LOVE BEARING CHAINS
No one asked Maria any questions that evening, or on the following
evenings; but some member of the family must have told Eutrope
Gagnon of Lorenzo Surprenant's visit and his evident intentions, for
the next Sunday after dinner came Eutrope in turn, and Maria heard
another suitor declare his love.
François had come in the full tide of summer, from the land of
mystery at the headwaters of the rivers; the memory of his artless
words brought back the dazzling sunshine, the ripened blueberries
and the last blossoms of the laurel fading in the undergrowth; after
him appeared Lorenzo Surprenant offering other gifts,--visions of
beautiful distant cities, of a life abounding in unknown wonders.
When Eutrope spoke, it was in a shamefaced halting way, as though he
foresaw defeat, knowing full well that he bore little in his hands
wherewith to tempt her.
Boldly enough he asked Maria to walk with him, but when they were
dressed and outside the door, they saw that snow was falling. Maria
stood dubiously on the step, a hand on the latch as though she would
return; and Eutrope, unwilling to lose his chance, began forthwith
to speak--hastening as though doubtful that he would be able to say
all that was in his mind.
"You know very well, Maria, how I feel toward you. I said nothing
before as my farm was not so forward that we could live there
comfortably, and moreover I guessed that you liked François Paradis
better than me. But as François is no longer here, and this young
fellow from the States is courting you, I said to myself that I,
too, might try my fortune ..."
The snow was coming now in serried flakes, fluttering whitely for an
instant against the darkly-encircling forest, on the way to join
that other snow with which five months of winter had burdened the
earth.
"It is true enough that I am not rich; but I have two lots of my
own, paid for out and out, and you know the soil is good. I shall
work on it all spring, take the stumps out of the large field below
the ridge of rock, put up some fences, and by May there will be a
fine big field ready for seeding. I shall sow a hundred and thirty
bushels, Maria,--a hundred and thirty bushels of wheat, barley and
oats, without reckoning an acre of mixed grain for the cattle. All
the seed, the best seed-grain, I am going to buy at Roberval,
settling for it on the spot ... I have the money put aside; I
shall pay cash, without running into debt to a soul, and if only we
have an average season there will be a fine crop to harvest. Just
think of it, Maria, a hundred and thirty bushels of good seed in
first-rate land! And in the summer before the hay-making, and then
again before the harvest, will be the best chance for building a
nice tight warm little house, all of tamarack. I have the wood
ready, cut and piled behind my barn; my brother will help me,
perhaps Esdras and Da'Bé as well, when they get home. Next winter I
shall go to the shanties, taking a horse with me, and in the spring
I shall bring back not less than two hundred dollars in my pocket.
Then, should you be willing to wait so long for me, would be the
time ..."
Maria was leaning against the door, a hand still upon the latch, her
eyes turned away. Eutrope Gagnon had just this and no more to offer
her: after a year of waiting that she should become his wife, and
live as now she was doing in another wooden house on another
half-cleared farm ... Should do the household work and the
cooking, milk the cows, clean the stable when her man was
away--labour in the fields perhaps, since she was strong and there
would be but two of them ... Should spend her evenings at the
spinning-wheel or in patching old clothes ... Now and then in
summer resting for half an hour, seated on the door-step, looking
across their scant fields girt by the measureless frowning woods; or
in winter thawing a little patch with her breath on the windowpane,
dulled with frost, to watch the snow falling on the wintry earth and
the forest ... The forest ... Always the inscrutable, inimical
forest, with a host of dark things hiding there--closed round them
with a savage grip that must be loosened little by little, year by
year; a few acres won each spring and autumn as the years pass,
throughout all the long days of a dull harsh life ... No, that she
could not face ...
"I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first,"
Eutrope went on, "but you have courage, Maria, and are well used to
labour, as I am. I have always worked hard; no one can say that I
was ever lazy, and if only you will marry me it will be my joy to
toil like an ox all the day long to make a thriving place of it, so
that we shall be in comfort before old age comes upon us. I do not
touch drink, Maria, and truly I love you ..."
His voice quivered, and he put out his hand toward the latch to take
hers, or perhaps to hinder her from opening the door and leaving him
without his answer.
"My affection for you ... of that I am not able to speak ..."
Never a word did she utter in reply. Once more a young man was
telling his love, was placing in her hands all he had to give; and
once more she could but hearken in mute embarrassment, only saved
from awkwardness by her immobility and silence. Town-bred girls had
thought her stupid, when she was but honest and truthful; very close
to nature which takes no account of words. In other days when life
was simpler than now it is, when young men paid their
court--masterfully and yet half bashfully--to some deep-bosomed girl
in the ripe fullness of womanhood who had not heard nature's
imperious command, she must have listened thus, in silence; less
attentive to their pleading than to the inner voice, guarding
herself by distance against too ardent a wooing, whilst she awaited
... The three lovers of Maria Chapdelaine were not drawn to her by any charm of gracious
speech, but by her sheer comeliness, and the transparent honest
heart dwelling in her bosom; when they spoke to her of love she was
true to herself, steadfast and serene, saying no word where none was
needful to be said, and for this they loved her only the more.
