turning towards the mummied face of Papillon’s simple wife. “She is
cousin to our holy bishop himself; and even that great man she left
grinning and biting his nails, for he and the abbess they would make a
nun of her. Thou dost not know the mightiness of her family. My Louise
can charm thee with all that. But this lady was a princess in France,
and voyaged here by the king’s ship, being vilely sickened and tossed
about; and all for my commandant. Is not the Sieur des Ormeaux known in
France?” Jacques snapped his fingers high in air.
The lowest floor of the seigniory house was the rock on which it was
based. Here and within the stockade were such domestic animals as
belonged to the island. A sheep rubbed against Louise, passing out as
she passed in.
She looked around the darkened strong walls, unpierced by even a
loop-hole, at the stores of provender for dumb and human inmates.
Jacques had underestimated his wealth in collected food. His magazine
seemed still overflowing when it was spring and seed-time, and the
dearth of winter nearly past.
A stone staircase twisted itself in giving ascent to the next floor.
Here were sleeping-cells for the seignior’s servants, and a huge
kitchen having pillars of cemented rock across its center, and a
fire-place like a cave. Lancelike windows gave it light, and in the
walls were loop-holes which had been stopped with stone to keep out the
Canadian winter.
A broader stairway of tough and well-dried wood in one corner led up
to the seignior’s apartment above, which was divided into several
rooms. The largest one, the saloon of the mansion, had also its cavern
fire-place where pieces of wood were smoldering. A brass candelabrum
stood on the mantel. Rugs of fawn skin beautifully spotted, and of
bear skin relieved the dark unpolished floor. The walls of all the
rooms were finished with a coarse plaster glittering with river sand.
Some slender-legged chairs, a high-backed cushioned bench, a couch
covered by moth-eaten tapestry, and a round black table furnished this
drawing-room. Some cast-off pieces of armor hung over the mantel, and
an embroidery frame stood at one side of the hearth.
There was but one window, and it swung outward on hinges, the sash
being fitted with small square panes.
When Claire appeared from the private chamber where she had been taken
to refresh herself with Louise to attend on her, Dollard came down the
room, took her by the hands, and led her to this window. He pushed the
sash open quite out of their way, and thus set the landscape in a deep
frame of stone wall.
The two young lovers still met each other with shyness and reserve.
From the hour of his impetuous marriage Dollard had watched his wife
with passionate solicitude. But that day when his boat approached
Montreal he had it brought to the dock and went ashore by himself,
spending what Claire considered the best hours of the afternoon at the
fort and on the streets, coming back flushed and repressed.
She felt the energetic pulses still beating in his face as he touched
her forehead.
“You see now the way we came,” said Dollard, indicating the St.
Lawrence sweeping towards the east.
“A lovely way it was,” said Claire. The river’s breath came to them
fresh and clean, leaving a touch of dampness on the skin. Already the
wooded south shore was clothing itself in purple, but northward the
expanse of water still held to what it had received from sunset. “That
was very different from the voyage on shipboard.”
“Are you not tired?”
“I was tired only once--at Montreal,” hinted Claire, gazing at the
extremity of the island.
“Again I beg you to pardon that. I had been nearly ten days away from
my command and there were serious matters to attend to. Put it out of
your mind and let us be very happy this evening.”
“And every following evening. That goes without saying.”
“I must report at my fortress at daybreak to-morrow.”
“You should have left my caskets at Montreal, monsieur,” exclaimed
Claire. “I could do without them here one night.”
“You want to turn your back on poor St. Bernard immediately?”
“Monsieur, you do not mean to separate yourself from me?” she inquired
lightly, keeping control of her trembling voice.
“I brought you here to take possession of my land,” said Dollard.
“I have taken possession. The keys of the house of course I do not
want. They shall in all courtesy be left with the resident châtelaine,
your sister. Monsieur, where is your sister?”
Dollard glanced over his shoulder at the embroidery frame.
