I did not light the candles. The firelight showed through the mica in
the stove grate. I sat down by the window and looked out. A full moon
shone high and clear above the dark irregular outline of the massed
treetops in the woods across the creek, now covered with ice and
blanketed with white. The great hemlock branches, crowding close to
the house, were drooping, snow-laden. The moonlight, reflected in
them, flashed diamond dust from the upper branches; beneath the lower
ones it cast violet shadows on the snow.
"What next?" I was thinking, and might have spared myself the trouble
of that thought, for just then Mrs. Macleod knocked at the door and
came in.
"In the dark? Marcia, my dear, we need you down stairs."
"Of course I 'll come, Mrs. Macleod, if you wish me to, but I don't
quite see how, as your companion and assistant, I am needed now down
stairs. I shall feel as if I were not earning my salt, just playing
lady."
Now, can any one tell me why the spirit of revolt at the change in my
position in this house, through the coming of the owner and his friend,
should have materialized in just this ungracious speech? I was ashamed
of myself the moment I had given it utterance. Such a mean sentiment!
Not worthy of a woman of twenty-six. I was thankful she could not see
my face.
She hesitated before replying. When she spoke I heard a note of
displeasure in her voice.
"I need you now, perhaps, more than before. With these guests in the
house, there is more responsibility than during the last three weeks."
"If only they _were_ guests!" The perverse spirit was still at work
within me. "But we are the guests now, and I don't quite see what my
work is to be; my position seems to be an anomalous one."
"It may seem so to you," she replied quietly. I knew by the tone of
her voice she was exercising great self control, and that had the
candles been lighted I should have seen her cheeks flush a deep pink;
"but evidently it is perfectly clear to Doctor Rugvie. The position is
his creation. I think you can trust him.-- Are you coming?"
The rebuke was well deserved, and, in accepting it, my respect for her
was doubled.
"Just let me get my work," I said, fumbling in my basket for some petty
crochet. She said nothing, and in silence we went down stairs
together, she little realizing that, in referring to Doctor Rugvie as
the one to whom I was indebted for being here, she twisted some fibre
in my mental make-up and caused it to vibrate painfully. Had I but
known it, I had been keyed to this moment ever since hearing Delia
Beaseley's account of my mother's death--keyed too long and at too high
a pitch. Something had to give way; hence my mood of apparent revolt,
because I could not live in unchanged circumstances in this manor of
Lamoral.
As we entered the living-room the three pipes were in full blast.
"Permitted?" said the Doctor, waving his towards us as he rose. Mr.
Ewart, also, rose and came towards us. In the manner of his action I
saw that, already, he had taken his rightful place as host. He held
out his hand in greeting, and I took it.
"Sit here, Miss Farrell, by me," he motioned to the corner of the sofa
next his easy chair, "and tell me how you have managed to accomplish a
home--in three weeks. Mrs. Macleod and Jamie have been giving you all
the credit for this transformation. How did you do it?"
He put me at ease at once, for what he said sounded both cordial and
sincere. The tone of voice challenged me instantly to be as sincere
with him.
"Perhaps it's because I never have had the chance to make what you call
a 'home' before, and besides," I looked up from my sofa corner and
dared to say the truth, "it was such a pleasure to spend some money
that I did n't have to earn by hard work; this was play for me. But,
truly, Mrs. Macleod and Jamie are not fair to themselves; they not only
helped, but inspired me."
"Oh, woman, woman!" said the Doctor, laughing; "shopping is the
characteristic symptom of the sex!"
"Talk about inspiration," said Jamie; "Marcia put mother and me through
our best paces. I can tell you we conjugated: I must hustle, Thou must
hustle, He must hustle, We must hustle, You must hustle, They must
hustle, for three weeks," he said emphatically.
"You seem to have thriven on it," said the Doctor.
"Your work was in the New York Library, Miss Farrell?" It was Mr.
Ewart who spoke.
"Yes, in a branch; I was there for five years."
"Who told you that, Gordon?" Jamie demanded.
"Who?--Who but Cale?"
Mrs. Macleod laughed outright at that, and Jamie and I joined her; we
could not help it. The mere inflection of Mr. Ewart's voice, told us
he had succumbed on the way over to our omniscient One. I saw that,
quiet as he was, he had a keen sense of humor.
"Yes," he continued, "Cale made my acquaintance on the platform, and
half way on the road he took occasion to give me some information
concerning my household."
"Oh, I know that too," I said, "for Cale confided to me immediately on
his arrival that, to use his own expression, he could n't get in a
'word edgewise', on account of the rapidity with which you and Peter
were carrying on a conversation in French. I think he is jealous of
every tongue but his own."
"We had better compare notes, Miss Farrell. I concluded that Cale was
a firm friend of yours from his remarks."
"What did he say? Do tell me."
"I will--if you 'll agree to tell me his comments on my talk with
Pierre. I believe Pierre's words fell over themselves, he had so much
to tell me."
