That night Carnac mapped out his course, carefully framed the policy to
offset that of Barode Barouche, and wrote a letter to the Chairman of
the Opposition at Montreal offering to stand, and putting forward an
ingenious policy. He asked also for an interview; and the interview was
granted by telegram--almost to his surprise. He was aware, however, of
the discontent among the English members of the Opposition, and of the
wish of the French members to find a good compromise.
He had a hope that his singular position--the notoriety which his
father’s death and his own financial disfranchisement had caused--would
be a fine card in his favour. He was not mistaken. His letter arrived
at Headquarters when there were difficulties concerning three candidates
who were pressing their claims. Carnac Grier, the disinherited son of
the great lumber-king, who had fame as an artist, spoke French as
though it were his native tongue, was an element of sensation which, if
adroitly used, could be of great service. It might even defeat
Barode Barouche. In the first place, Carnac was young, good-looking,
personable, and taking in his manner. Barouche was old, experienced,
with hosts of enemies and many friends, but with injurious egotism. An
interview was, therefore, arranged at Headquarters.
On the morning of the day it took place, Carnac’s anguished mother went
with him to the little railway station of Charlemont. She had slept
little the night before; her mind was in an eddy of emotions. It seemed
dreadful that Carnac should fight his own father, repeating what Fabian
had done in another way. Yet at the bottom of her heart there was a
secret joy. Some native revolt in her had joy in the thought that the
son might extort a price for her long sorrow and his unknown disgrace.
As she had listened to Barouche at the meeting, she realized how sincere
yet insincere he was; how gifted and yet how ungracious was his mind.
Her youth was over; long pain and regret had chastened her. She was as
lonely a creature as ever the world knew; violence was no part of her
equipment; and yet terrible memories made her assent to this new phase
of Carnac’s life. She wondered what Barouche would think. There was some
ancient touch of war in her which made her rejoice that after long years
the hammer should strike.
Somehow the thing’s tremendous possibilities thrilled her. Carnac had
always been a politician--always. She remembered how, when he was a boy,
he had argued with John Grier on national matters, laid down the law
with the assurance of an undergraduate, and invented theories impossible
of public acceptance. Yet in every stand he had taken, there had been
thought, logic and reasoning, wrongly premised, but always based on
principles. On paper he was generally right; in practice, generally
wrong. His buoyant devotion to an idea was an inspiration and a tonic.
The curious thing was that, while still this political matter was
hanging fire, he painted with elation.
His mother knew he did not see the thousand little things which made
public life so wearying; that he only realized the big elements of
national policy. She understood how those big things would inspire the
artist in him. For, after all, there was the spirit of Art in framing a
great policy which would benefit millions in the present and countless
millions in the future. So, at the railway station, as they waited for
the train, with an agitation outwardly controlled, she said:
“The men who have fought before, will want to stand, so don’t be
surprised if--”
“If they reject me, mother?” interrupted Carnac. “No, I shan’t be
surprised, but I feel in my bones that I’m going to fight Barode
Barouche into the last corner of the corral.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, my son. Won’t the thing that prevents your
marrying Junia be a danger in this, if you go on?”
Sullen tragedy came into his face, his lips set. The sudden paleness of
his cheek, however, was lost in a smile.
“Yes, I’ve thought of that; but if it has to come, better it should come
now than later. If the truth must be told, I’ll tell it--yes, I’ll tell
it!”
“Be bold, but not reckless, Carnac,” his mother urged.
Just then the whistling train approached. She longed to put a hand
out and hold him back, and yet she ached to let him go. Yet as Carnac
mounted the steps of the car, a cry went out from her heart: “My son,
stay with me here--don’t go.” That was only in her heart, however; with
her lips she said: “Good luck! God bless you, Carnac!” and then the
train rolled away, leaving her alone in the bright, bountiful morning.
Before the day was done, Headquarters had accepted Carnac, in part, as
the solution of their own difficult problem. The three applicants for
the post each hated the other; but all, before the day was over, agreed
to Carnac as an effective opponent of Barouche.
