowballed each other. The children joined and
rolled in the snow. Now and then a daring young fellow caught a
demoiselle and rubbed roses into her cheeks.
All the rest of the week was given over to holiday life. There were
great doings at the Citadel and in some of the grand houses. There were
dances and dinners, and weddings so brilliant that Marie De Ber's was
only a little rushlight in comparison.
The master went down to Marietta for a visit. Jeanne seemed like a
pendulum swinging this way and that. She was lonely and miserable. One
day the Church seemed a refuge, the next she shrank with a sort of
terror and longed for spring, as a drowning man longs for everything
that promises succor.
One morning Monsieur Loisel, the notary, came in with a grave and solemn
mien.
"I have news for thee, Pani and Mam'selle, a great word of sorrow, and
it grieves me to be the bearer of it. Yet the good Lord has a right to
his own, for I cannot doubt but that Madame Bellestre's intercession has
been of some avail. And Monsieur Bellestre was an upright, honorable,
kindly man."
"Monsieur Bellestre is dead," said Pani with the shock of a sudden
revelation.
Jeanne stood motionless. Then he could never come back! And, oh, what if
Monsieur St. Armand never came back!
"Yes. Heaven rest his soul, say I, and so does the good Father Rameau.
For his gift to the Church seems an act of faith."
"And Jeanne?" inquired the woman tremblingly.
"It is about the child I have come to talk. Monsieur Bellestre has made
some provision for her, queerly worded, too."
"Oh, he does not take her away from me!" cried the foster mother in
anguish.
"No. He had some strange notions not in accord with the Church, we all
know, that liberty to follow one's opinion is a good thing. It is not
always so in worldly affairs even, but of late years it has come largely
in vogue in religious matters. And here is the part of his will that
pertains to her. You would not understand the preamble, so I will tell
it in plain words. To you, Pani, is given the house and a sum of money
each year. To the child is left a yearly portion until she is sixteen,
then, if she becomes a Catholic and chooses the lot of a sister, it
ceases. Otherwise it is continued until she is married, when she is
given a sum for a dowry. And at your death your income reverts to the
Bellestre estate."
"Monsieur Bellestre did not want me to become a nun, then?"
Jeanne asked the question gravely as a woman.
"It seems not, Mam'selle. He thinks some one may come to claim you, but
that is hardly probable after all these years;" and there was a dryness
in the notary's tone. "You are to be educated, but I think the sisters
know better what is needful for a girl. There are no restrictions,
however. I am to see that the will is carried out, and the new court is
to appoint what is called a guardian. The money is to be sent to me
every six months. It surely is a great shame Mam'selle has no male
relatives."
"Shall we have to change, Monsieur?" asked Pani with a dread in her
voice.
"Oh, no; unless Mam'selle should--" he looked questioningly at the girl.
"I shall never leave Pani." She came and stretching up clasped her arms
about the woman's neck as she had in her babyhood. "And I like to go to
school to the master."
"M. Bellestre counts this way, that you were three years old when you
came to Detroit. That was nine years ago. And that you are twelve now.
So there are four years--"
"It looks a long while, but the past does not seem so. Why, last winter
is like the turn of your hand," and she turned hers over with a smile.
"Many things may happen in four years." No doubt she would have a lover
and marry. "Let me go over it again."
They both listened, Jeanne wide-eyed, Pani nodding her head slowly.
"I must tell you that M. Bellestre left fifty pounds to Father Rameau
for any purpose he considered best. And now the court will take it in
hand, but these new American courts are all in confusion and very slow.
Still, as there is to be no change, and the money will come through me
as before, why, there will be no trouble."
Pani nodded again but made no comment. She could hardly settle her mind
to the fact of Monsieur Bellestre's death.
"Allow me to congratulate you, Mam'selle, on having so sincere a
friend." M. Loisel held out his hand.
"If he had but come back! I do not care for the money."
"Still, money is a very good thing. Well, we will have several more
talks about this. Adieu, Mam'selle. My business is ended at present."
He bowed politely as he went out; but he thought, "It is a crazy thing
leaving her to the care of that old Indian woman. Surely he could not
have distrusted Father Rameau? And though the good father is quite
sure--well, it does not do for anyone to be too sure in this world."
