A HEARTACHE FOR SOME ONE.
"Jeanne," exclaimed Father Rameau, "thou art wanted at the Chapter
house."
He stood in the doorway of the little cottage and glanced curiously at
the two inmates. Pani often amused herself cutting fringe for Wenonah,
under the impression that it was needed in haste, and she was very happy
over it. A bowl of violets and wild honeysuckle stood on the table, and
some green branches hung about giving the room the odor of the new
season and an air of rejoicing.
"What now?" She took his wrinkled old hand in hers so plump and dimpled.
"Have I committed some new sin? I have been so glad for days and days
that I could only rejoice."
"No, not sin. It is to hear a strange story and to be happier, perhaps."
He looked curiously at her. "Oh, something has happened!" she cried. Was
it possible M. St. Armand had returned? For days her mind had been full
of him. And he would be the guest of the Fleurys.
"Yes, I should spoil it in the telling, and I had strict injunctions."
There was an air of mystery about him.
Surely there was no trouble. But what could they want with her? A
strange story! Could some one have learned about her mother or her
father?
"I will change my attire in a moment. Pani, Margot will gladly come and
keep you company."
"Nay, little one, I am not a baby to be watched," Pani protested.
Jeanne laughed. She looked very sweet and charming in her blue and white
frock made in a plain fashion, for it did not seem becoming in her to
simulate the style of the great ladies. A soft, white kerchief was drawn
in a knot about her shoulders, showing the shapely throat that was
nearer ivory than pearl. In the knot she drew a few violets. Head gear
she usually disdained, but now she put over her curls a dainty white cap
that made a delicious contrast with the dark rings nestling below the
edge. A pretty, lissome girl, with a step so light it would not have
crushed the grass under her feet, had there been any.
"There seems a great stir in the town," she said.
They had turned into St. Anne's street and were going toward the church.
"The new Governor General Hull is to come in a few weeks, and the
officers have word to look him up a home, for governors have not lived
in Detroit before. No doubt there will be fine times among the
Americans."
"And there flies a white flag down at the river's edge--has that
something to do with it?"
"Oh, the boat came in last evening. It is one of the great men up at the
North, I think in the fur company. But he has much influence over the
Indian tribes, and somehow there is a whisper that there may be
disaffection and another union such as there was in Pontiac's time,
which heaven forbid! He is called the White Chief."
"The White Chief!" Jeanne stopped short in a maze of astonishment.
"That has nothing to do with thee," said the priest. He preferred her
interest to run in another channel.
"But--I was on his island. I saw his wife and children, you remember.
Oh, I must see him--"
"Not now;"--and her guide put out his hand.
"Oh, no," and she gave a short laugh. "As if I would go running after a
strange man; a great chief! But he is not an Indian. He is French."
"I do remember, yes. There seems a great commotion, as if all the ships
had come in. The winter was so long and cold that business is all the
more brisk. Here, child, pay a little attention to where you are going.
There is a lack of reverence in you young people that pains me."
"Pardon me, father." Jeanne knelt on the church steps and crossed
herself. She had run up here in the dark the first night she had been
back in Detroit, just to kneel and give thanks, but she had told no one.
Then she walked decorously beside him. There was the Chapel of Retreat,
a room where the nuns came and spent hours on their knees. They passed
that, going down a wide hall. On one side some young girls sat doing
fine embroidery for religious purposes. At the end a kind of reception
room, and there were several people in this now, two priests and three
woman in the garb of Ursuline nuns.
Jeanne glanced around. A sort of chill crept over her. The room was bare
and plain except a statue of the Virgin, and some candles and
crucifixes. Nearly in the center stood a table with a book of devotions
on it.
"This is Jeanne Angelot," exclaimed Father Rameau. She, in her youth and
health and beauty, coming out of the warm and glowing sunshine of May,
brought with her an atmosphere and radiance that seemed like a sudden
sunrise in the dingy apartment. The three women in the coif and gown of
the Ursulines fingered their beads and, after sharp glances at the maid,
dropped their eyes, and their faces fell into stolid lines.