One thing seemed clear--Carnac’s policy had elements of seduction
appealing to the selfishness of all sections, and he had an eloquence
which would make Barouche uneasy. That eloquence was shown in a speech
Carnac made in the late evening to the assembled executive. He spoke for
only a quarter of an hour, but it was long enough to leave upon all
who heard him an impression of power, pertinacity, picturesqueness and
appeal. He might make mistakes, but he had qualities which would ride
over errors with success.
“I’m not French,” he said at last in his speech, “but I used to think
and write in French as though I’d been born in Normandy. I’m English
by birth and breeding, but I’ve always gone to French schools and to
a French University, and I know what New France means. I stand to my
English origin, but I want to see the French develop here as they’ve
developed in France, alive to all new ideas, dreaming good dreams. I
believe that Frenchmen in Canada can, and should, be an inspiration to
the whole population. Their great qualities should be the fibre in the
body of public opinion. I will not pander to the French; I will not
be the slave of the English; I will be free, and I hope I shall be
successful at the polls.”
This was a small part of the speech which caused much enthusiasm,
and was the beginning of a movement, powerful, and as time went on,
impetuous.
He went to bed with the blood of battle throbbing in his veins. In
the morning he had a reasonable joy in seeing the headlines of his
candidature in the papers.
At first he was almost appalled, for never since life began had his
personality been so displayed. It seemed absurd that before he had
struck a blow he should be advertised like a general in the field.
Yet common sense told him that in standing against Barouche, he became
important in the eyes of those affected by Barouche’s policy. He had had
luck, and it was for him to justify that luck. Could he do it? His first
thought, however, as his eyes fell on the headlines--he flushed with
elation so that he scarcely saw--was for the thing itself. Before him
there flashed a face, however, which at once sobered his exaltation. It
was the face of Junia.
“I wonder what she will think,” he said to himself, with a little
perplexity.
He knew in his heart of hearts she would not think it incongruous that
he, an artist, should become a politician. Good laws served to make life
beautiful, good pictures ministered to beauty; good laws helped to tell
the story of human development; good sculpture strengthened the soul;
good laws made life’s conveniences greater, enlarged activity, lessened
the friction of things not yet adjusted; good laws taught their
framers how to balance things, how to make new principles apply without
disturbing old rights; good pictures increased the well-balanced harmony
of the mind of the people. Junia would understand these things. As he
sat at his breakfast, with the newspaper spread against the teapot and
the milk-pitcher, he felt satisfied he had done the bold and right, if
incomprehensible, thing.
But in another hotel, at another breakfast, another man read of Carnac’s
candidature with sickening surprise. It was Barode Barouche.
So, after twenty-seven long years, this was to be the issue! His own
son, whom he had never known, was to fight him at the polls! Somehow,
the day when he had seen Carnac and his mother at the political meeting
had given him new emotions. His wife, to whom he had been so faithful in
one sense since she had passed into the asylum, had died, and with her
going, a new field of life seemed to open up to him. She had died
almost on the same day as John Grier. She had been buried secludedly,
piteously, and he had gone back to his office with the thought that life
had become a preposterous freedom.
So it was that, on the day when he spoke at the political meeting, his
life’s tragedy became a hammer beating every nerve into emotion. He was
like one shipwrecked who strikes out with a swimmer’s will to reach his
goal. All at once, on the platform, as he spoke, when his eyes saw the
faces of Carnac and his mother the catastrophe stunned him like a huge
engine of war. There had come to him at last a sense of duty where
Alma Grier was concerned. She was nearly fifty years of age, and he was
fifty-nine; she was a widow with this world’s goods; she had been to him
how near and dear! for a brief hour, and then--no more. He knew the boy
was his son, because he saw his own face, as it had been in his youth,
though his mother’s look was also there-transforming, illumining.
He had a pang as he saw the two at the close of his meeting filtering
out into the great retort of the world. Then it was that he had the
impulse to go to the woman’s home, express his sorrow, and in some small
sense wipe out his wrong by offering her marriage. He had not gone.
