“You keep going, Denzil,” remarked Carnac as he lighted his pipe and
came close to the old servant.
The face of the toiler lighted, the eyes gazed kindly, at Carnac. “What
else is there to do? We must go on. There’s no standing still in the
world. We must go on--surelee.”
“Even when it’s hard going, eh?” asked Carnac, not to get an answer so
much as to express his own feelings. “Yes, that’s right, m’sieu’; that’s
how it is. We can’t stand still even when it’s hard going--but, no,
bagosh!”
He realized that around Carnac there was a shadow which took its toll
of light and life. He had the sound instinct of primitive man. Strangely
enough in his own eyes was the look in those of Carnac, a past, hovering
on the brink of revelation. His appearance was that of one who had
suffered; his knotted hands, dark with warm blood, had in them a story
of life’s sorrows; his broad shoulders were stooped with the inertia of
long regret; his feet clung to the ground as though there was a great
weight above them. But a smile shimmered at his mouth, giving to his
careworn face something almost beautiful, lifting the darkness from his
powerful, shaggy forehead. Many men knew Denzil by sight, few knew
him in actual being. There was a legend that once he was about to be
married, but the girl had suddenly gone mad and drowned herself in the
river. No one thought it strange that a month later the eldest son of
the Tarboe family had been found dead in the woods with a gun in his
hand and a bullet through his heart. No one had ever linked the death of
Denzil’s loved one with that of Almeric Tarboe.
It was unusual for a Frenchman to give up his life to an English family,
but that is what he had done, and of late he had watched Junia with new
eager solicitude. The day she first saw Tarboe had marked an exciting
phase in her life.
Denzil had studied her, and he knew vaguely that a fresh interest,
disturbing, electrifying, had entered into her. Because it was Tarboe,
the fifteen years younger brother of that Almeric Tarboe who had died
a month after his own girl had left this world, his soul was
fighting--fighting.
As the smoke of Carnac’s pipe came curling into the air, Denzil put on
his coat, and laid the hoe and rake on his shoulder.
“Yes, even when it’s hard going we still have to march on--name of God,
yes!” he repeated, and he looked at Carnac quizzically.
“Where are you going? Don’t you want to talk to me?”
“I’m going home, m’sieu’. If you’ll come with me I’ll give you a drink
of hard cider, the best was ever made.”
“I’ll come. Denzil, I’ve never been in your little house. That’s
strange, when I’ve known you so many years.”
“It’s not too late to mend, m’sieu’. There ain’t much in it, but it’s
all I need.”
Carnac stepped with Denzil towards the little house, just in front of
three pine-trees on the hill, and behind Junia’s home.
“I always lock my door--always,” said Denzil as he turned a key and
opened the door.
They entered into the cool shade of a living-room. There was little
furniture, yet against the wall was a kind of bunk, comfortable and
roomy, on which was stretched the skin of a brown bear. On the wall
above it was a crucifix, and on the opposite wall was the photograph of
a girl, good-looking, refined, with large, imaginative eyes, and a face
that might have been a fortune.
Carnac gazed at it for a moment, absorbed. “That was your girl, Denzil,
wasn’t it?” he asked.
Denzil nodded. “The best the world ever had, m’sieu’,” he replied, “the
very best, but she went queer and drowned herself--ah, but yes!”
“She just went queer, eh!” Carnac said, looking Denzil straight in the
eyes. “Was there insane blood in her family?”
“She wasn’t insane,” answered Denzil firmly. “She’d been bad
used--terrible.”
“That didn’t come out at the inquest, did it?”
“Not likely. She wrote it me. I’m telling you what I’ve never told
anyone.” He shut the door, as though to make a confessional. “She wrote
it me, and I wasn’t telling anyone-but no. She’d been away down at
Quebec City, and there a man got hold of her. Almeric Tarboe it was--the
older brother of Luke Tarboe at John Grier’s.” Suddenly the face of the
little man went mad with emotion. “I--I--” he paused.
