Before he left for the front next morning to join his company and march
to Papineau’s headquarters, Nic came to Ferrol, told him, with rage and
disappointment, the story of the highway robbery, and also that he hoped
Ferrol would not worry about the Rebellion, and would remain at the
Manor Casimbault in any case.
“Anyhow,” said he, “my mother’s half English; so you’re not alone. We’re
going to make a big fight for it. We’ve stood it as long as we can. But
we’re friends in this, aren’t we, Ferrol?”
There was a pause, in which Ferrol sipped his whiskey and milk, and
continued dressing. He set the glass down, and looked towards the
open window, through which came the smell of the ripe orchard and the
fragrance of the pines. He turned to. Lavilette at last and said, as he
fastened his collar:
“Yes, you and I are friends, Nic; but I’m a Britisher, and my people
have been Britishers since Edward the Third’s time; and for this same
Quebec two of my great-grand-uncles fought and lost their lives. If
I were sound of wind and limb I’d fight, like them, to keep what
they helped to get. You’re in for a rare good beating, and, see, my
friend--while I wouldn’t do you any harm personally, I’d crawl on my
knees from here to the citadel at Quebec to get a pot-shot at your
rag-tag-and-bobtail ‘patriots.’ You can count me a first-class enemy to
your ‘cause,’ though I’m not a first-class fighting man. And now,
Nic, give me a lift with my coat. This shoulder jibs a bit since the
bear-baiting.”
Lavilette was naturally prejudiced in Ferrol’s favour; and this
deliberate and straightforward patriotism more pleased than offended
him. His own patriotism was not a deep or lasting thing: vanity and a
restless spirit were its fountains of inspiration. He knew that Ferrol
was penniless--or he was so yesterday--and this quiet defiance of events
in the very camp of the enemy could not but appeal to his ebullient,
Gallic chivalry. Ferrol did not say these things because he had five
thousand dollars behind him, for he would have said them if he were
starving and dying--perhaps out of an inherent stubbornness, perhaps
because this hereditary virtue in him would have been as hard to resist
as his sins.
“That’s all right, Ferrol,” answered Lavilette. “I hope you’ll stay here
at the Manor, no matter what comes. You’re welcome. Will you?”
“Yes, I’ll stay, and glad to. I can’t very well do anything else. I’m
bankrupt. Haven’t got a penny--of my own,” he added, with daring irony.
“Besides, it’s comfortable here, and I feel like one of the family; and,
anyhow, Life is short and Time is a pacer!” His wearing cough emphasised
the statement.
“It won’t be easy for you in Bonaventure,” said Nicolas, walking
restlessly up and down. “They’re nearly all for the cause, all except
the Cure. But he can’t do much now, and he’ll keep out of the mess. By
the time he has a chance to preach against it, next Sunday, every man
that wants to ‘ll be at the front, and fighting. But you’ll be all
right, I think. They like you here.”
“I’ve a couple of good friends to see me through,” was the quiet reply.
“Who are they?”
Ferrol went to his trunk, took out a pair of pistols, and balanced them
lightly in his hands. “Good to confuse twenty men,” he said. “A brace of
‘em are bound to drop, and they don’t know which one.”
He raised a pistol lazily, and looked out along its barrel through the
open, sunshiny window. Something in the pose of the body, in the curve
of the arm, struck Nicolas strangely. He moved almost in front of
Ferrol. There came back to him mechanically the remembrance of a piece
of silver on the butt of one of the highwayman’s pistols!
The same piece of silver was on the butt of Ferrol’s pistol. It
startled him; but he almost laughed to him self at the absurdity of the
suggestion. Ferrol was the last man in the world to play a game like
that, and with him.
Still he could not resist a temptation. He stepped in front of the
pistol, almost touching it with his forehead, looking at Ferrol as he
had looked at the highwayman last night.
“Look out, it’s loaded!” said Ferrol, lowering the weapon coolly, and
not showing by sign or muscle that he understood Lavilette’s meaning. “I
should think you’d had enough of pistols for one twenty-four hours.”
“Do you know, Ferrol, you looked just then so like the robber last night
that, for one moment, I half thought!--And the pistol, too, looks just
the same--that silver piece on the butt!”
“Oh, yes, this piece for the name of the owner!” said Ferrol, in a
laughing brogue, and he coughed a little. “Well, maybe some one did use
this pistol last night. It wouldn’t be hard to open my trunk. Let’s see;
whom shall we suspect?”
Lavilette was entirely reassured, if indeed he needed reassurance.
Ferrol coughed still more, and was obliged to sit down on the side of
the bed and rest himself against the foot-board.