Another woman rose from the far corner and her gown made a swish on the
bare floor. She came almost up to Jeanne, who shrank back in an
inexplicable terror, a motion that brought a spasm of color to the
newcomer's face, and a gasp for breath.
She was, perhaps, a little above the medium height, slim alway and now
very thin. Her eyes were sunken, with grayish shadows underneath, her
cheeks had a hollow where fullness should have been, her lips were
compressed in a nearly straight line. She was not old, but asceticism
had robbed her of every indication of youth, had made severity the
leading indication in her countenance.
"Jeanne Angelot," she repeated. "You are quite sure, Father, those
garments belonged to her?"
The poor woman felt the secret antipathy and she, too, seemed to
contract, to realize the mysterious distance between them, the
unlikeness of which she had not dreamed. For in her narrow life of
devotion she had endeavored to crucify all human feelings and
affections. That was her bounden duty for her girlhood's sin. Girls were
poor, weak creatures and their wills counseled them wrongly, wickedly.
She had come to snatch this child, the result of her own selfish dreams,
her waywardness, from a like fate. She should be housed, safe, kept from
evil. The nun, too, had dreamed, although Berthe Campeau had said, "She
is a wild little thing and it is suspected she has Indian blood in her
veins." But it was the rescue of a soul to the service of God, the soul
she was answerable for, not the ardor of human love.
The father made a slow inclination of the head.
"They were upon her that night she was dropped in the Pani's lap, and
the card pinned to her. Then two letters curiously wrought upon her
thigh."
"Jeanne, Jeanne, I am your mother."
It was the woman who was the suppliant, who felt a strange misgiving
about this spirited girl with resolute eyes and poise of the head like a
bird who would fly the next moment. And yet it was not the entreaty of
starved and waiting love, that would have clasped arms about the slim,
proud figure that stood almost defiant, suspicious, unbelieving.
The others had heard the story and there was no surprise in their
countenances.
Jeanne seemed at first like a marble image. The color went out of her
cheeks but her eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the woman, their blue so
clear, so penetrating, that she shrank farther into herself, seemed
thinner and more wan.
"Your mother," and Father Rameau would fain have taken the girl's hand,
but she suddenly clasped them behind her back. There was incredulity in
the look, repulsion. What if there were some plot? She glanced at Father
Gilbert but his cold eyes expressed only disapprobation.
"My mother," she said slowly. "My mother has been dead years, and I owe
love and gratitude to the Indian woman, Pani, who has cared for me with
all fondness."
"You do not as yet understand," interposed Father Rameau. "You have not
heard the story."
She had in her mind the splendid motherhood of Miladi as she had seen it
in that beautiful island home.
"A mother would not desert her child and leave it to the care of
strangers, Indian enemies perhaps, and send a message that she was
dead," was the proud reply.
Jeanne Angelot's words cut like a knife. There was no sign of belief in
her eyes, no dawning tenderness.
The woman bowed her head over her clasped hands and swayed as if she
would fall.
"It is right," she answered in a voice that might have come from the
grave. "It is part of my punishment. I had no right to bring this child
into the world. Holy Mother, I accept, but let me snatch her soul from
perdition!"
Jeanne's face flamed scarlet. "I trust the good Father above," she
declared with an accent of uplifted faith that irradiated her with
serene strength. "Once in great peril he saved me. I will trust my cause
to him and he will clear my way."
"Thou ignorant child!" declared Father Gilbert. "Thou hast no human love
in thy breast. There must be days and weeks of penance and discipline
before thou art worthy even to touch this woman's hand. She is thy
mother. None other hath any right to thee. Thou must be trained in
obedience, in respect; thy pride and indifference must be cast out, evil
spirits that they be. She hath suffered for thy sake; she must have
amends when thou art in thy right mind. Thou wert given to the Church in
Holy Baptism, and now she will reclaim thee."
