_A PILGRIMAGE TO MOUNT ROYAL._
THE long anxious days that followed the departure of the troops, with
little occupation save that of watching and waiting, with endless
dreadful suggestions of what might be happening, were a severe ordeal to
the whole settlement. It seemed as though a trifle might turn the
balance—might mean ruin, total destruction of all hopes and plans, or,
on the other hand, afford the blessed sweetness of relief.
With Diane the flame of suffering burned so fiercely that it permitted
no rest. She could allow herself to look neither backward nor forward.
Suddenly swept out of the joy of her youth into circumstances so
desperate—waiting, dumb and steadfast, before the necessity which could
not be resisted—there were moments of wild rebellion of spirit,
paroxysms of impatience with life and its complications, a longing to
escape this restless wretchedness, which was almost unbearable,
alternating with brief, ecstatic moments of complete self-renunciation.
What was the strength of her womanhood good for, the French girl asked
herself, if not to teach her to tread with calm fortitude those dark
paths which seem to be the only way to heaven; if not to afford solace
to those dependent upon her ministries, to lead her to endure, with high
heart and constancy, the buffets of fortune.
Three days had passed, and yet to Ville Marie, waiting in anxiety, no
news had come. M. de Valrenne had promised to send a messenger directly
he could secure any tidings of the enemy’s movements, and many regarded
this prolonged silence as ominous of disaster.
The night of the third day was oppressively warm; the landscape lay
wrapped in a soft incense-breathing obscurity. The feverish excitement
tingling in Diane de Monesthrol’s veins drove away all thought of sleep.
Suspense imparted an unnatural keenness to all her faculties,
imagination was stimulated to the highest point, fears and fancies
thronged her excited brain. Her pulses leapt with a prescient thrill of
some blow about to fall. She was convinced that a supreme crisis had
arrived, the endurance of which would tax her strength to the utmost. It
seemed as though, in the midst of her gay and fearless career, she had
been caught in the gigantic iron hand of a ruthless Fate that could not
fail to crush her.
Suddenly her whole being seemed to contract and shiver, with a nameless
agony of apprehension. She could no longer endure the house, which
seemed to stifle her; perhaps the cool night air might relieve this
overpowering horror. Breathless, trembling, she rushed out into the
garden. Over Mount Royal the moon was shining in a cloudless sky, its
sheen lighting up the tin roof of Notre Dame until it shone like silver,
illuminating the dark foliage of the quaint garden, and driving its
lances of pearly light through the close-woven branches. Beneath the
shade a sort of mystic twilight prevailed; the dim trees rose in soft
undulations half veiled in the faint and dreamy light. In the silent
hush of nature the dew fell like a benediction; all the breathings of
night were suggestive of peace and balm.
Diane moved amidst the familiar scene with a dazed and bewildered
consciousness that made all her surroundings appear like the dim reality
of a dream. This ethereal twilight, with its pale, ineffable clearness,
seemed to be the hour of tender reveries, of delicate visions. She
heard, without heeding, a hundred crackling sounds—echoes, movements,
the rustling of leaves, the occasional twittering of some bird disturbed
in its nest. A depression deep and dark, the inevitable reaction
succeeding a long strain of agitation, took possession of her. The
feverish energy which had until now sustained her gave out, and with the
physical exhaustion came the mental. All the pain and trouble of the
last few days became focused into a haunting fear. It was one of those
times when it seems possible for a human being to stand outside of
material things; when the veil which hides the everlasting verities is
raised before eyes all pained and strained with gazing. The windows of
Jeanne Le Ber’s room, overlooking the garden, stood wide open to the
summer breeze. An overwhelming impulse moved Diane. No longer able to
stifle the cry of her anguish, she sank on her knees, stretching out
imploring, passionate hands. Was it the moonlight, or the play of her
own fancy, or did a slight, wasted form appear at the window, dreamily
indistinct in the prevailing obscurity? Had the urgency of human need
torn the saint from her prayers and her vigils? The girl’s voice, clear
and penetrating, echoed through the stillness.