"This young fellow from the States was ready with fine speeches, but
you must not be carried away by them ..." He caught a hint of
dissent and changed his tone.
"Of course you are quite free to choose, and I have not a word to
say against him. But you would be happier here, Maria, amongst
people like yourself."
Through the falling snow Maria gazed at the rude structure of
planks, between stable and barn, which her father and brother had
thrown together five years before; unsightly and squalid enough it
appeared, now that her fancy had begun to conjure up the stately
buildings of the town. Close and ill-smelling, the floor littered
with manure and foul straw, the pump in one corner that was so hard
to work and set the teeth on edge with its grinding; the
weather-beaten outside, buffeted by wind and never-ending snow--sign
and symbol of what awaited her were she to marry one like Eutrope
Gagnon, and accept as her lot a lifetime of rude toil in this sad
and desolate land ... She shook her head.
"I cannot answer, Eutrope, either yes or no; not just now. I have
given no promise. You must wait."
It was more than she had said to Lorenzo Surprenant, and yet Lorenzo
had gone away with hope in his heart, while Eutrope felt that he had
made his throw and lost. Departing alone, the snow soon hid him. She
entered the house.
* * * * *
March dragged through its melancholy days; cold winds drove the gray
clouds back and forth across the sky, and swept the snow hither and
thither; one must needs consult the calendar of the Roberval grain
merchant to get an inkling that spring was drawing near.
Succeeding days were to Maria like those that had gone before, each
one bringing its familiar duties and the same routine; but the
evenings were different, and were filled with pathetic strivings to
think. Beyond doubt her parents had guessed the truth; but they were
unwilling to force her reserve with their advice, nor did she seek
it. She knew that it rested with her alone to make a choice, to
settle the future course of her life, and she felt like a child at
school, standing on a platform before watchful eyes, bidden to find
by herself the answer to some knotty question.
And this was her problem: when a girl is grown to womanhood, when
she is good-looking, healthy and strong, clever in all that pertains
to the household and the farm, young men come and ask her to marry,
and she must say "Yes" to this one and "No" to another.
If only François Paradis had not vanished forever in the great
lonely woods, all were then so plain. No need to ask herself what
she ought to do; she would have gone straight to him, guided by a
wise instinct that she might not gainsay, sure of doing what was
right as a child that obeys a command. But François was gone;
neither in the promised springtime nor ever again to return, and the
_curé_ of St. Henri forbade regrets that would prolong the awaiting.
Ah, dear God! How happy had been the early days of this awaiting! As
week followed week something quickened in her heart and shot upward,
like a rich and beauteous sheaf whose opening ears bend low under
their weight. Happiness beyond any dream came dancing to her ...
No, it was stronger and keener yet, this joy of hers. It had been a
great light shining in the twilight of a lonely land, a beacon
toward which one journeys, forgetful of the tears that were about to
flow, saying with glad defiance: "I knew it well--knew that
somewhere on the earth was such a thing as this ..." It was over.
Yes, the gleam was gone. Henceforth must she forget that once it had
shone upon her path, and grope through the dark with faltering
steps.
Chapdelaine and Tit'Bé were smoking in silence by the stove; the
mother knitted stockings; Chien, stretched out with his head between
his paws, blinked sleepily in enjoyment of the good warmth.
Telesphore had dozed off with the catechism open on his knees, and
the little Alma Rose, not yet in bed, was hovering in doubt between
the wish to draw attention to her brother's indolence, and a sense
of shame at thus betraying him.
Maria looked down again, took her work in hand, and her simple mind
pursued a little further its puzzling train of thought. When a girl
does not feel, or feels no longer, that deep mysterious impulse
toward a man singled out from all the rest of the world, what is
left to guide her? For what things should she seek in her marriage?
For a satisfying life, surely; to make a happy home for herself ...
Her parents would like her to marry Eutrope Gagnon--that she
felt--because she would live near them, and again because this life
upon the land was the only one they knew, and they naturally thought
it better than any other. Eutrope was a fine fellow, hard-working
and of kindly disposition, and he loved her; but Lorenzo Surprenant
also loved her; he, likewise, was steady and a good worker; he was a
Canadian at heart, not less than those amongst whom she lived; he
went to church ... And he offered as his splendid gift a world
dazzling to the eye, all the wonders of the city. He would rescue
her from this oppression of frozen earth and gloomy forest.
She could not as yet resolve to say to herself: "I will marry
Lorenzo Surprenant," but her heart had made its choice. The cruel
north-west wind that heaped the snow above François Paradis at the
foot of some desolate cypress bore also to her on its wings the
frown and the harshness of the country wherein she dwelt, and filled
her with hate of the northern winter, the cold, the whitened ground
and the loneliness, of that boundless forest unheedful of the
destinies of men where every melancholy tree is fit to stand in a
home of the dead. Love--all-compelling love--for a brief space had
dwelt within her heart ... Mighty flame, scorching and bright,
quenched now, and never to revive. It left her spirit empty and
yearning; she was fain to seek forgetfulness and cure in that life
afar, among the myriad paler lights of the city.