“There’s a new jug of medicine or cordial come this morning from
Shangois, the notary,” said Lavilette. “I just happened to think of it.
What he does counts. He knows a lot.”
Ferrol’s eyes showed interest at once.
“I’ll try it. I’ll try it. The stuff Gatineau the miller sent doesn’t do
any good now.”
“Shangois is here--he’s downstairs--if you want to see him.”
Ferrol nodded. He was tired of talking.
“I’m going,” said Lavilette, holding out his hand. “I’ll join my company
to-day, and the scrimmage ‘ll begin as soon as we reach Papineau. We’ve
got four hundred men.”
Ferrol tried to say something, but he was struggling with the cough in
his throat. He held out his hand, and Nicolas took it. At last he was
able to say:
“Good luck to you, Nic, and to the devil with the Rebellion! You’re in
for a bad drubbing.”
Nicolas had a sudden feeling of anger. This superior air of Ferrol’s was
assumed by most Englishmen in the country, and it galled him.
“We’ll not ask quarter of Englishmen; no-sacre!” he said in a rage.
“Well, Nic, I’m not so sure of that. Better do that than break your
pretty neck on a taut rope,” was the lazy reply.
With an oath, Lavilette went out, banging the door after him. Ferrol
shrugged his shoulder with a stoic ennui, and put away the pistols in
the trunk. He was thinking how reckless he had been to take them
out; and yet he was amused, too, at the risk he had run. A strange
indifference possessed him this morning--indifference to everything. He
was suffering reaction from the previous day’s excitement. He had got
the five thousand dollars, and now all interest in it seemed to have
departed.
Suddenly he said to himself, as he ran a brush around his coat-collar:
“‘Pon my soul, I forgot; this is my wedding day!--the great day in a
man’s life, the immense event, after which comes steady happiness or the
devil to pay.”
He stepped to the window and looked out. It was only six o’clock as
yet. He could see the harvesters going to their labours in the fields of
wheat and oats, the carters already bringing in little loads of hay. He
could hear their marche-’t’-en! to the horses. Over by a little house on
the river bank stood an old woman sharpening a sickle. He could see the
flash of the steel as the stone and metal gently clashed.
Presently a song came up to him, through the garden below, from
the house. The notes seemed to keep time to the hand of the
sickle-sharpener. He had heard it before, but only in snatches. Now it
seemed to pierce his senses and to flood his nerves with feeling.
The air was sensuous, insinuating, ardent. The words were full of summer
and of that dramatic indolence of passion which saved the incident at
Magon Farcinelle’s from being as vulgar as it was treacherous. The voice
was Christine’s, on her wedding day.
“Oh, hark how the wind goes, the wind goes
(And dark goes the stream by the mill!)
Oh, see where the storm blows, the storm blows
(There’s a rider comes over the hill!)
“He went with the sunshine one morning
(Oh, loud was the bugle and drum!)
My soldier, he gave me no warning
(Oh, would that my lover might come!)
“My kisses, my kisses are waiting
(Oh, the rider comes over the hill!)
In summer the birds should be mating
(Oh, the harvest goes down to the mill!)
“Oh, the rider, the rider he stayeth
(Oh, joy that my lover hath come!)
We will journey together he sayeth
(No more with the bugle and drum!)”
He caught sight of Christine for a moment as she passed through the
garden towards the stable. Her gown was of white stuff, with little
spots of red in it, and a narrow red ribbon was shot through the collar.
Her hat was a pretty white straw, with red artificial flowers upon it.
She wore at her throat a medallion brooch: one of the two heirlooms
of the Lavilette family. It had belonged to the great-grandmother of
Monsieur Louis Lavilette, and was the one security that this ambitious
family did not spring up, like a mushroom, in one night. It had always
touched Christine’s imagination as a child. Some native instinct in, her
made her prize it beyond everything else. She used to make up wonderful
stories about it, and tell them to Sophie, who merely wondered, and
was not sure but that Christine was wicked; for were not these little
romances little lies? Sophie’s imagination was limited. As the years
went on Christine finally got possession of the medallion, and held
it against all opposition. Somehow, with it on this morning, she felt
diminish the social distance between herself and Ferrol.
Ferrol himself thought nothing of social distance. Men, as a rule, get
rather above that sort of thing. The woman: that was all that was in his
mind. She was good to look at: warm, lovable, fascinating in her little
daring wickednesses; a fiery little animal, full of splendid impulses,
gifted with a perilous temperament: and she loved him. He had a kind of
exultation at the very fierceness of her love for him, of what she had
done to prove her love: her fury at Vanne Castine, the slaughter of
the bear, and the intention to kill Vanne himself; and he knew that she
would do more than that, if a great test came. Men feel surer of women
than women feel of men.
