POSSESSION.
Jacques De Arthenay went home that night like a man possessed. He was
furious with himself, with the strange woman who had thus set his sober
thoughts in a whirl, with the very children in the street who had
laughed and danced and encouraged her in her sinful music, to her own
peril and theirs. He thought it was only anger that so held his mind;
yet once in his house, seated on the little stool before his fire, he
found himself still in the street, still looking down into that lovely
childish face that lifted itself so innocently to his, still smitten to
the heart by the beauty of it, and by the fear that he saw in it of his
own stern aspect. He had never looked upon any woman before. He had
been proud of it,--proud of his strength and cleverness, that needed no
meddlesome female creature coming in between him and his business,
between him and his religion. He had not let his hair and beard grow,
knowing nothing of such practices, but in heart he had been a Nazarite
from his youth up,--serving God in his harsh, unloving way; loving God,
as he thought; certainly loving nothing else, if it were not the dumb
creatures, to whom he was always kind and just. And now--what had
happened to him? He asked himself the question sternly, sitting there
before the cheerful blaze, yet neither seeing nor feeling it. The
answer seemed to cry itself in his ears, to write itself before his
eyes in letters of fire. The thing had happened that happens in the
story books, that really comes to pass once in a hundred years, they
say. He had seen the one woman in the world that he wanted for his
own, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. She was a stranger,
a vagabond, trading in iniquity, and gaining her bread by the
corruption of souls of men and children; and he loved her, he longed
for her, and the world meant nothing to him henceforth unless he could
have her. He put the thought away from him like a snake, but it came
back and curled round his heart, and made him cold and then hot and
then cold again. Was he not a professing Christian, bound by the
strictest ties? Yes! How she looked, standing there with the children
about her, the little slender figure swaying to and fro to the music,
the pretty head bent down so lovingly, the dark eyes looking here and
there, bright and shy, like those of a wild creature so gentle in its
nature that it knew no fear. But he had taught her fear! yes, he saw
it grow under his eyes, just as the love grew in his own heart at the
same moment.
Love! what sort of word was that for him to be using, even in his mind?
To-morrow she would be gone, this wandering fiddler, and all this would
be forgotten in a day, for he had the new cattle to see to, and a
hundred things of importance.
But was anything else of importance save just this one girl? and if he
should let her go on her way, out into the world again, to certain
perdition, would not the guilt be partly his? He, who saw and knew the
perils and pitfalls, might he not snatch this child from the fire and
save her soul alive?--No! he would begone, as soon as morning came, and
take this sinful body of his away from temptation.
How soon would Abby get through her morning work, so that he might with
some fair pretext go to the house to see how the stranger had slept,
and how she had fared? It would be cowardly to drop the burden on
Abby's shoulders, she only a woman like the rest of them, even if she
had somewhat more sense.
So Jacques De Arthenay sat by his fire till it was cold and dead, a
miserable and a wrathful man; and he too slept little that night.
But Marie slept long and peacefully in Sister Lizzie's bed, and looked
so pretty in her sleep that Abby came three times to wake her, and
three times went away again, unable to spoil so perfect a picture. At
last, however, the dark eyes opened of their own accord, and Marie
began to chirp and twitter, like a bird at daybreak in its nest; only
instead of daybreak, it was eight o'clock in the morning, a most
shocking hour for anybody to be getting up. But Abby had been in the
habit of spoiling her sister, who had a theory that she was never able
to do anything early in the morning, and so it was much more
considerate for her to stay in bed and keep out of Abby's way. This is
a comfortable theory.
"I suppose you've been an early riser, though?" said Abby, as she
poured the coffee, looking meanwhile approvingly at the figure of her
guest, neatly attired in a pink and white print gown, which fitted her
in a truly astonishing manner, proving, Abby thought in her simple way,
that it had really been a "leading,"--her bringing the stranger home
last night.
"Oh, but yes," Marie answered. "I help always Old Billy wiz the dogs
first, they must be exercise, and do their tricks, and then they are
feed. So hungry they are, the dogs! It make very hard not first to
feed them, _hein_?"
"Is--William--feeble?" Abby inquired, with some hesitation.