He knew of Carnac’s success in the world of Art; and how he had
alienated his reputed father by an independence revolting to a slave of
convention. He had even bought, not from Carnac, but from a dealer, two
of Carnac’s pictures and a statue of a riverman. Somehow the years
had had their way with him. He had at long last realized that material
things were not the great things of life, and that imagination, however
productive, should be guided by uprightness of soul.
One thing was sure, the boy had never been told who his father was. That
Barouche knew. He had the useful gift of reading the minds of people in
their faces. From Carnac’s face, from Carnac’s mother’s face, had come
to him the real story. He knew that Alma Grier had sinned only once and
with him. In the first days after that ill-starred month, he had gone
to her, only to be repelled as a woman can repel whose soul has been
shocked, whose self-respect has been shamed.
It had been as though she thrust out arms of infinite length to push him
away, such had been the storm of her remorse, such the revulsion against
herself and him. So they had fallen apart, and he had seen his boy
grow up independent, original, wilful, capable--a genius. He read
the newspaper reports of what had happened the day before with senses
greatly alive.
After all, politics was unlike everything else. It was a profession
recruited from all others. The making of laws was done by all kinds of
men. One of the wisest advisers in river-law he had ever known was
a priest; one of the best friends of the legislation of the medical
profession was a woman; one of the bravest Ministers who had ever
quarrelled with and conquered his colleagues had been an insurance
agent; one of the sanest authorities on maritime law had been a man with
a greater pride in his verses than in his practical capacity; and here
was Carnac, who had painted pictures and made statues, plunging into
politics with a policy as ingenious as his own, and as capable of
logical presentation. This boy, who was bone of his bone and flesh of
his flesh, meant to fight him. He threw back his head and laughed. His
boy, his son, meant to fight him, did he? Well, so be it! He got to his
feet, and walked up and down the room.
“God, what an issue this!” he said. “It would be terrific, if he won. To
wipe me out of the life where I have flourished--what a triumph for him!
And he would not know how great the triumph would be. She has not told
him. Yet she will urge him on. Suppose it was she put the idea into his
head!”
Then he threw back his head, shaking the long brown hair, browner than
Carnac’s, from his forehead. “Suppose she did this thing--she who was
all mine for one brief moment! Suppose she--”
Every nerve tingled; every drop of blood beat hard against his walls of
flesh; his every vicious element sprang into life.
“But no--but no, she would not do it. She would not teach her son to
destroy his own father. But something must have told him to come and
listen to me, to challenge me in his own mind, and then--then this
thing!”
He stared at the paper, leaning over the table, as though it were a
document of terror.
“I must go on: I must uphold the policy for which I’ve got the assent of
the Government.” Suddenly his hands clenched. “I will beat him. He shall
not bring me to the dust. I gave him life, and he shall not take my life
from me. He’s at the beginning; I’m going towards the end. I wronged
his mother--yes, I wronged him too! I wronged them both, but he does not
know he’s wronged. He’ll live his own life; he has lived it--”
There came a tap at the door. Presently it opened and a servant came in.
He had in his hand a half-dozen telegrams.
“All about the man that’s going to fight you, I expect, m’sieu’,” said
the servant as he handed the telegrams.
Barode Barouche did not reply, but nodded a little scornfully.
“A woman has called,” continued the servant. “She wants to see you,
m’sieu’. It’s very important, she says.”
Barouche shook his head in negation. “No, Gaspard.”
“It ain’t one of the usual kind, I think, m’sieu’,” protested Gaspard.
“It’s about the election. It’s got something to do with that--” he
pointed to the newspaper propped against the teapot.
“It’s about that, is it? Well, what about that?” He eyed the servant as
though to see whether the woman had given any information.
“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me. She’s got a mind of her own. She’s
even handsome, and she’s well-dressed. All she said was: ‘Tell m’sieu’ I
want to see him. It’s about the election-about Mr. Grier.’”
Barode Barouche’s heart stopped. Something about Carnac Grier--something
about the election--and a woman! He kept a hand on himself. It must not
be seen that he was in any way moved.