He sat down on the broad window-ledge, still sipping his whiskey and
milk, as he looked at her. She was very good to see. Presently she had
to cross a little plot of grass. The dew was still on it. She gathered
up her skirts and tip-toed quickly across it. The action was attractive
enough, for she had a lithe smoothness of motion. Suddenly he uttered an
exclamation of surprise.
“White stockings--humph!” he said.
Somehow those white stockings suggested the ironical comment of the
world upon his proposed mesalliance; then he laughed good-humouredly.
“Taste is all a matter of habit, anyhow,” said he to himself. “My own
sister wouldn’t have had any better taste if she hadn’t been taught. And
what am I?
“What am I? I drink more whiskey in a day than any three men in the
country. I don’t do a stroke of work; I’ve got debts all over the world;
I’ve mulcted all my friends; I’ve made fools of two or three women in
my time; I’ve broken every commandment except--well, I guess I’ve
broken every one, if it comes to that, in spirit, anyhow. I’m a thief,
a fire-eating highwayman, begad, and here I am, with a perforated lung,
going to marry a young girl like that, without one penny in the world
except what I stole! What beasts men are! The worst woman may be worse
than the worst man, but all men are worse than most women. But she wants
to marry me. She knows exactly what I am in health and prospects; so why
shouldn’t I?”
He drew himself up, thinking honestly. He believed that he would live if
he married Christine; that his “cold” would get better; that the hole in
his lung would heal. It was only a matter of climate; he was sure of
it. Christine had a few hundred dollars--she had told him so. Suppose
he took three hundred dollars of the five thousand dollars: that would
leave four thousand seven hundred dollars for his sister. He could go
away south with Christine, and could live on five or six hundred dollars
a year; then he’d be fit for something. He could go to work. He could
join the Militia, if necessary. Anyhow, he could get something to do
when he got well.
He drank some more whiskey and milk. “Self-preservation, that’s the
thing; that’s the first law,” he said. “And more: if the only girl I
ever loved, ever really loved--loved from the crown of her head to the
sole of her feet--were here to-day, and Christine stood beside her,
little plebeian with a big heart, by Heaven, I’d choose Christine. I can
trust her, though she is a little liar. She loves, and she’ll stick;
and she’s true where she loves. Yes; if all the women in the world stood
beside Christine this morning, I’d look them all over, from duchess to
danseuse, and I’d say, ‘Christine Lavilette, I’m a scoundrel. I haven’t
a penny in the world. I’m a thief; a thief who believes in you. You know
what love is; you know what fidelity is. No matter what I did, you would
stand by me to the end. To the last day of my life, I’ll give you my
heart and my hand; and as you are faithful to me, so I will be faithful
to you, so help me God!’
“I don’t believe I ever could have run straight in life. I couldn’t have
been more than four years old when I stole the peaches from my mother’s
dressing-table; and I lied just as coolly then as I could now. I made
love to a girl when I was ten years old.” He laughed to himself at the
remembrance. “Her father had a foundry. She used to wear a red dress,
I remember, and her hair was brown. She sang like a little lark. I was
half mad about her; and yet I knew that I didn’t really love her. Still,
I told her that I did. I suppose it was the cursed falseness of my whole
nature. I know that whenever I have said most, and felt most, something
in me kept saying all the time: ‘You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re
lying!’ Was I born a liar?
“I wonder if the first words I ever spoke were a lie? I wonder, when
I kissed my mother first, and knew that I was kissing her, if the same
little devil that sits up in my head now, said then: ‘You’re lying,
you’re lying, you’re lying.’ It has said so enough times since. I loved
to be with my mother; yet I never felt, even when she died--and God
knows I felt bad enough then!
“I never felt that my love was all real. It had some infernal note of
falseness somewhere, some miserable, hollow place where the sound of my
own voice, when I tried to speak the truth, mocked me! I wonder if the
smiles I gave, before I was able to speak at all, were only blarney? I
wonder, were they only from the wish to stand well with everybody, if I
could? It must have been that; and how much I meant, and how much I did
not mean, God alone knows!
“What a sympathy I have always had for criminals! I have always wanted,
or, anyhow, one side of me has always wanted, to do right, and the other
side has always done wrong. I have sympathised with the just, but I have
always felt that I’d like to help the criminal to escape his punishment.