"Feeble, no!" said Marie, with a little laugh. "But old, you know, and
when he is too much drunk it take away his mind; so then I help him,
that Le Boss does not find out that and beat him. For he is good, you
see, Old Billy, and we make comrades togezzer always."
"Dear me!" said Abby, doubtfully. "It don't seem as if you ought to be
going with--with that kind of person, Maree. We don't associate with
drinking men, here in these parts. I don't know how it is where you
come from."
Oh, there, Marie said, it was different. There the drink did not make
men crazy. This was a country where the devil had so much power, you
see, that it made it hard for poor folks like Old Billy, who would do
well enough in her country, and at the worst take a little too much at
a feast or a wedding. But in those cases, the saints took very good
care that nothing should happen to them. She did not know what the
saints did in this country, or indeed, if there were any.
"Oh, Maree!" cried Abby, scandalised. "I guess I wouldn't talk like
that, if I was you. You--you, ain't a papist, are you,--a Catholic?"
Oh, no! Mere Jeanne was of the Reformed religion, and had brought
Marie up so. It was a misfortune, Madame the Countess always said; but
Marie preferred to be as Mere Jeanne had been. The Catholic girls in
the village said that Mere Jeanne had gone straight to the pit, but
that proved that they were ignorant entirely of the things of religion.
Why, Le Boss was a Catholic, he; and everybody knew that he had the
evil eye, and that it was not safe to come near him without making the
horns.
"For the land's sake!" cried Abby Rock, dropping her dish-cloth into
the sink, "what are you talking about, child?"
"But, the horns!" Marie answered innocently. "When a person has the
evil eye, you not make at him the horns, so way?" and she held out the
index and little finger of her right hand, bending the other fingers
down. "So!" she said; "when they so are held, the evil eye has no
power. What you do here to stop him?"
"We don't believe in any such a thing!" Abby replied, with, some
severity. "Why, Maree, them's all the same as heathen notions, like
witchcraft and such. We don't hold by none of those things in this
country at all, and I guess you'd better not talk about 'em."
Marie's eyes opened wide. "But," she said, "_c'est une chose_,--it is
a thing that all know. As for Le Boss, you know--listen!" she came
nearer to Abby, and lowered her voice. "One night Old Billy forgot to
do, I know not what, but somesing. So when Le Boss found it out, he
look at him, so,"--drawing her brows down and frowning horribly, with
the effect of looking like an enraged kitten,--"and say noasing at all.
You see?"
"Well," replied Abby. "I suppose mebbe he thought it was an accident,
and might have happened to any one."
"Not--at--all!" cried Marie, with dramatic emphasis, throwing out her
hand with a solemn gesture. "What happen that same night? Old Billy
fall down the bank and break his leg!" She paused, and nodded like a
little mandarin, to point the moral of her tale.
"Maree!" remonstrated Abby Rock, "don't tell me you believe such
foolishness as that! He'd have fallen down all the same if nobody had
looked anigh him. Why, good land! I never heard of such notions."
"So it is!" Marie insisted. "Le Boss look at him, and he break his
leg. I see the break! Anozer day," she continued, "Coco, he is a boy
that makes tumble, and he was hungry, and he took a don't from the
table to eat it--"
"Took a what?" asked Abby.
"A don't, what you call. Round, wiz a hole to put your finger!"
explained Marie. "Only in America they make zem. Not of such things
in Bretagne, never. Coco took the don't, and Le Boss catch him, and
look at him again, so! Well, yes! in two hour he is sick, that boy,
and after zat for a week. A-a-a-h! yes, Le Boss! only at me he not
dare to look, for I have the charm, and he know that, and he is afraid.
Aha, yes, he is afraid of Marie too, when he wish to make devil work.
"And here," she cried, turning suddenly upon Abby, "you say you have no
such thing, Abiroc,"--this was the name she had given her
hostess,--"and here, too, is the evil eye, first what I see in this
place, except the dear little children. A man yesterday came while I
played, and looked--but, frightful! Ah!" she started from her seat by
the window, and retreated hastily to the corner. "He comes, the same
man! Put me away, Abiroc! put me away! He is bad, he is wicked! I
die if he look at me!" and she ran hastily out of the room, just as
Jacques De Arthenay entered it.