GLORIOUS LIFE.
When Madame found La Salle gone and the fire black in the early
morning, she frowned until her eyes became hidden and went back to the
palisade, passing her old servant, who was shredding ears of wild rice.
She entered the windy house calling. Soon she came out, shaking a
willow stick in her angry hand, and stopped opposite the old man, who
continued his work, grumbling softly to himself, "Ah, Father Creator!
Father Creator! Why do you send this north wind in summer time? The
day is dark and cold. Send us the west wind, Father Creator."
"Have you heard noises in the night?" Madame's voice grated.
"I slept with the wind in my ears," answered the native.
"Have you seen my daughter, or the young Englishman?"
"I have seen the light struggling to break, and the grey heaven
rushing, and the thick wind beating. I saw a red fox run and a
blue-bird chattering across the wind," said the old man.
"Have you not seen the priest?" urged Madame.
"I was up at the dawn," replied the stolid worker. "The fire was dead
and the sleeping-place white with rain. A bear was seeking warmth upon
the embers."
"I have been blind and deaf," cried Madame in a rage.
At the first glance of light the cabin was as noisy as an ocean cave.
Madeleine's brain became too active for sleep when she knew that the
day was at hand. She rose softly, glowing with her new-found
happiness, and as she stirred she murmured the intensely human line of
that unhappy boy Kit Marlowe, who had perished in a tavern brawl a few
years before her birth, "Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?"
She darted up with that thought, but a coil of her long hair tightened,
and there came a startled movement from beyond the wall.
"Hush!" she whispered, lifting a pink finger, forgetful that he could
not see.
"Is it the day?" said Geoffrey.
"Yes, yes. Release me. Let me fly. Do you not hear the wind?"
"I am listening to you," he answered.
"Forget me. Listen! That was like thunder. Are you listening?"
"I am coming out with you," he said.
Reaching the open, Geoffrey discovered Madeleine, her arms
outstretched, her hair rising in ripples above her head as she bathed
in the wind, battling and panting, her lovely face all heather-pink.
"I can smell the pines," she gasped, "and the salt sea, and the
mountains. I can hear the roaring of water and see the soaring of
eagles. Oh, oh!" she panted. "It is glorious to live!"
She cried as she drew him away impetuously:
"The black priest has gone. Let us hope that he has been blown away
into a swamp, where the fairies shall bewitch him into a frog to croak
at the world for ever. Come now away. Tell me whether you had dreams
in the night. But stay!"
She drew away from him suddenly.
"Madeleine!" he exclaimed, wondering at her changed face.
"I must remove this mask," she cried in a stately fashion, frowning and
placing her hands upon her sides. "Sir, who are you that you should
strive to win the heart of Madeleine Labroquerie? Why, I have sworn to
wed a knight, a man of title and estate, and you, a smooth-faced boy,
with long hair and cheeks as pink as mine, you come and speak to me of
love. Sir, how dare you thus to use an innocent maid?"
She passed on ahead of her astonished lover and the trees of the grove
closed round them.
"Madeleine----" he began, protesting.
"Madeleine," she imitated. "Here is free-speech indeed. Now, sir,
stand and let me show you what you are. You are an Englishman, an
adventurer, one of a small band who think themselves strong enough to
attack the power of France in this new land, and you, the enemy of my
people, come to me with a tale of love, believing me to be a maid of
the wilds to be won and cast aside at will. Speak not to me. I will
not hear you. I am no simple provincial maid that I should fall in
love with a soldier's handsome face. Last night, yes, last night,
after an acquaintance of but three days, you dared to own your love,
and to humour you--in truth I was afraid--I confessed that I also loved
you. I, a French girl, such a traitress as to love an enemy of my
people! I was but fooling you. How I laughed to myself at deceiving
you so readily."
She laughed disdainfully and curled her lovely lip.
"I fear I have already tarried here too long," was all that Geoffrey
could say.
"Stay one moment," cried the haughty beauty. "I should be base did I
not warn you. Soldiers are waiting for you upon every side. East,
west, north, and south they lie in wait for you."
"There are no soldiers nearer than the fortress," said Geoffrey wildly.