If I had been more real with that girl in New York, I wonder whether she
wouldn’t have stuck to me? When I was with her I could always convince
her; but, I remember, she told me once that, when I was away from her,
she somehow felt that I didn’t really love her. That’s always been the
way. When I was with people, they liked me; when I was away from them,
I couldn’t depend upon them. No; upon my soul, of all the friends I’ve
ever had, there’s not one that I know of that I could go to now--except
my sister, poor girl!--and feel sure that no matter what I did, they’d
stick to me to the end. I suppose the fault is mine. If I’d been worth
the standing by, I’d have been the better stood by. But this girl, this
little French provincial, with a heart of fire and gold, with a touch
of sin in her, and a thumping artery of truth, she would walk with me
to the gallows, and give her life to save my life--yes, a hundred times.
Well, then, I’ll start over again; for I’ve found the real thing. I’ll
be true to her just as long as she’s true to me. I’ll never lie to her;
and I’ll do something else--something else. I’ll tell her--”
He reached out, picked a wild rose from the vine upon the wall, and
fastened it in his button-hole, with a defiant sort of smile, as there
came a tap to his door. “Come in,” he said.
The door opened, and in stepped Shangois, the notary. He carried a jug
under his arm, which, with a nod, he set down at the foot of the bed.
“M’sieu’,” said he, “it is a thing that cured the bishop; and once, when
a prince of France was at Quebec, and had a bad cold, it cured him. The
whiskey in it I made myself--very good white wine.” Ferrol looked at the
little man curiously. He had only spoken with him once or twice, but he
had heard the numberless legends about him, and the Cure had told him
many of his sayings, a little weird and sometimes maliciously true to
the facts of life.
Ferrol thanked the little man, and motioned to a chair. There was,
however, a huge chest against the wall near the window, and Shangois sat
down on this, with his legs hunched up to his chin, looking at Ferrol
with steady, inquisitive eyes. Ferrol laughed outright. A grotesque
thought occurred to him. This little black notary was exactly like
the weird imp which, he had always imagined, sat high up in his brain,
dropping down little ironies and devilries--his personified conscience;
or, perhaps, the truth left out of him at birth and given this form, to
be with him, yet not of him.
Shangois did not stir, nor show by even the wink of an eyelid that he
recognised the laughter, or thought that he was being laughed at.
Presently Ferrol sat down and looked at Shangois without speaking,
as Shangois looked at him. He smiled more than once, however, as the
thought recurred to him.
“Well?” he said at last.
“What if she finds out about the five thousand dollars--eh, m’sieu’?”
Ferrol was completely dumfounded. The brief question covered so much
ground--showed a knowledge of the whole case. Like Conscience itself,
the little black notary had gone straight to the point, struck home.
He was keen enough, however, had sufficient self-command, not to betray
himself, but remained unmoved outwardly, and spoke calmly.
“Is that your business--to go round the parish asking conundrums?” he
said coolly. “I can’t guess the answer to that one, can you?”
Shangois hated cowards, and liked clever people--people who could answer
him after his own fashion. Nearly everybody was afraid of his tongue and
of him. He knew too much; which was a crime.
“I can find out,” he replied, showing his teeth a little.
“Then you’re not quite sure yourself, little devilkin?”
“The girl is a riddle. I am not the great reader of riddles.”
“I didn’t call you that. You’re only a common little imp.”
Shangois showed his teeth in a malicious smile.
“Why did you set me the riddle, then?” Ferrol continued, his eyes fixed
with apparent carelessness on the other’s face.
“I thought she might have told you the answer.”
“I never asked her the puzzle. Have you?”
By instinct, and from the notary’s reputation, Ferrol knew that he was
in the presence of an honest man at least, and he waited most anxiously
for an answer, for his fate might hang on it.
“M’sieu’, I have not seen her since yesterday morning.”
“Well, what would you do if you found out about the five thousand
dollars?”
“I would see what happened to it; and afterwards I would see that a girl
of Bonaventure did not marry a Protestant, and a thief.”
Ferrol rose from his chair, coughing a little. Walking over to Shangois,
he caught him by both ears and shook the shaggy head back and forth.
“You little scrap of hell,” he said in a rage, “if you ever come within
fifty feet of me again I’ll send you where you came from!”
Though Shangois’s eyes bulged from his head, he answered:
“I was only ten feet away from you last night under the elm!”
Suddenly Ferrol’s hand slipped down to Shangois’s throat. Ferrol’s
fingers tightened, pressed inwards.
“Now, see, I know what you mean. Some one has robbed Nicolas Lavilette
of five thousand dollars. You dare to charge me with it, curse you. Let
me see if there’s any more lies on your tongue!”