Jeanne turned like a stag at bay, proud, daring, defiant. It was some
evil plot. Could a true mother lend herself to such a cruel scheme? Why
was she not drawn to her, instead of experiencing this fear and
repulsion? Would they keep her here, shut her up in a dark room as they
had years ago, when she had kicked and screamed until Father Rameau had
let her out to liberty and the glorious sunlight? Could she not make one
wild dash now--
There was a shuffling of steps in the hall and a glitter of trappings.
The Commandant of the Fort stepped forward to the doorway and glanced
in. The priests questioned with their eyes, the nuns turned aside.
"We were told we should find Father Rameau here. There is some curious
business. Ah, here is the girl herself, Mademoiselle Jeanne Angelot.
There is a gentleman here desirous of meeting her, and has a strange
story for her ear. Can we have a private room--"
"Mademoiselle Jeanne Angelot is in the care of the Church and her
mother, who has come to claim her;" was the emphatic reply.
"Her mother!" The man beside the Commandant stepped forward. "Her mother
is dead," he said, gravely.
"The Sieur Gaston de la Touche Angelot, better known by repute as the
White Chief of the Island," announced the officer; and the guest bowed
to them all.
The woman fell on her knees and bowed her head to the floor. The man
glanced about the small concourse. He was tall, nearer forty than
thirty, of a fine presence, and, though bronzed by exposure, was
handsome, and not only that, but noble as to face; the kind of man to
compel admiration and respect, and with the air of authority that sways
in an unquestioning manner. His eyes rested on the girl. The same proud
bearing, though with virginal softness and pliability, the same large
steady eyes, both with the wondering look as they rushed to each other's
glance.
"If the tale I have heard, or rather have pieced out from vague bits and
suggestions, and the similarity of name be true, I think I have a right
to claim this girl as my daughter, supposed dead for years. There were
some trinkets found on her, and there were two initials wrought in her
fair baby limb by my hand. Can I see these articles?"
Then he crossed to the girl and studied her from head to foot, smiled
with a little triumph, and faced the astonished group.
"I have marked her with my eyes as well," he said with a smile. "Jeanne,
do you not feel that the same blood flows through our veins? Does not
some mysterious voice of nature assure you that I am your father, even
before the proofs are brought to light? You must know--"
Ah, did she not know! The voice spoke with no uncertain sound. Jeanne
Angelot went to her father's arms.
The little group were so astounded that no one spoke. The woman still
knelt, nay, shriveled in a little heap.
"She has fainted," and one of the sisters went to her, "Help, let us
carry her into the next room."
They bore her away. Father Gilbert turned fiercely to the Sieur Angelot.
"There might be some question as to rights in the child," he said, in a
clear, cold tone. "When did the Sieur repudiate his early marriage? He
has on his island home a new wife and children."
"Death ends the most sacred of all ties for this world. Coming to meet
me the party were captured by a band of marauding Indians. Few escaped.
Months afterward I had the account from one of the survivors. The
child's preservation must have been a miracle. And that she has been
here years--" he pressed her closer to his heart.
"Monsieur Angelot, I think you will not need us in the untangling of
this strange incident, but we shall be glad to hear its ending. I shall
expect you to dine with me as by previous arrangement. I wish you might
bring your pretty daughter."
The Commandant bowed to the company and turned, attended by his suite.
When their soldierly tread had ceased on the steps, Father Gilbert
confronted the White Chief.
"Your wife," he began in an authoritative tone, fixing his keen eyes on
the Sieur Angelot, "your wife whom you tempted from her vows and
unlawfully married is still alive. I think she can demand her child."
Jeanne clung closer to her father and his inmost soul responded. But
aloud he exclaimed in a horrified tone, "Good God!" Then in a moment,
turning almost fiercely to the priest, "Why did she give away her child
and let it be thought a foundling? For if the story is true she has been
little better than a waif, a foundling of Detroit."
