"Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry-men go,
To gather in the mistletoe."--WALTER SCOTT.
"Can you make out what the child means?" said Douglas, as his elder
daughter entered the study early on Christmas morning to renew the fire
and set the apartment in order for the day. As he spoke he held Tita's
epistle hopelessly before him, and scanned the zig-zag lines.
"She wants some ribbons for her hair," said Anne, making out the words
over his shoulder. "Poor little thing! she is so proud of her hair, and
all the other girls have bright ribbons. But I can not make ribbons,"
she added, regretfully, as though she found herself wanting in a needful
accomplishment. "Think of her faith in Santa Klaus, old as she is, and
her writing to ask him! But there is ribbon in the house, after all,"
she added, suddenly, her face brightening. "Miss Lois gave me some last
month; I had forgotten it. That will be the very thing for Tita; she has
not even seen it."
(But has she not, thou unsuspicious elder sister?)
"Do not rob yourself, child," said the father, wearily casting his eyes
over the slip of paper again. "What spelling! The English is bad, but
the French worse."
"That is because she has no French teacher, papa; and you know I do not
allow her to speak the island _patois_, lest it should corrupt the
little she knows."
"But she does speak it; she always talks _patois_ when she is alone with
me."
"Does she?" said Anne, in astonishment. "I had no idea of that. But
_you_ might correct her, papa."
"I can never correct her in any way," replied Douglas, gloomily; and
then Anne, seeing that he was on the threshold of one of his dark moods,
lighted his pipe, stirred the fire into a cheery blaze, and went out to
get a cup of coffee for him. For the Irish soldier's wife was already at
work in the kitchen, having been to mass in the cold gray dawn, down on
her two knees on the hard floor, repentant for all her sins, and
refulgently content in the absolution which wiped out the old score (and
left place for a new one). After taking in the coffee, Anne ran up to
her own room, brought down the ribbon, and placed it in Tita's stocking;
she then made up the fire with light-wood, and set about decorating the
walls with wreaths of evergreen as the patter of the little boys' feet
was heard on the old stairway. The breakfast table was noisy that
morning. Tita had inspected her ribbons demurely, and wondered how Santa
Klaus knew her favorite colors so well. Anne glanced toward her father,
and smiled; but the father's face showed doubt, and did not respond.
While they were still at the table the door opened, and a tall figure
entered, muffled in furs. "Miss Lois!" cried the boys. "Hurrah! See our
presents, Miss Lois." They danced round her while she removed her
wrappings, and kept up such a noise that no one could speak. Miss Lois,
viewed without her cloak and hood, was a tall, angular woman, past
middle age, with sharp features, thin brown hair tinged with gray, and
pale blue eyes shielded by spectacles. She kissed Anne first with
evident affection, and afterward the children with business-like
promptitude; then she shook hands with William Douglas. "I wish you a
happy Christmas, doctor," she said.
"Thank you, Lois," said Douglas, holding her hand in his an instant or
two longer than usual.
A faint color rose in Miss Lois's cheeks. When she was young she had one
of those exquisitely delicate complexions which seem to belong to some
parts of New England; even now color would rise unexpectedly in her
cheeks, much to her annoyance: she wondered why wrinkles did not keep it
down. But New England knows her own. The creamy skins of the South, with
their brown shadows under the eyes, the rich colors of the West, even
the calm white complexions that are bred and long retained in cities,
all fade before this faint healthy bloom on old New England's cheeks,
like winter-apples.
Miss Lois inspected the boys' presents with exact attention, and added
some gifts of her own, which filled the room with a more jubilant uproar
than before. Tita, in the mean while, remained quietly seated at the
table, eating her breakfast; she took very small mouthfuls, and never
hurried herself. She said she liked to taste things, and that only
snapping dogs, like the boys, for instance, gulped their food in a mass.
"I gave her the ribbons; do not say anything," whispered Anne, in Miss
Lois's ear, as she saw the spectacled eyes turning toward Tita's corner.
Miss Lois frowned, and put back into her pocket a small parcel she was
taking out. She had forgiven Dr. Douglas the existence of the boys, but
she never could forgive the existence of Tita.