With the violence of the pressure Shangois’s tongue was forced out of
his mouth.
Suddenly a paroxysm of coughing seized Ferrol, and he let go and
staggered back against the window ledge. Shangois was transformed--an
animal. No human being had ever seen him as he was at this moment. The
fingers of his one hand opened and shut convulsively, his arms worked
up and down, his face twitched, his teeth showed like a beast’s as he
glared at Ferrol. He looked as though he were about to spring upon the
now helpless man. But up from the garden below there came the sound of a
voice--Christine’s--singing.
His face quieted, and his body came to its natural pose again, though
his eyes retained an active malice. He turned to go.
“Remember what I tell you,” said Ferrol: “if you publish that lie,
you’ll not live to hear it go about. I mean what I say.” Blood showed
upon his lips, and a tiny little stream flowed down the corner of his
mouth. Whenever he felt that warm fluid on his tongue he was certain of
his doom, and the horror of slowly dying oppressed him, angered him.
It begot in him a desire to end it all. He had a hatred of suicide; but
there were other ways. “I’ll have your life, or you’ll have mine. I’m
not to be played with,” he added.
The sentences were broken by coughing, and his handkerchief was wet and
red.
“It is no concern of the world,” answered Shangois, stretching up his
throat, for he still felt the pressure of Ferrol’s fingers--“only of the
girl and her brother. The girl--I saved her once before from your friend
Vanne Castine, and I will save her from you--but, yes! It is nothing to
the world, to Bonaventure, that you are a robber; it is everything to
her. You are all robbers--you English--cochons!”
He opened the door and went out. Ferrol was about to follow him, but he
had a sudden fit of weakness, and he caught up a pillow, and, throwing
it on the chest where Shangois had sat, stretched himself upon it. He
lay still for quite a long time, and presently fell into a doze. In
those days no event made a lasting impression on him. When it was over
it ended, so far as concerned any disturbing remembrances of it. He was
awakened (he could not have slept for more than fifteen minutes) by a
tapping at his door, and his name spoken softly. He went to the door and
opened it. It was Christine. He thought she seemed pale, also that she
seemed nervous; but her eyes were full of light and fire, and there was
no mistaking the look in her face: it was all for him. He set down her
agitation to the adventure they were about to make together. He stepped
back, as if inviting her to enter, but she shook her head.
“No, not this morning. I will meet you at the old mill in half an hour.
The parish is all mad about the Rebellion, and no one will notice or
talk of anything else. I have the best pair of horses in the stable; and
we can drive it in two hours, easy.”
She took a paper from her pocket.
“This is--the--license,” she added, and she blushed. Then, with a sudden
impulse, she stepped inside the room, threw her arms about his neck and
kissed him, and he clasped her to his breast.
“My darling Tom!” she said, and then hastened away, with tears in her
eyes.
He saw the tears. “I wonder what they were for?” he said musingly, as
he opened up the official blue paper. “For joy?” He laughed a little
uneasily as he said it. His eyes ran through the document.
“The Honourable Tom Ferrol, of Stavely Castle, County Galway, Ireland,
bachelor, and Christine Marie Lavilette, of the Township of Bonaventure,
in the Province of Lower Canada, spinster, Are hereby granted,” etc.,
etc., etc., “according to the laws of the Province of Upper Canada,”
etc., etc., etc.
He put it in his pocket.
“For better or for worse, then,” he said, and descended the stairs.
Presently, as he went through the village, he noticed signs of hostility
to himself. Cries of Vive la Canada! Vive la France! a bas l’Anglais!
came to him out of the murmuring and excitement. But the Regimental
Surgeon took off his cap to him, very conspicuously advancing to meet
him, and they exchanged a few words.
“By the way, monsieur,” the Regimental Surgeon added, as he took his
leave, “I knew of this some days ago, and, being a justice of the peace,
it was my duty to inform the authorities--yes of course! One must do
one’s duty in any case,” he said, in imitation of English bluffness, and
took his leave.
Ten minutes later Christine and Ferrol were on their way to the English
province to be married.
That afternoon at three o’clock, as they left the little
English-speaking village man and wife, they heard something which
startled them both. It was a bear-trainer, singing to his bear the same
weird song, without words, which Vanne Castine sang to Michael. Over in
another street they could see the bear on his hind feet, dancing, but
they could not see the man.
Christine glanced at Ferrol anxiously, for she was nervous and excited,
though her face had also a look of exultant happiness.
“No, it’s not Castine!” he said, as if in reply to her look.
In a vague way, however, she felt it to be ominous.