"She was dying and intended to send it to you. She had to intrust it to
a kind-hearted squaw. What happened then will never be known, until one
evening it was dropped in the lap of this Pani woman who has been foster
mother."
"Is this so, Jeanne?" He raised the flushed face and looked into the
eyes with a glance that would have been stern had it not been so full of
love.
"It is so," she made answer in a soft, clear voice. "She has been a
mother to me and I love her. She is old and I will never be separated
from her."
"There spoke the loyal child. And now, reverend father, where is this
wife? It is a serious complication. But if, as you say, I married her
unlawfully--"
"You enticed her from the convent." There was the severity of the judge
in the tone.
"_Parbleu!_ It did not need much enticing," and a half smile crossed his
handsome face while his eyes softened. "We were both in love and she
abhorred the monotony of convent life. We were of different faiths; that
should have made me pause, but I thought then that love righted
everything. I was of an adventurous turn and mightily stirred by the
tales of the new world. Huguenot faith was not in favor in France, and I
resolved to seek my fortunes elsewhere. She could not endure the
parting. Yes, Father, since she had not taken any vow, not even begun
her novitiate, I overpersuaded her. We were married in my faith. We came
to this new world, and in Boston this child was born. We were still very
happy. But I could not idle my life doing things befitting womankind. We
came to Albany, and there I found some traders who told stirring tales
of the great North and the fortunes made in the fur trade. My wife did
oppose my going, but the enthusiasm of love, if I may call it so, had
begun to wane. She had misgivings as to whether she had done right in
marrying me--"
"As a true daughter of the Church would," interrupted the priest
severely.
"I was willing that she should return to her own faith, which she did. I
left her in good hands. Fortune favored me. I liked the stir and
excitement, the out-of-door life, the glamour of adventures. I found men
who were of the same cast of mind. To be sure, there were dangers, there
was also the pleasure and gratification of leadership, of subduing
savage natures. When I had resolved to settle in the North I sent to my
wife by a messenger and received answer that since I thought it best she
would come to me. I felt that she had no longing for the wild life, but
I meant to do my utmost to satisfy her. There was her Church at St.
Ignace, there were kindly priests, and some charming and heroic women.
With my love to shield her I felt she must be happy. There was a company
to leave Albany, enough it was thought to make traveling safe, for
Indians were still troublesome. I made arrangements for her to join
them, and was to meet them at Detroit. Alas! word came that, while they
were still some distance from their point of embarkation on Lake Erie,
they were set upon and massacred by a body of roving Indians. Instead of
my beloved wife I met one of the survivors in Detroit and heard the
terrible story. Not a woman in the party had escaped. The Indians had
not burthened themselves with troublesome prisoners. I returned to
Michilimackinac with a heart bowed down with grief. There was the
comfortable home awaiting my wife, made as pretty as it had been
possible to do. I could not endure it and joined some members of the
company going to Hudson Bay. I made some fresh efforts to learn if
anything further had been heard, but no word ever came. It is true that
I married again. It does not seem possible that a once wedded wife
should have lived all these years and made no effort to communicate with
her husband, who, after all, could have been found. And though for years
I have been known as the White Chief, from a curious power I have gained
over the Indians, the hunters, and traders, I am also known as the Sieur
Angelot."
He stood proudly before them, his handsome, weather-bronzed face bearing
the impress of truth, his eyes shining with the clearest, highest honor.
The child Jeanne felt the stiffening of every muscle, and it went
through her with a thrill of joy.
"It is a long story," began Father Rameau, gently, "a strange one, too.
Through the courage and craftiness of a Miami squaw, who had been a sort
of maid to Madame Angelot, she escaped death. They hid in the woods and
subsisted on anything they could find until Madame could go no farther.
She thought herself dying, and implored the woman to take her babe to
Detroit and find its father, and she lay down in a leafy covert to die.