Once Anne had asked about Angélique. "I was but a child when she died,
Miss Lois," said she, "so my recollection of her may not be accurate;
but I know that I thought her very beautiful. Does Tita look like her?"
"Angélique Lafontaine was beautiful--in her way," replied Miss Lois. "I
do not say that I admire that way, mind you."
"And Tita?"
"Tita is hideous."
"Oh, Miss Lois!"
"She is, child. She is dwarfish, black, and sly."
"I do not think she is sly," replied Anne, with heat. "And although she
is dark and small, still, sometimes--"
"That, for your beauty of 'sometimes!'" said Miss Lois, snapping her
fingers. "Give me a girl who is pretty in the morning as well as by
candle-light, one who has a nice, white, well-born, down-East face, and
none of your Western-border mongrelosities!"
But this last phrase she uttered under her breath. She was ever mindful
of Anne's tender love for her father, and the severity with which she
herself, as a contemporary, had judged him was never revealed to the
child.
At half past ten the Douglas family were all in their places in the
little fort chapel. It was a bright but bitterly cold day, and the
members of the small congregation came enveloped in shaggy furs like
bears, shedding their skins at the door, where they lay in a pile near
the stove, ready for the return homeward. The military trappings of the
officers brightened the upper benches, the uniforms of the common
soldiers filled the space behind; on the side benches sat the few
Protestants of the village, denominational prejudices unknown or
forgotten in this far-away spot in the wilderness. The chaplain, the
Reverend James Gaston--a man who lived in peace with all the world, with
Père Michaux, the Catholic priest, and William Douglas, the deist--gazed
round upon his flock with a benignant air, which brightened into
affection as Anne's voice took up the song of the angels, singing, amid
the ice and snow of a new world, the strain the shepherds heard on the
plains of Palestine.
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men,"
sang Anne, with all her young heart. And Miss Lois, sitting with folded
hands, and head held stiffly erect, saw her wreath in the place of honor
over the altar, and was touched first with pride and then with a slight
feeling of awe. She did not believe that one part of the church was more
sacred than another--she could not; but being a High-Church Episcopalian
now, she said to herself that she ought to; she even had appalling
visions of herself, sometimes, going as far as Rome. But the old spirit
of Calvinism was still on the ground, ready for many a wrestling match
yet; and stronger than all else were the old associations connected with
the square white meeting-house of her youth, which held their place
undisturbed down below all these upper currents of a new faith. William
Douglas was also a New-Englander, brought up strictly in the creed of
his fathers; but as Miss Lois's change of creed was owing to a change of
position, as some Northern birds turn their snow-color to a darker hue
when taken away from arctic regions, so his was one purely of mind,
owing to nothing but the processes of thought within him. He had drifted
away from all creeds, save in one article: he believed in a Creator. To
this great Creator's praise, and in worship of Him, he now poured forth
his harmonies, the purest homage he could offer, "unless," he thought,
"Anne is a living homage as she stands here beside me. But no, she is a
soul by herself; she has her own life to live, her own worship to offer;
I must not call her mine. That she is my daughter is naught to me save a
great blessing. I can love her with a human father's love, and thank God
for her affection. But that is all."