“Have you, far away there, no feeling for our trouble? Even in the bliss
of heaven itself it seems as though one’s heart must be touched by love
and grief and pain. You have sacrificed yourself for the country—cannot
you help your own in their extremity? Du Chesne—he is your brother, if
you can recall the ties of kindred where you are—du Chesne may be
grievously wounded; he may even now be lying still in death. Have you
ceased to hear, to feel? Does no woman’s heart beat in your breast?”
Did a white face, with deep-sunken, haggard eyes look down upon her from
the window—a face more like that of a dead woman than a living one? It
seemed to the excited girl, driven to extremities by her own fancy as
much as by stress of circumstances, that her cry fell upon a
passionless, unseen world which returned no answer. There was a
blighting silence, like a conscious death. A heavy, dull despair settled
upon her.
“You are all alike, St. Joseph and the saints; you are content with your
own goodness, and are dead and deaf and dumb concerning the claims of
earth; but we others are only flesh, our hearts throb and bleed and
burn; we cannot keep silent. Du Chesne is nothing to me but my old
playmate, the companion of my childhood; I have no claim upon him, he
owes me no duty—he never even guessed that I cared for him. I merit
suffering, I who dealt it out to others, but why should he pay the
penalty for my fault? I have been pitiless, though I never meant it; the
good God may well be pitiless to me, but not to him, not to him. If I
could only tell the Chevalier that I repent; I never thought my coquetry
meant suffering, I regarded playing at love as a light jest.” Diane
detailed her misdeeds in a voice of anguish. “And Pierre, too, he might
have been happy enough with his prayers and his painting had I but let
him alone; but it amused me to try my power—the Holy Virgin forgive
me!—and this is the end. Du Chesne told me that I did not know the
meaning of true love. I have learned too late. Of what use is your
perfection, your credit at the court of heaven, your prayers and virtues
and mortifications, if you will not help us? And I—I would rather be
wicked and be able to aid those I love, or at least to suffer with
them.”
For a time after this impassioned outburst she lay hushed in exhaustion,
then a new thought aroused her to action.
“There is the mountain cross of M. de Maisonneuve; it is said that great
graces have been obtained there. We must lose no time. They might be
fighting even now, and this may be the moment of greatest danger.”
* * * * *
“Lydia, Lydia, awaken! We will go to pray at the cross of M. de
Maisonneuve.”
The English girl lay sleeping with cheek upon her hand, like an innocent
babe. The perfect repose of her position was so strangely childish and
trustful that it was hard to realize she was slumbering on the brink of
terror and desolation. The incongruity impressed Diane forcibly, but as
she knelt beside the couch her face grew soft and womanly. When she felt
her friend’s hand laid gently on her shoulder, Lydia started up with a
faint cry, rubbing her eyes and her soft flushed cheeks.
“Diane, why have you awakened me? When I am asleep I can at least
forget,” she protested, sitting up in bed, and staring at the demoiselle
de Monesthrol as if she were not sufficiently awake to realize exactly
what the scene meant. Diane’s expression of restrained excitement
recalled all; she flung herself down on the pillows, and broke into
violent sobbing.
“Something has happened, news has come; I see by your face that it is
evil tidings. The savages are upon us, and even if they come here to
scalp me, I am too weak to move.”
“No, no news has come, Lydia, but rise and dress,” was the crisp,
laconic reply. “We will go to the mountain cross to pray for du Chesne’s
safety, I have a conviction that at this moment he needs our prayers.”
Lydia’s blue eyes opened, wide and startled; in her consternation she
forgot to sob.
“But it is dark night, still and lonely. The savages may line every foot
of the way; we may be killed or taken prisoners. Oh! I dare not face the
dangers,” she cried, shuddering.
“The greater the merit of the pilgrimage. Our sufferings may enable us
to obtain grace; for danger, I think nothing of it. Dress quickly and
quietly; if we are observed, we shall not be allowed to start”
Action was a relief from pain, and Diane was bestirring herself
vigorously. Finding herself being hastily dressed, against her will, and
perceiving that her peevish importunities produced absolutely no effect,
Lydia ceased to resist. Indeed, this pale girl with a troubled
restlessness in her anxious eyes, a pathetic droop of the red lips,
moving with a steady purpose, bore so little resemblance to vivid,
brilliant Diane, that the English girl was thoroughly frightened, and
became passive in the hands of the stronger spirit.