“Is she English?”
“She’s French, m’sieu’.”
“You think I ought to see her, Gaspard?” said Barouche.
“Sure,” was the confident reply. “I guess she’s out against whoever’s
against you.”
“You never saw her before.”
“Not to my sense.”
“But I haven’t finished my breakfast.”
“Well, if it’s anything important that’ll help you, m’sieu’. It’s like
whittling. If you can do things with your hands while you’re talking and
thinking, it’s a great help. You go on eating. I’ll show her up!”
Barouche smiled maliciously. “Well, show her up, Gaspard.”
The servant laughed. “Perhaps she’ll show herself up after I show her
in,” he said, and he went out hastily.
Presently the door opened again, and Gaspard stepped inside.
“A lady to see you, m’sieu’,” he said.
Barouche rose from the table, but he did not hold out his hand. The
woman was young, good looking, she seemed intelligent. There was also
a latent cruelty in her face which only a student of human nature could
have seen quickly. She was a woman with a grievance--that was sure.
He knew the passionate excitement, fairly well controlled; he saw her
bitterness at a glance. He motioned her to a chair.
“It’s an early call,” he said with a smile. Smiling was one of his
serviceable assets; it was said no man could so palaver the public with
his cheerful goodnature.
“Yes, it’s an early call,” she replied, “but I wish not to wait till you
go to your office. I wanted you to know something. It has to do with Mr.
Carnac Grier.”
“Oh, that--eh!”
“It’s something you’ve got to know. If I give you the sure means to win
your election, it would be worth while--eh?”
The beating of Barouche’s heart was hard, but nothing showed in his
face. There he had control.
“I like people who know their own minds,” he said, “but I don’t believe
anything till I study what I hear. Is it something to injure Mr. Grier?”
“If a married man went about as a single man and stood up for Parliament
against you, don’t you think you could spoil him?”
For a moment Barouche was silent. Here was an impeachment of his own
son, but this son was out to bring his own father to the ground. There
were two ways to look at it. There was the son’s point of view, and
there was his own. If he loved his son he ought to know the thing
that threatened him; if he hated his son he ought to know. So, after
a moment’s study of the face with the fiery eyes and a complexion like
roses touched with frost, he said slowly:
“Well, have I the honour of addressing Carnac Grier’s wife?”
Barouche had had many rewards in his life, but the sweetest reward of
all was now his own. As events proved, he had taken a course which, if
he cared for his son, was for that son’s well-being, and if he cared for
himself most, was essential to his own well-being.
Relief crossed the woman’s face. “I’ll tell you everything,” she said.
Then Luzanne told her story, avoiding the fact that Carnac had been
tricked into the marriage. At last she said: “Now I’ve come here to make
him acknowledge me. He’s ruined my life, broken my hopes, and--”
“Broken your hopes!” interrupted Barode Barouche. “How is that?”
“I might have married some one else. I could have married some one
else.”
“Well, why don’t you? There’s the Divorce Court. What’s to prevent it?”
“You ask me that--you a Frenchman and a Roman Catholic! I’m French. I
was born in Paris.”
“When will you let me see your papers?”
“When do you want to see them?”
“To-day-if possible to-day,” he answered. Then he held her eyes. “To
whom else here have you told this story?”
“No one--no one. I only came last night, and when I took up the paper
this morning, I saw. Then I found out where you lived, and here I am,
bien sur. I’m here under my maiden name, Ma’m’selle Luzanne Larue.”
“That’s right. That’s right. Now, until we meet again, don’t speak of
this to anyone. Will you give me your word?”
“Absolutely,” she said, and there was revenge and passion in her eyes.
Suddenly a strange expression crept over her face. She was puzzled.
“There’s something of him about you,” she said, and her forehead
gathered. “There’s some look! Well, there it is, but it’s something--I
don’t know what.”
A moment later she was gone. As the door closed, he stretched his hands
above his head.
“Nom de Dieu, what a situation!” he remarked.