So he played his sweetest music, and Miss Lois fervently prayed, and
made no mistake in the order of her prayers. She liked to have a vocal
part in the service. It was a pleasure to herself to hear her own voice
lifted up, even as a miserable sinner; for at home in the old white
meeting-house all expression had been denied to her, the small outlet
of the Psalms being of little avail to a person who could not sing. This
dumbness stifled her, and she had often said to herself that the men
would never have endured it either if they had not had the
prayer-meetings as a safety-valve. The three boys were penned in at Miss
Lois's side, within reach of her tapping finger. They had decided to
attend service on account of the evergreens and Anne's singing, although
they, as well as Tita, belonged in reality to the flock of Father
Michaux. Anne never interfered with this division of the family; she
considered it the one tie which bound the children to the memory of
their mother; but Miss Lois shook her head over it, and sighed
ominously. The boys were, in fact, three little heathen; but Tita was a
devout Roman Catholic, and observed all the feast and fast days of the
Church, to the not infrequent disturbance of the young mistress of the
household, to whom a feast-day was oftentimes an occasion bristling with
difficulty. But to-day, in honor of Christmas, the usual frugal dinner
had been made a banquet indeed, by the united efforts of Anne and Miss
Lois; and when they took their seats at the table which stood in the
sitting-room, all felt that it held an abundance fit even for the old
fur-trading days, Miss Lois herself having finally succumbed to that
island standard of comparison. After the dinner was over, while they
were sitting round the fire sipping coffee--the ambrosia of the Northern
gods, who find some difficulty in keeping themselves warm--a tap at the
door was heard, and a tall youth entered, a youth who was a vivid
personification of early manhood in its brightest form. The warm air was
stirred by the little rush of cold that came in with him, and the dreamy
and drowsy eyes round the fire awoke as they rested upon him.
"The world _is_ alive, then, outside, after all," said Miss Lois,
briskly straightening herself in her chair, and taking out her knitting.
"How do you do, Erastus?"
But her greeting was drowned by the noise of the boys, who had been
asleep together on the rug in a tangled knot, like three young bears,
but now, broadly awake again, were jumping round the new-comer,
displaying their gifts and demanding admiration. Disentangling himself
from them with a skill which showed a long experience in their modes of
twisting, the young man made his way up to Anne, and, with a smile and
bow to Dr. Douglas and Miss Lois, sat down by her side.
"You were not at church this morning," said the girl, looking at him
rather gravely, but giving him her hand.
"No, I was not; but a merry Christmas all the same, Annet," answered the
youth, throwing back his golden head with careless grace. At this moment
Tita came forward from her furry corner, where she had been lying with
her head on her arm, half asleep, and seated herself in the red light of
the fire, gazing into the blaze with soft indifference. Her dark woollen
dress was brightened by the ribbons which circled her little waist and
knotted themselves at the ends of the long braids of her hair. She had a
string of yellow beads round her neck, and on her feet the little
slippers which Anne had fashioned for her with so much care. Her brown
hands lay crossed on her lap, and her small but bold-featured profile
looked more delicate than usual, outlined in relief like a little cameo
against the flame. The visitor's eyes rested upon her for a moment, and
then turned back to Anne. "There is to be a dance to-night down in one
of the old warehouses," he said, "and I want you to go."
"A dance!" cried the boys; "then _we_ are going too. It is Christmas
night, and we know how to dance. See here." And they sprang out into the
centre of the room, and began a figure, not without a certain wild grace
of its own, keeping time to the shrill whistling of Gabriel, who was the
fifer and leader of the band.
Miss Lois put down her knitting, and disapproved, for the old training
was still strong in her; then she remembered that these were things of
the past, shook her head at herself, sighed, and resumed it again.
"Of course you will go," said the visitor.
"I do not know that I _can_ go, Rast," replied Anne, turning toward her
father, as if to see what he thought.
"Yes, go," said Douglas--"go, Annet." He hardly ever used this name,
which the children had given to their elder sister--a name that was not
the French "Annette," but, like the rest of the island _patois_, a
mispronunciation--"An´net," with the accent on the first syllable. "It
is Christmas night," said Douglas, with a faint interest on his faded
face; "I should like it to be a pleasant recollection for you, Annet."
The young girl went to him; he kissed her, and then rose to go to his
study; but Tita's eyes held him, and he paused.
"Will _you_ go, Miss Lois?" said Anne.
"Oh no, child," replied the old maid, primly, adjusting her spectacles.
"But you must go, Miss Lois, and dance with me," said Rast, springing up
and seizing her hands.
"Fie, Erastus! for shame! Let me go," said Miss Lois, as he tried to
draw her to her feet. He still bent over her, but she tapped his cheek
with her knitting-needles, and told him to sit down and behave himself.
"I won't, unless you promise to go with us," he said.
"Why should you not go, Lois?" said Douglas, still standing at the door.
"The boys want to go, and some one must be with them to keep them in
order."