“She has been here or is coming. I have hardly prepared you for poor
Renée. She lives in delusions of her own, and pays little regard to the
courtesies of the outside world. My excellent Jacques waits on her as
on a child.”
“Doubtless I thought too little about her,” Claire said, visibly
shrinking. “She may object to me.”
“She will not even see you unless I put you before her eyes.”
“What ails your sister, monsieur? Is she a religious devotee?”
“Not strictly that. She is a nurser of delusions. I cannot remember
when she was otherwise, though we have lived little together, for poor
Renée is but my half-sister. Her father was a De Granville. You will
not feel afraid of her when you have seen her; she is not unkind. She
has her own chambers at the rock side of the house and lives there
weeks together. I see her embroidery frame is set out, and that means
we may expect her presence.”
While he was speaking, Mademoiselle de Granville had opened a door at
the end of the room.
Claire, with well-opened eyes, pressed backward against her husband, so
moldered-looking a creature was this lady gliding on silent feet--not
unlike some specter of the Des Ormeaux who had followed their last
chevalier under the New World’s glaring skies. She wore a brocaded
gown, the remnant of a court costume of some former reign, and her face
was covered with a black silk mask. Though masks were then in common
use, the eyes which looked through this one were like the eyes of a
sleep-walker. She sat down by the embroidery frame as if alone in the
room, but instead of a web of needlework she began to fasten in the
frame one end of a priest’s stole much in need of mending.
Dollard led his wife to this silent figure.
“My dear Renée,” he said, taking hold of the stole and thereby
establishing a nerve of communication, “let me present my beautiful
wife.”
The figure looked up, unsurprised but attentive.
“She was Mademoiselle Laval-Montmorency.”
With deference the figure rose off its slim-legged chair and made a
deep courtesy, Claire acknowledging it with one equally deep.
“Mademoiselle,” petitioned the bride, “I hope my sudden coming causes
you no trouble, though we return to the fort soon.”
The mask gazed at her but said nothing.
“Are you never lonely here upon this island?” pursued Claire.
The mask’s steady gaze made her shiver.
“She does not talk,” Dollard explained. He drew his wife away from the
silent woman and suggested, “Let us walk up and down until some supper
is served, to get rid of the boat’s cramping.”
Mademoiselle de Granville sat down and continued to arrange her darning.
Whenever they were quite at the room’s end Claire drew a free breath,
but always in passing the masked presence she shrunk bodily against
Dollard, for the room was narrow. He, with tense nerves and far-looking
eyes, failed to notice this. The eccentricities of any man’s female
relatives appeal to his blindest side. Custom has used him to them, and
his own blood speaks their apology.
The river air blew into the open window. There were no sounds except
the footsteps of Dollard and Claire, and a stirring of the household
below which was hint of sound only, so thick were the walls and floors.
In due time Jacques came up, bearing the supper. His seignior when at
St. Bernard ate in the kitchen. But this was a descent unbefitting a
grand bride. While Jacques was preparing the round table, Claire stole
another look towards the mask which must now be removed. But by some
sudden and noiseless process known to recluse women Mademoiselle de
Granville had already taken herself and her embroidery frame out of the
room.
X.
THE SEIGNIORY KITCHEN.
ABOUT 1 o’clock of the night Jacques rose from his sleeping-cell, as he
was in the habit of doing, to put more wood on the kitchen fire.
The window slits let in some moonlight of a bluish quality, but the
larger part of this wide space lay in shadow until Jacques sent over
it the ruddiness of a revived fire. Out of uncertainty came the doors
of the sleeping-cells, the rafters and dried herbs which hung from
them, heavy table and benches and stools, cooking-vessels, guns, bags
of stored grain, and the figures of the four Hurons, two at each side
of the hearth, stretched out in their blankets with their heels to the
fire--and Jacques himself, disordered from sleep and imperfectly thrust
into lower garments. He lingered stupidly looking at the magician fire
while it rose and crackled and cast long oblique shadows with the
cemented posts.