"You may believe so," replied the traitress. "But you have learnt
little of this country if you do not know that military posts are set
about from place to place. One such post is near at hand, and thither
I sent our servant after your coming. Can you not perceive that I have
betrayed you?"
Had Geoffrey looked he might have seen her shiver as she spoke.
"I thank you for your warning, but I may stay no longer," the young man
said, and he stepped away with his head down.
"Which way do you take?" she demanded.
"I am southward bound."
"You are--brave, friend."
"Friend!" he exclaimed, with a sobbing note of indignation. "Would you
have me trust in you again?"
"I had forgot," she admitted. "Are you going now?"
He moved on through the grove; but he had not made a dozen steps before
she called to him.
"Have you, then, no word of farewell?"
He turned, but did not look at her as he said: "May you live to fortune
and a happy future."
"You said you loved me," said Madeleine, her figure drooping. "Why did
you deceive me?"
"I loved you," he said hotly, moving back a step. "And I love you
still. When I first saw you standing by the fire with the sun falling
on your head I loved you. When I have left you I shall see, not the
girl who desired to betray me, but her who gave me this to hold for my
protection while I slept."
He drew forth a long coil of golden-brown hair and held it in the wind.
"You cut it off," she faltered. Then her manner changed again. "Throw
it down. Stamp upon it. Tread it into the ground."
"I use it," he said, "as I longed to use you." And he put the lock
back into his bosom.
At that she ran forward with the cry: "You love me. Take me there,
Geoffrey. That is my place. I will not be held out. Geoffrey, I love
you. Oh, blind, blind! I love you with all my heart and soul."
She tried to force herself into his arms, warm, loving, and
irresistible.
"I am the wickedest of liars," she breathed, twisting her fingers
within his. "I would not have gone so far, but I thought that you
knew. I thought that you feigned to hate me in return for my cruelty.
Ah, Geoffrey, I loved you when first our eyes met. I did so desire
your love, but, sweetheart--foolish, credulous--I--I feared you might
think I was won too easily. Will you value your prize the more, when I
tell you that my treachery, the story of the soldiers, the
settlement?--Oh, oh!"
He guessed what she would have said, and so had seized her.
"Betray you, blind love!" she whispered. "Dear foolish sweetheart, I
would open my veins and give my blood for you. How I tortured you!
Knowing what a cruel nature your love possesses, knowing it, can you
still love her?"
"Madeleine----"
"Stop," she entreated, lifting her violet eyes. "Repeat that name a
hundred times, and find for it a new attribute of love each time. But
let the first be false and the second fair."
"Sweet Madeleine!"
"Call me so, Geoffrey," she murmured. "And I shall not wish to change."
There was a hill beyond, its sides covered with bleached grass, and
above a few gaunt pines beating their ragged heads together and
stabbing one upon the other with jagged arms where limbs had been
amputated by previous storms. To this place Madeleine led her lover.
It was a strange day. Though long past sunrise there was barely light.
The clouds swept low, grey or indigo masses rushing south with the
speed of rapids. The dark, solid wind of the lowlands came in a
furious succession of great waves. The lovers might have been upon an
island with the ocean roaring round in storm. Out of the gloom the wet
rocks glimmered and the trunks of long-fallen trees described weird
shapes upon the plain.
"This is life!" cried Madeleine. "Glorious life!"
Geoffrey held her closely, looking down upon her wet and radiant face.
"We can fight together, you and I," she went on. "No wind shall
conquer while we hold together. It may roar at us, but we are young
and strong, and the wind is old and worn. Think you that you can bear
with me always? I promise you I will never use deceit again. We shall
be together when the winds have all passed under heaven, and the trees
are gone, and the seas have dried. Our souls will live in the same
life and the same love. Together while the old world crumbles, and the
sun becomes cold, and the moon fades. There is no death. We shall
close our eyes one day and change our home. Life will run on for us,
the same magnificent life of love."
"There is no death," he repeated, as though the idea had not occurred
to him before.
"How many thousand years has this wind rushed upon this hill? How many
thousand shall it beat after we have changed our home? We are made to
live, Geoffrey. It is not we who are sick, not we who are oppressed.