"Why, doctor, imagine me at a dancing party!" said Miss Lois, the
peach-like color rising in her thin cheeks again.
"It is different here, Lois; everybody goes."
"Yes; even old Mrs. Kendig," said Tita, softly.
Miss Lois looked sharply at her; old Mrs. Kendig was fat, toothless, and
seventy, and the active, spare New England woman felt a sudden wrath at
the implied comparison. Griselda was not tried upon the subject of her
age, or we might have had a different legend. But Tita looked as idly
calm as a summer morning, and Miss Lois turned away, as she had turned a
hundred times before, uncertain between intention and simple chance.
"Very well, then, I will go," she said. "How you bother me, Erastus!"
"No, I don't," said the youth, releasing her. "You know you like me,
Miss Lois; you know you do."
"Brazen-face!" said Miss Lois, pushing him away. But any one could see
that she did like him.
"Of course I may go, father?" said Tita, without stirring, but looking
at him steadily.
"I suppose so," he answered, slowly; "that is, if Erastus will take care
of you."
"Will you take care of me, Erastus?" asked the soft voice.
"Don't be absurd, Tita; of course he will," said Miss Lois, shortly. "He
will see to you as well as to the other children."
And then Douglas turned and left the room.
Erastus, or Rast, as he was called, went back to his place beside Anne.
He was a remarkably handsome youth of seventeen, with bright blue eyes,
golden hair, a fine spirited outline, laughing mouth, and impetuous,
quick movements; tall as a young sapling, his figure was almost too
slender for its height, but so light and elastic that one forgave the
fault, and forgot it in one look at the mobile face, still boyish in
spite of the maturity given by the hard cold life of the North.
"Why have we not heard of this dance before, Erastus?" asked Miss Lois,
ever mindful and tenacious of a dignity of position which no one
disputed, but which was none the less to her a subject of constant and
belligerent watchfulness--one by which she gauged the bow of the
shop-keeper, the nod of the passing islander, the salute of the little
half-breed boys who had fish to sell, and even the guttural ejaculations
of the Chippewas who came to her door offering potatoes and Indian
sugar.
"Because it was suggested only a few hours ago, up at the fort. I was
dining with Dr. Gaston, and Walters came across from the commandant's
cottage and told me. Since then I have been hard at work with them,
decorating and lighting the ball-room."
"Which one of the old shells have you taken?" asked Miss Lois. "I hope
the roof will not come down on our heads."
"We have Larrabee's; that has the best floor. And as to coming down on
our heads, those old warehouses are stronger than you imagine, Miss
Lois. Have you never noticed their great beams?"
"I have noticed their toppling fronts and their slanting sides, their
bulgings out and their leanings in," replied Miss Lois, nodding her head
emphatically.
"The leaning tower of Pisa, you know, is pronounced stronger than other
towers that stand erect," said Rast. "That old brown shell of Larrabee's
is jointed together so strongly that I venture to predict it will
outlive us all. We might be glad of such joints ourselves, Miss Lois."
"If it will only not come down on our heads to-night, that is all I ask
of its joints," replied Miss Lois.
Soon after seven o'clock the ball opened: darkness had already lain over
the island for nearly three hours, and the evening seemed well advanced.
"Oh, Tita!" said Anne, as the child stepped out of her long cloak and
stood revealed, clad in a fantastic short skirt of black cloth barred
with scarlet, and a little scarlet bodice, "that dress is too thin, and
besides--"
"She looks like a circus-rider," said Miss Lois, in dismay. "Why did you
allow it, Anne?"
"I knew nothing of it," replied the elder sister, with a distressed
expression on her face, but, as usual, not reproving Tita. "It is the
little fancy dress the fort ladies made for her last summer when they
had tableaux. It is too late to go back now; she must wear it, I
suppose; perhaps in the crowd it will not be noticed."
Tita, unmoved, had walked meanwhile over to the hearth, and sitting down
on the floor before the fire, was taking off her snow-boots and donning
her new slippers, apparently unconscious of remark.