In that hour she repented bitterly of her course in leaving the convent
and listening to a forbidden love. She prayed God to believe if it were
to do over again she would hearken to the voice of the Church, and hoped
this fervent repentance would be remembered in her behalf. Then she
resigned herself to death. But in the providence of the good All Father
she was rescued by another party and taken to a farmhouse not far
distant. Here were two devoted women who were going to Montreal to enter
the convent, and were to embark at a point on Lake Ontario, where a boat
going North would touch. They nursed her for several weeks before she
was able to travel, and then she decided to cast in her lot with them.
Her husband, no doubt, had the child. She was dead to the world. She
belonged henceforward to the Church and to the service of God. Moreover,
it was what she desired. She had tried worldly love and her own will,
and been unhappy in it. Monsieur, she was born for a devotee. It was a
sad mistake when she yielded to your persuasions. Her parents had
destined her for the convent, and she had a double debt to pay. The
marriage was unlawful and she was absolved from it."
"Then I was free also. It cannot bind on one side and loose on the
other. I believe you have said rightly. She was not happy, though I
think even now she will tell you that I did all in my power. I did not
oppose her going back to her first faith, although then I would have
fought against this disruption of the marriage tie."
"It was no marriage in God's sight, with a heretic," interposed Father
Gilbert. "She repented her waywardness bitterly. God made her to see it
through sore trial. But the child is hers."
"Not when you admit that she sent it to me, gave me the right," was the
confident reply.
He pressed Jeanne closer and with a strength that said, "I will fight
for you." The proud dignity of his carriage, the resolution in his face,
indicated that he would not be an easy enemy to combat. There was a
strange silence, as if no one could tell what would be the next move. He
broke it, however.
"The child shall decide," he said. "She shall hear her mother's story,
and then mine. She shall select with whom she will spend the coming
years. God knows I should have been glad enough to have had her then. By
what sad mistake fate should have traversed the mother's wishes, and
given her these wasted years, I cannot divine."
They were only to guess at that. The Miami woman had grown tired of her
charge, so unlike the papooses of the Indian mothers. Then, too, it was
heavy to carry, difficult to feed. She met a party of her own tribe and
resolved to cast in her destiny with them. They were going into Ohio to
meet some scattered members of their people, and to effect a union with
other Indian nations, looking to the recovery of much of their power.
She went up to Detroit in a canoe, and, taking the sleeping child,
reconnoitered awhile; finally, seeing Pani sitting alone under a great
tree, she dropped the child into her lap and ran swiftly away, feeling
confident the father would in some way discover the little one, since
her name was pinned to her clothing. Then she rowed rapidly back, her
Indian ideas quite satisfied.
"I wonder if I might see"--what should he call her?--"Jeanne's mother."
Word came back that the nun was too much enfeebled to grant him an
interview. But she would receive the child. Jeanne clung to her father
and glanced up with entreating eyes.
"I will wait for you. Yes, see her. Hear her story first." The child
followed the sister reluctantly. Sieur Angelot, who had been standing,
now took a seat.
"I should like to see the trinkets you spoke of--and the clothes," he
said with an air of authority.
Father Rameau brought them. Father Gilbert and the sister retired to an
adjoining room.
"Yes," the Sieur remarked, "this is our miniature. It was done in
Boston. And the ring was my gift to the child when she was a year old;
it was much too big," and he smiled. "And the little garments. You are
to be thanked most sincerely for keeping them so carefully. Tell me
something about the life of the child."
Father Rameau had been so intimately connected with it, that he was a
most excellent narrator. The episode with the Bellestres and Monsieur's
kindly care, the efforts to subdue in some measure the child's wildness
and passion for liberty, which made the father smile, thinking of his
own exuberant spirits and adventures, her affection for the Indian
woman, her desultory training, that Father Rameau believed now had been
a sinful mistake, her strange disappearance--
"That gave me the clew," interrupted his hearer. "By some mysterious
chain of events she was brought to her father's house. I was up North at
the time, and only recently heard the story. The name Jeanne Angelot
roused me. There could not be a mistake. Some miracle must have
intervened to save the child. Then I came at once. But you think
she--the mother--believes her marriage was a sin?" What if she still
cared?