Father Rameau came that very afternoon and had a long talk with Pani. He
did not quite understand why M. Bellestre should be so opposed to the
Church taking charge of the child, since she was not in the hands of any
relative. But he had promised Pani she should not be separated from her,
indeed, no one had a better right to her, he felt.
M. Bellestre's family were strong Huguenots, and had been made to suffer
severely for their faith in Old France, and not a little in the new
country. He had not cordially loved the English, but he felt that the
larger liberty had been better for the settlement, and that education
was the foe to superstition and bigotry, as well as ignorance. While he
admitted to himself, and frankly to the town, the many excellencies of
the priest, it was the system, that held the people in bondage and
denied enlightenment, that he protested against. It was with great pain
that he had discovered his wife's gradual absorption, but knowing death
was at hand he could not deny her last request. But the child should
choose for herself, and, if under Pani's influence she should become a
Catholic, he would not demur. From time to time he had accounts from M.
Loisel, and he had been pleased with the desire of the child for
education. She should have that satisfaction.
And now spring was coming again. The sense of freedom and rejoicing
broke out anew in Jeanne, but she found herself restrained by some
curious power that was finer than mere propriety. She was growing older
and knowledge enlarged her thoughts and feelings, stirred a strange
something within her that was ambition, though she knew it not; she had
not grown accustomed to the names of qualities.
The master was taking great pride in her, and gave her the few
advantages within his reach. Detroit was being slowly remodeled, but it
was discouraging work, since the French settlers were satisfied with
their own ways, and looked with suspicion on improvements even in many
simple devices for farming.
With the fur season the town was in wild confusion and holiday jollity
prevailed. There were Indians with packs; and the old race of the
_coureurs des bois_, who were still picturesque with their red sashes
and jaunty habiliments. They were wild men of the woods, who had thrown
off the restraints of civilized life and who hunted as much for the
pleasure as the profit. They could live in a wigwam, they could join
Indian dances, they were brave, hardy, but in some instances savage as
the Indians themselves and quite as lawless. A century ago they had been
the pioneers of the fur hunters, with many a courageous explorer among
them. The newer organizations of the fur companies had curtailed their
power and their numbers had dwindled, but they kept up their wild
habits, and this was the carouse of the whole year.
It was a busy season. There was great chaffering, disputing, and not a
few fights, though guards were detailed along the river front to keep
the peace as far as was possible. Boats were being loaded for Montreal,
cargoes to be shipped down the Hudson and from thence abroad, with mink
and otter and beaver, beautiful fox furs, white wolf and occasionally a
white bear skin that dealers would quarrel about.
Then the stores of provisions to be sent back to the trappers and
hunters, the clothes and blankets and trinkets for the Indians, kept
shopkeepers busy day and night, and poured money into their coffers. New
men were going out,--to an adventurous young fellow this seemed the
great opportunity of his life.
Jeanne Angelot's fortune had been noised abroad somewhat, though she
paid little attention to it even in her thoughts. But she was a girl
with a dowry now, and she was not only growing tall but strangely pretty
as well. Her skin was fairer, her hair, which still fell in loose
curls, was kept in better order. Coif she would not wear, but sometimes
she tied a bright kerchief under her chin and looked bewitching.
French mothers of sons were never averse to a dowry, although men were
so in want of wives that few went begging for husbands. Women paused to
chat with Pani and make kindly inquiries about her charge. Even Madame
De Ber softened. She was opposed to Pierre's going north with the
hunters, but he was so eager and his father considered it a good thing.
And now he was a strapping big fellow, taller than his father, slowly
shaping up into manhood.
"Thou hast not been to visit Marie?" she said one day on meeting Jeanne
face to face. "She has spoken of it. Last year you were such a child,
but now you have quite grown and will be companionable. All the girls
have visited her. Her husband is most excellent."
"I have been busy with lessons," said Jeanne with some embarrassment.
Then, with a little pride--"Marie dropped me, and if I were not to be
welcome--"
"Chut! chut! Marie had to put on a little dignity. A child like you
should bear no malice."
"But--she sent me no invitation."
"Then I must chide her. And it will be pleasant down there in the
summer. Do you know that Pierre goes back with the hunters?"
"I have heard--yes."
"It is not my wish, but if he can make money in his youth so much the
better. And the others are growing up to fill his place. Good day to
thee, Jeanne."
That noon Madame De Ber said to her husband, "Jeanne Angelot improves
greatly. Perhaps the school will do her no harm. She is rather sharp
with her replies, but she always had a saucy tongue. A girl needs a
mother to correct her, and Pani spoils her."