The scene was a striking one, or would have been such to a stranger. The
lower floor of the warehouse had been swept and hastily garnished with
evergreens and all the flags the little fort could muster; at each end
on a broad hearth a great fire of logs roared up the old chimney, and
helped to light the room, a soldier standing guard beside it, and
keeping up the flame by throwing on wood every now and then from the
heap in the corner near by. Candles were ranged along the walls, and
lanterns hung from the beams above; all that the island could do in the
way of illumination had been done. The result was a picturesque mingling
of light and shade as the dancers came into the ruddy gleam of the fires
and passed out again, now seen for a moment in the paler ray of a candle
farther down the hall, now lost in the shadows which everywhere swept
across the great brown room from side to side, like broad-winged ghosts
resting in mid-air and looking down upon the revels. The music came from
six French fiddlers, four young, gayly dressed fellows, and two
grizzled, withered old men, and they played the tunes of the century
before, and played them with all their might and main. The little fort,
a one-company post, was not entitled to a band; but there were, as
usual, one or two German musicians among the enlisted men, and these now
stood near the French fiddlers and watched them with slow curiosity,
fingering now and then in imagination the great brass instruments which
were to them the keys of melody, and dreaming over again the happy days
when they, too, played "with the band." But the six French fiddlers
cared nothing for the Germans; they held themselves far above the common
soldiers of the fort, and despised alike their cropped hair, their
ideas, their uniforms, and the strict rules they were obliged to obey.
They fiddled away with their eyes cast up to the dark beams above, and
their tunes rang out in that shrill, sustained, clinging treble which no
instrument save a violin can give. The entire upper circle of society
was present, and a sprinkling of the second; for the young officers
cared more for dancing than for etiquette, and a pretty young French
girl was in their minds of more consequence than even the five Misses
Macdougall with all their blood, which must have been, however, of a
thin, although, of course, precious, quality, since between the whole
five there seemed scarcely enough for one. The five were there, however,
in green plaided delaines with broad lace collars and large flat
shell-cameo breastpins with scroll-work settings: they presented an
imposing appearance to the eyes of all. The father of these ladies, long
at rest from his ledgers, was in his day a prominent resident official
of the Fur Company; his five maiden daughters lived on in the old house,
and occupied themselves principally in remembering him. Miss Lois seated
herself beside these acknowledged heads of society, and felt that she
was in her proper sphere. The dance-music troubled her ears, but she
endured it manfully.
"A gay scene," she observed, gazing through her spectacles.
The five Misses Macdougall bowed acquiescence, and said that it was
fairly gay; indeed, rather too gay, owing to more of a mingling than
they approved; but nothing, ah! nothing, to the magnificent
entertainments of times past, which had often been described to them by
their respected parent. (They never seemed to have had but one.)
"Of course you will dance, Anne?" said Rast Pronando.
She smiled an assent, and they were soon among the dancers. Tita, left
alone, followed them with her eyes as they passed out of the fire-light
and were lost in the crowd and the sweeping shadows. Then she made her
way, close to the wall, down to the other end of the long room, where
the commandant's wife and the fort ladies sat in state, keeping up the
dignity of what might be called the military end of the apartment. Here
she sought the brightest light she could find, and placed herself in it
carelessly, and as though by chance, to watch the dancers.
"Look at that child," said the captain's wife. "What an odd little thing
it is!"
"It is Tita Douglas, Anne's little sister," said Mrs. Bryden, the wife
of the commandant. "I am surprised they allowed her to come in that
tableau dress. Her mother was a French girl, I believe. Dr. Douglas, you
know, came to the island originally as surgeon of the post."
"There is Anne now, and dancing with young Pronando, of course," said
the wife of one of the lieutenants.
"Dr. Gaston thinks there is no one like Anne Douglas," observed Mrs.
Bryden. "He has educated her almost entirely; taught her Latin and
Greek, and all sorts of things. Her father is a musical genius, you
know, and in one way the girl knows all about music; in another, nothing
at all. Do you think she is pretty, Mrs. Cromer?"
Mrs. Cromer thought "Not at all; too large, and--unformed in every way."
"I sometimes wonder, though, why she is not pretty," said Mrs. Bryden,
in a musing tone. "She ought to be."