The Sieur asked it with great hesitation. He thought of the proud,
loving wife, the spirited, beautiful boys, the dainty little
daughter--no, he could not relinquish them.
"She is vowed to the Church now, and is at rest. Nothing you can say
will disturb her. The good Bishop of Montreal absolved her from her
wrongful vow. While we hold marriage as sacred and indissoluble, it has
to be a true marriage and with the sanction of the Church. This had no
priestly blessing or benediction. And she repented of it. For years she
has been in the service of the Lord."
He was glad to hear this. Down in his heart he knew how she had
tormented her tender conscience with vain and rigorous questions and had
made herself unhappy in pondering them. But he thought their new life
together would neutralize this tendency and bring them closer in unison.
Had she, indeed, made such a sad mistake in her feelings as to give him
only an enthusiastic but temporary affection, when she was ready to
throw up all the beliefs and the training of her youth? But then the
convent round looked dreary to her.
Jeanne came from the room where she had been listening to her mother's
story of self-blame and present abhorrence for the step she had so
unwisely taken in yielding to one who should have been nothing to her.
"But you loved him then!" cried Jeanne, vehemently, thinking of the
other woman whose joy and pride was centered in the Sieur Angelot.
"It was a sinful fancy, a temptation of the evil one. I should have
struggled against it. I should have resigned myself to the life laid out
for me. A man's love is a delusion. Oh, my child, there is nothing like
the continual service of God to keep one from evil. The joys of the
world are but as dust and ashes, nay, worse, they leave an ineradicable
stain that not even prayer and penance can wash out. And this is why I
have come to warn, to reclaim you, if possible. When I heard the story
from a devoted young sister, whose name in the world was Berthe Campeau,
I said I must go and snatch the soul of my child from the shadow of
perdition that hangs over her."
Berthe Campeau! How strange it was that the other mother, nearing the
end of life, should have plead with her child to stay a little longer in
the world and wait until she was gone before she buried herself in
convent walls!
Was it a happy life, even a life of resignation, that had left such
lines in her mother's face? She was hardly in the prime of life, but
she looked old already. Instead of being drawn to sympathize with her,
Jeanne was repelled. Her mother did not want her for solace and human
love and sympathy, but simply to keep her from evil. Was affection such
a sin? She could love her father, yes, she could love M. St. Armand; and
the Indian woman with her superstitions, her ignorance, was very, very
dear. And she liked brightness, happy faces, the wide out-of-doors with
its birds' songs, its waving trees, its fragrant breathing from shrub
and flower that filled one with joy. Pani kissed her and clasped her to
her heart, held her in her arms, smoothed the tangled curls, sometimes
kissed them, too, caressed her soft, dainty hands as if they were
another human being. This woman was her mother, but there was no
passionate longing in her eyes, no tender possessing grasp in the hands
that lay limp and colorless on her black gown. And Jeanne would have
been still more horrified if she had known that those eyes looked upon
her as part of a sinful life she had overcome by nights of vigil and
days of solitude in work and prayer that she had once abhorred and fled
from. Yet she pitied her profoundly. She longed to comfort her, but the
nun did not want the comfort of human love.
"No, I cannot decide," Jeanne cried, and yet she knew in her soul she
had decided.
She came out to her father with tears in her eyes, but the shelter of
his arms was so strong and safe.
"Reverend fathers," the Sieur Angelot said, with a grave inclination of
the head, "I thank you for your patience and courtesy. I can appreciate
your feelings, too, but I think the law will uphold me in my claim to my
daughter. And in my estimation Jeanne de Burre committed no sin in
marrying me, and I would ever have been a faithful husband to her. But
the decision of the Church seems most in consonance with her feelings. I
have the honor of wishing you good day."