Carnac held up his hand. “No-no-no, don’t tell me. Tarboe--I understand,
the Unwritten Law. You haven’t told me, but I understand. I remember: he
was found in the woods with his gun in his hand-dead. I read it all by
accident long ago; and that was the story, eh!”
“Yes. She was young, full of imagination. She loved me, but he was
clever, and he was high up, and she was low down. He talked her blind,
and then in the woods it was, in the woods where he died, that he--”
Suddenly the little man wrung his fingers like one robbed of reason. “He
was a strongman,” he went on, “and she was a girl, weak, but not wanton
... and so she died, telling me, loving me--so she died, and so he died,
too, in the woods with his gun in his hand. Yes, ‘twas done with his own
gun--by accident--by accident! He stumbled, and the gun went off. That
was the story at the inquest. No one knew I was there. I was never seen
with him and I’ve never been sorry. He got what he deserved--sacre,
yes!”
There was something overwhelming in the face of the little resolute,
powerful man. His eyes were aflame. He was telling for the first time
the story of his lifelong agony and shame.
“It had to be done. She was young, so sweet, so good, aye, she was
good-in her soul she was good, ah, surelee. That’s why she died in the
pond. No one knew. The inquest did not bring out anything, but that’s
why he died; and ever since I’ve been mourning; life has no rest for
me. I’m not sorry for what I did. I’ve told it you because you saved me
years ago when I fell down the bank. You were only fourteen then, but
I’ve never forgotten. And she, that sweet young lady, she--she was there
too; and now when I look at this Tarboe, the brother of that man, and
see her and know what I know--sacre!” He waved a hand. “No-no-no, don’t
think there’s anything except what’s in the soul. That man has touched
ma’m’selle--I don’t know why, but he has touched her heart. Perhaps by
his great bulk, his cleverness, his brains, his way of doing things. In
one sense she’s his slave, because she doesn’t want to think of him, and
she does. She wants to think of you--and she does--ah, bagosh, yes!”
“Yes, I understand,” remarked Carnac morosely. “I understand.”
“Then why do you let her be under Tarboe’s influence? Why don’t--”
Carnac thrust out a hand that said silence. “Denzil, I’ll never forget
what you’ve told me about yourself. Some day you’ll have to tell it to
the priest, and then--”
“I’ll never tell it till I’m on my death-bed. Then I’ll tell it, sacre
bapteme, yes!”
“You’re a bad Catholic, Denzil,” remarked Carnac with emotion, but a
smile upon his face.
“I may be a bad Catholic, but the man deserved to die, and he died.
What’s the difference, so far’s the world’s concerned, whether he died
by accident, or died--as he died. It’s me that feels the fury of the
damned, and want my girl back every hour: and she can’t come. But some
day I’ll go to M’sieu’ Luke Tarboe, and tell him the truth, as I’ve told
it you--bagosh, yes!”
“I think he’d try and kill you, if you did. That’s the kind of man he
is.”
“You think if he knew the truth he’d try and kill me--he!”
Carnac paused. He did not like to say everything in his mind. “Do you
think he’d say much and do little?”
“I dunno, I dunno, but I’ll tell him the truth and take my chance.”
Suddenly he swung round and stretched out appealing hands. “Haven’t you
got any sense, m’sieu’? Don’t you see what you should do? Ma’m’selle
Junia cares for you. I know it--I’ve seen it in her eyes often--often.”
With sudden vehemence Carnac caught the wrists of the other. “It can’t
be, Denzil. I can’t tell you why yet. I’m going away. If Tarboe wants
her--good--good; I must give her a chance.”
Denzil shrank. “There’s something wrong, m’sieu’,” he said. Then his
eyes fastened on Carnac’s. Suddenly, with a strange, shining light in
them, he added “It will all come right for you and her. I’ll live for
that. If you go away, I’ll take good care of her.”
“Even if--” Carnac paused.
“Yes, even if he makes love to her. He’ll want to marry her, surelee.”
“Well, that’s not strange,” remarked Carnac.