A pilgrimage to the mountain cross was considered at Ville Marie a
fashionable act of devotion. As the way to the mountain teemed with real
and tangible dangers, ladies generally undertook it in parties,
protected by armed escorts. Every tree or stone might be expected to
offer shelter to feathered and painted enemies; there were also wild
beasts to be dreaded; so that in starting there was always the
possibility of not being able to return.
Soon the two girls—Diane erect and stately, never for an instant
pausing or faltering; Lydia clinging feebly to her arm—like shadows
moving amidst shadows, were traversing the deserted streets. The
desolate, dark night was full of visionary terrors and real dangers. The
chant of the St. Lawrence filled the air, the river trembling with
violet tints and glancing pearly shafts. Presently they crossed a
swiftly flowing stream, and emerged upon the open country. Here no
vagrant echo, not even the stir of a leaf, disturbed the stillness. The
dew was rich with cool fragrance. Now dark trees would close up the
path, then it would widen into a world of space as it passed into the
odorous moorland or crossed little rivulets tinkling on their way to the
river. The moonbeams, piercing through the interlacing branches, threw
chequered shadows on the path. Anon, amidst vistas of leafy shade, they
caught fleeting glimpses of the illuminated world beyond.
As the two girls crept up the slope, under the flickering shadows of the
trees, the scene was incredibly solitary and mournful. The path, simply
an Indian trail, was long and toilsome. Vegetation was dense, tangled
with vines, sombre with gloomy foliage, through which the white light
strove to penetrate. Lydia, whose feelings were impressions which rarely
deepened into emotion, was rendered helplessly hysterical by terror. All
Diane’s faculties were absorbed in a sombre, bewildering excitement, as
with the English captive sobbing, panting, clinging to her arm, she made
her way through the thicket. Before long she was obliged to support the
almost fainting girl. Little did it matter what they endured, if their
sufferings might perchance gain the grace to save the young Canadian
from a cruel fate. Once the long dewy trail of a creeper caught Diane
lightly like the grasp of a restraining hand; a soft rustle among the
leaves caused the heart to leap in her breast; that long-drawn cry of a
bird which broke the stillness in melancholy cadences might be the
signal of danger.
At last, gleaming white amidst dark, glossy foliage, arose the cross
erected on Mount Royal in a vow to God for the conversion of the
savages. Lydia, overcome by fatigue, fear, the night air, the strain and
agitation of the expedition, now sank down against a boulder. She had
ceased to reason, and only desired rest. The wooded gray slope towered
immutably above them, the wind harping in the pines. The moon had
dropped below the horizon, familiar objects acquired strangely grotesque
forms in the uncertain light, while in the blue sky above trembled a
single luminous star. Pressing on, Diane knelt at the foot of the cross.
It seemed as though she had at length reached a sure refuge, a power to
whose strength and goodness she could confidently appeal. Then her hands
clenched and her whole frame began to shake.
“It is for du Chesne, for his life, that we have come so far to pray. He
is so young and strong; he might be so happy. Holy Virgin Mother, who
knowest the secret of all love and suffering, I ask nothing for myself;
let me suffer, but spare him.” The sound of her voice seemed to profane
the hush of nature. Its tones had acquired a husky shrillness in which
there was a note of presaging horror.
“They are too holy, the saints—they despise earthly pains and
losses—they think only of their own heavenly bliss—they set themselves
against us. Oh! how can they look calmly on our suffering? God in
heaven, have mercy! or is He also too high and great to care for our
poor, miserable concerns? I will sacrifice myself—my life—what does
anything matter? If he returns in safety I make a vow to enter the
Congregation as a novice, to devote myself to the expiation of my sins;
only spare him, oh, God!” Diane writhed and battled for air as a
paroxysm of suffocating sobs came upon her; then, worn out with wild
heart-broken weeping, she lay at the foot of the cross, motionless and
exhausted.