"She will have quite a dowry, I have heard," remarked her husband.
Pierre flushed a little at this pleasant mention of her name. If Jeanne
only walked down in the town like some of the girls! If Rose might ask
her to go!
But Rose did not dare, and then there was Martin ready to waylay her.
Three were awkward when you liked best to have a young man to yourself.
How many times Pierre had watched her unseen, her lithe figure that
seemed always atilt even when wrapped in furs, and her starry eyes
gleaming out of her fur hood. Not even Rose could compare with her in
that curious daintiness, though Pierre would have been at loss to
describe it, since his vocabulary was limited, but he felt it in every
slow beating pulse. He had resolved to speak, but she never gave him the
opportunity. She flashed by him as if she had never known him.
But he must say good-by to her. There was Madelon Dace, who had
quarreled with her lover and gone to a dance with some one else and held
her head high, never looking to the right or the left, and then as
suddenly melted into sweetness and they would be married. Yet Madelon
had said to his sister Marie, "I will never speak to him, never!" What
had he done to offend Jeanne so deeply? Girls were not usually angered
at a man falling in love with them.
So Pierre's pack was made up. In the autumn they could send again. He
took tea the last time with Marie. The boats were all ready to start up
the Huron.
He went boldly to the little cottage and said courageously to Pani,
though his heart seemed to quake almost down to his feet, "I am going
away at noon. I have come to say good-by to Jeanne--and to you," put in
as an afterthought.
"What a great fellow you are, Pierre! I wish you good luck. Jeanne--"
Jeanne had almost forgotten her childish anger, and the love making was
silly, even in remembrance.
"Surely I wish thee good luck, Pierre," she said formally, with a smile
not too warm about her rosy lips. "And a fortunate hunting and trading."
"A safe return, Mam'selle, put that in," he pleaded.
"A safe return."
Then they shook hands and he went his way, thinking with great comfort
that she had not flouted him.
It was quite a great thing to see the boats go out. Sweethearts and
wives congregated on the wharves. Some few brave women went with their
husbands. Other ships were setting out for Montreal well loaded, and one
or two were carrying a gay lot of passengers.
After a few weeks, quiet returned, the streets were no longer crowded
and the noisy reveling was over for a while. The farmers were busy out
of doors, cattle were lowing, chanticleer rang out his call to work in
the early morn, and busy hens were caroling in cheerful if unmusical
voices. Trees budded into a beautiful haze and then sprang into leaf,
into bloom. The rough social hilarity was over for a while.
A few of the emigrant farmers laughed at the clumsy, wasteful French
methods and tried their own, which were laughed at in turn, but there
was little disputing.
Easter had fallen early and it had been cold, but Whitsuntide made
amends, and was, if anything, a greater festival. For a procession
formed at St. Anne's, young girls in gala attire, smart, middle-aged
women with new caps and kerchiefs, husbands and sons, and not a few
children, and marched out of the Pontiac gate, as it was called in
remembrance of the long siege. Forty years before Jacques Campeau had
built the first little outside chapel on his farm, which had a great
stretch of ground. The air was full of the fragrance of fruit blossoms
and hardly needed incense. Ah, how beautiful it was in a sort of
pastoral simplicity! And after saying mass, Father Frechette blessed and
prayed for fertile fields and good crops and generous hearts that tithes
might not be withheld, and the faithful rewarded. Then they went to the
Fulcher farm, where, in a chapel not much more than a shrine, the
service was again said with the people kneeling around in the grass. The
farmers and good housewives placed more faith in this than in the
methods of the newcomers with their American wisdom. But it was a
pleasing service. The procession changed about a little,--the young men
walking with the demoiselles and whispering in their listening ears.
Jeanne was with them. Madame De Ber was quite gracious, and Marie Beeson
singled her out. It had been a cold winter and a backward spring and
Marie had not gone anywhere. Tony was so exigent, and she laughed and
bridled. It was a very happy thing to be married and have some one care
for you. And soon she would give a tea drinking and she would send for
Jeanne, who must be sure to come.
But Jeanne had a strange, dreary feeling. She seemed between everything,
no longer a child and not a woman, not a part of the Church, not a part
of anything. She felt afraid of the future. Oh, what was her share of
the bright, beautiful world?