"I never knew but one girl of that size and style who was pretty, and
she had had every possible advantage of culture, society, and foreign
travel; wore always the most elaborately plain costumes--works of art,
in a Greek sort of way; said little; but sat or stood about in
statuesque attitudes that made you feel thin and insignificant, and glad
you had all your clothes on," said Mrs. Cromer.
"And was this girl pretty?"
"She was simply superb," said the captain's wife. "But do look at young
Pronando. How handsome he is to-night!"
"An Apollo Belvedere," said the wife of the lieutenant, who, having
rashly allowed herself to spend a summer at West Point, was now living
in the consequences.
But although the military element presided like a court circle at one
end of the room, and the five Misses Macdougall and Miss Lois like an
element of first families at the other, the intervening space was well
filled with a motley assemblage--lithe young girls with sparkling black
eyes and French vivacity, matrons with a shade more of brown in their
complexions, and withered old grandams who sat on benches along the
walls, and looked on with a calm dignity of silence which never came
from Saxon blood. Intermingled were youths of rougher aspect but of fine
mercurial temperaments, who danced with all their hearts as well as
bodies, and kept exact time with the music, throwing in fancy steps from
pure love of it as they whirled lightly down the hall with their
laughing partners. There were a few young men of Scotch descent present
also, clerks in the shops, and superintendents of the fisheries which
now formed the only business of the once thriving frontier village.
These were considered by island parents of the better class desirable
suitors for their daughters--far preferable to the young officers who
succeeded each other rapidly at the little fort, with attachments
delightful, but as transitory as themselves. It was noticeable, however,
that the daughters thought otherwise. Near the doorway in the shadow a
crowd of Indians had gathered, while almost all of the common soldiers
from the fort, on one pretext or another, were in the hall, attending to
the fires and lights, or acting as self-appointed police. Even Chaplain
Gaston looked in for a moment, and staid an hour; and later in the
evening the tall form of Père Michaux appeared, clad in a furred mantle,
a black silk cap crowning his silver hair. Tita immediately left her
place and went to meet him, bending her head with an air of deep
reverence.
"See the child--how theatrical!" said Mrs. Cromer.
"Yes. Still, the Romanists do believe in all kinds of amusements, and
even ask a blessing on it," said the lieutenant's wife.
"It was not that--it was the little air and attitude of devoutness that
I meant. See the puss now!"
But the puss was triumphant at last. One of the younger officers had
noted her solemn little salutation in front of the priest, and now
approached to ask her to dance, curious to see what manner of child this
small creature could be. In another moment she was whirling down the
hall with him, her dark face flushed, her eyes radiant, her dancing
exquisitely light and exact. She passed Anne and Rast with a sparkling
glance, her small breast throbbing with a swell of satisfied vanity that
almost stopped her breath.
"There is Tita," said the elder sister, rather anxiously. "I hope Mr.
Walters will not spoil her with his flattery."
"There is no danger; she is not pretty enough," answered Rast.
A flush rose in Anne's face. "You do not like my little sister," she
said.
"Oh, I do not dislike her," said Rast. "I could not dislike anything
that belonged to _you_," he added, in a lower tone.
She smiled as he bent his handsome head toward her to say this. She was
fond of Rast; he had been her daily companion through all her life; she
scarcely remembered anything in which he was not concerned, from her
first baby walk in the woods back of the fort, her first ride in a
dog-sledge on the ice, to yesterday's consultation over the chapel
evergreens.
The six French fiddlers played on; they knew not fatigue. In imagination
they had danced every dance. Tita was taken out on the floor several
times by the officers, who were amused by her little airs and her small
elfish face: she glowed with triumph. Anne had but few invitations, save
from Rast; but as his were continuous, she danced all the evening. At
midnight Miss Lois and the Misses Macdougall formally rose, and the fort
ladies sent for their wrappings: the ball, as far as the first circle
was concerned, was ended. But long afterward the sound of the fiddles
was still heard, and it was surmised that the second circle was having
its turn, possibly not without a sprinkling of the third also.