We are made of stuff that does not perish, not flesh and blood which
wither, but breath and love. Kiss me, Geoffrey, kiss me with your
soul."
"Sweet, you have more knowledge than I," cried Geoffrey as he kissed
her eyes.
"See that huge cloud! How the monster wishes to smother us! There it
rushes, flinging its rain to spite us."
"I shall see this wild spot for ever," he murmured.
"In years to come," said Madeleine, "a city perchance may grow in this
solitude, and where we now sit a palace or a cathedral may be built, a
king may command, a pastor teach his people, bells may ring for
Christmas, and heralds sound their trumpets. But we shall not see that
city, my Geoffrey. We shall look below the brick and the stir of
people, and we shall see a hill of white grass with old pines atop, and
below streaming rocks and decaying trunks, with beyond a grove all
covered in damp gloom and lashed by wind."
"I can see the faces of my friends," he muttered.
The girl turned upon his shoulder and drew his face lower with her cold
hand, lifting her own until their eyes met.
"Look there," she entreated. "Tell me what you see."
"Heaven opening." He paused. "I see also my duty to my neighbour."
Madeleine's head drooped. Presently a small voice whispered out of the
wind, "I would have you obey that message, lest by offending God we
wreck our happiness."
"I live upon your will."
"You must leave me. You shall not see me shed a tear. But I must have
you for this day, and afterwards"--she caught her breath. "Had ever a
young soldier so brave a love?"
He kissed her hands, and her cold face, and her hair, which dripped
like seaweed.
"No ifs," she implored, when her ears caught his broken words. "The
doubter fails. Look upon the deed as done, and God shall pardon the
presumption, because He was once a young man upon earth, and He knows
the longing of a brave heart. Already I think of you, not as going
forth to duty, but as returning to claim me for your bride."
"I shall succeed," he cried, in a voice which defied the winds.
"Madeleine, you have made me strong. Listen, sweet. I have a home in
Virginia, most fair, they say, of England's colonies, and I come to
take you there. I have a house in a garden where the sun never sets,
and where a river runs gently to the sea between banks of flowers.
There is no hard winter or rough wind there, neither enemy nor noise of
battle to terrify your dear heart. There the potato grows, and the
white tobacco blooms scent the night, and there the voice of Nature
sings of peace. Will come with me, sweet?"
"You have learnt your lesson," she sighed, content.
Misty rain smote them, but they strained at each other and laughed at
it. The cold numbed their feet, but their hearts were so warm that
they did not heed it. Nature thundered at them, but the roar of menace
became a triumphal march, and the shriek of the fiends a benediction.
"This one day you shall spare to me," said Madeleine. "Let us spend it
as a day to be remembered. I have a cave down yonder, around which I
have trailed the bushes and taught ivy to grow. There we will build a
fire and I will be your housewife. Come! let us run along the wind."
He bent to assist her, and she feigned to be stiff with cold, the
lovely traitor, so that she might feel his arms about her. Hand in
hand they ran, the rain and wind driven upon their backs, the angry sky
lowering upon the two who thus dared to endure the perils of life so
happily. But the lovers knew that behind the damp gloom and the storm
smiled the kindly sun; and they knew that he would conquer in good time.
So that happy day drew to its end in mist and rain, and the wind died
down, and the storm clouds went out of the sky one by one. The moon
broke wanly into light and a pale star of hope gazed serenely down.
Nature wearied of her tumult, and old AEolus drove the turbulent north
wind back into its cave and set his seal upon the mouth.
Geoffrey and Madeleine stood struggling to part. There was no tear in
the violet eyes of brave beauty as she looked up smiling, dwelling
always upon the future to sweeten the bitterness of the present. "Love
must be tested," she murmured with her radiant philosophy. "Hearts
must be tried. Geoffrey, I love you."
"Madeleine, I love you."
She stood alone, swaying weakly, her face as pale as the moon. Then
she laughed to drown the beating of her heart, threw out her hands, and
ran breathlessly up the hill where the ragged pines merely nodded, and
down into the plain towards the grove, crying to the solitude:
"Life is glorious--glorious!"