"Hear--hear!" This from Jamie.
"I agree; tell me, please."
"I think it was just before we entered the river road--"
"I know it was, for he told me so," I said, enjoying the fun.
"Oh, he did! Well, perhaps you will be so good as to tell me, if he
told you what he told me you told him?"
"You would n't ask that if you knew Cale," said Jamie, shaking his head
dubiously.
"No, he did n't," I said. "Cale is a genuine Yankee. What did he say?"
"You hear that, Ewart? What did I tell you?"
"Oh, you've been telling, too, have you, Jamie Macleod? He gave me to
understand that it was he who brought you from the steamboat to the
house; that you were born in New York; that you had been in the Public
Library of that city; that in consequence what you did n't know about
books was, in his estimation, not worth knowing; that you were just as
handy with hammer and tacks as you were with books, and that you had
been 'fixin' up' the old manor till it shone. I gathered further, that
he expected me to be properly appreciative of the benefits conferred
upon me in this matter. As, up to that time, I had heard nothing of
your arrival in Richelieu-en-Bas, and as my friend here, Doctor Rugvie,
was likewise in the dark in regard to your personality, you may imagine
our curiosity; in fact, he wanted to rouse it, and took the best way to
do it."
"He can do that," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling at this description of
Cale's powers; "but he rarely satisfies us in regard to himself. Of
course, Jamie and I respect his reticence, but I should like to know if
he has been married. He is such a character! I should like to know
more of his life."
"I must take a good look at him to-morrow," said the Doctor, filling
his pipe.
"I should n't know him if I met him on the road," said Mr. Ewart; "for
his cap was drawn over his forehead, and his beard and side whiskers
were a mask. Won't he come in with us for a few minutes, Jamie?-- By
the way, you say that he is always with you at porridge, a custom I
hope you will not depart from, now I am here, Mrs. Macleod."
"I shall want some too," said the Doctor, whimsically; "it will be like
those never-to-be-forgotten days in Crieff fifteen years ago."
Mrs. Macleod said nothing; but she turned to him with such an indulgent
smile, that I knew she would give the great man anything in reason or
unreason for what he had been, and was, to her son and to herself.
Jamie jumped up impulsively.
"Tell me what he said, Marcia, about Gordon's talk with Pierre, and
then I 'll go and have him in--without the porridge, though, for it's
too late to-night."
"He said that if the old manor barns had been 'afire', and Mr. Ewart
and Pierre had been trying to get the horses out, they could n't have
talked faster."
"That's one on you, Ewart," said Jamie, gleefully. Mr. Ewart laughed.
"I hope to make a friend of Cale; I like him."
Jamie left the room, and the talk drifted to other things.
"Have you seen Mere Guillardeau lately?" Mr. Ewart asked of Mrs.
Macleod.
"Not since the last of October; but Marcia has seen her recently."
He looked at me inquiringly.
"I bought the rag carpet strips of her daughter."
"Is the old woman well?"
"Yes, she is wonderful for her age."
"Ninety-nine next year," said Mr. Ewart. "What a century she has
lived!"
"Andre pere must be ninety, then," said Doctor Rugvie. "How well I
remember him! He is Mere Guillardeau's brother, as perhaps you know,"
he said turning to me. "Jamie must have told you of Andre."
"Yes, of Andre father and Andre son; you know them both?"
It was the first time I had spoken directly with the Doctor, although
he was the one in the room upon whom all my thoughts centered.
"For many years; I saw him first in Tadoussac, just after the Columbian
Exposition in Chicago. Afterwards, for six consecutive summers I was
in camp with him and his son on the Upper Saguenay. There 's none like
him. By the way, Miss Farrell, has Jamie ever told you how the old
guide Andre went to the World's Fair at Chicago?"
"No."
"We 'll get him to tell you--and us; I can never hear it too many
times. It's unique, and it takes Jamie to tell it well. Andre told me
years ago, and last summer he told Jamie and Mr. Ewart. Jamie wrote me
about it."
"I shall never forget that night," said Mr. Ewart.
He laid his pipe on the mantel and stood back to the fireplace, his
hands clasped behind him. He was not so tall as Jamie or Doctor
Rugvie; not so thin as the former, nor stout like the latter. He had
kept his body in good training for, as he stood there, despite the few
gray hairs on the temples, he looked like a man of thirty, rather than
one who might be father to Jamie.
Jamie came in at this moment, looking thoroughly cross as well as
crestfallen.
"He won't come," he announced bluntly, taking his seat and leaning
forward to the fire, his long arms resting on his knees, his hands
clasped and hanging between them. He glared at the andirons.
"What's the matter, Jamie?" I asked; I knew something had gone wrong.
"He says he does n't belong here, and all that rot. Confound it all!
When you come up against Cale's crotchets you might as well go hang
yourself for all you can move him."