Dollard descended the stairway from his apartment, pressing down his
sword-hilt to keep the scabbard from clanking on each step. He was
entirely dressed in his uniform. As he approached the fire and Jacques
turned towards him, his face looked bloodless, his features standing
high, the forehead well reared back.
“I am glad you are awake,” he said to Jacques, half aloud. “Are the
others asleep?” indicating those cells occupied by Louise and the
Papillon family. There was no questioning the deep slumber which
inclosed his Indians.
“Yes, m’sieur.”
“Have you packed the provisions I directed you to pack?”
“Yes, m’sieur. M’sieur, you do not leave at this hour?”
“At once.”
“But, m’sieur, the Lachine is hard enough to run in daytime.”
“There is broad moonlight. Are you sure you understand everything?”
“M’sieur, I hope I do. Have you told madame?”
Dollard wheeled and flung his clinched hands above his head as men do
on receiving gunshot wounds.
“O saints! I cannot tell her! I am a wretch, Jacques. She has been
happy; I have not caused her a moment’s suffering. Let her sleep till
morning. Tell her then merely that I have gone to my fortress; that I
would not expose her to the dangers of the route by night. It will soon
be over now. Sometime she can forgive this cruelty if a deed goes after
it to make her proud. She has proud blood, my boy; she loves honor. Oh,
what a raving madman I was to marry her, my beloved! I thought it could
do _her_ no harm--that it could not shake _my_ purpose! O my Claire!
O my poor New France! Torn this way, I deserve shame with death--no
martyr’s crown--no touch of glory to lighten my darkness for ever and
ever!”
“M’sieur,” whimpered Jacques, crouching and wiping nose and eyes with
his palms, “don’t say that! My little master, my pretty, my dear boy!
These women have the trick of tripping a man up when he sets his foot
to any enterprise.”
“Hear me,” said Dollard, grasping him on each side of the collar. “She
is the last of the Des Ormeaux to you. Serve her faithfully as you
serve the queen of heaven. If she wants to go back to France, go with
her. Before this I bequeathed you St. Bernard. Now I am leaving you a
priceless charge. Your wife shall obey and follow her to the ends of
the earth. To-day I altered my will in Montreal and gave her my last
coin, gave her my seigniory, I gave her _you_! Do you refuse to obey my
last commands? Do you disallow my rights in you?”
Jacques’s puckered face unflinchingly turned upward and met the stare
of his master.
“M’sieur, I will follow my lady’s whims and do your commands to the
hour of my death.”
Dollard, like a mastiff, shook him.
“Is there any treachery in you, Jacques Goffinet, free follower of the
house of Des Ormeaux? If there is, out with it now, or my dead eyes
will pry through you hereafter.”
“M’sieur,” answered Jacques, lifting his hand and making the sign of
the cross, “I am true man to my core. I do love to pile good stuff
together and call land mine, but thou knowest I love a bit of cloth
from one of thy old garments better than all the seigniories in New
France.”
Dollard let go Jacques’s collar and extended his arms around the stumpy
man’s neck.
“My good old Jacques! My good old Jacques!”
“How proud I have always been of thee!” choked Jacques.
“I have told her to depend on you, Jacques. The will I brought home in
my breast and placed among her caskets. She will provide for Louise and
you, and she will provide for poor Renée, also. Kick the Indians and
wake them up. There is not another moment to spare.”
The Indians were roused, and stood up taciturn and ready for action,
drawing their blankets around themselves. These Hurons, vagrants from
Annahotaha’s tribe, were hangers-on about the fortress at Montreal.
Jacques gave them each a careful dram, and lighted at the fire a dipped
candle. With this feeble light he penetrated the darkness of the cellar
floor, leading the party down its tortuous staircase.
Dollard, who had stood with his hand on the door-latch, was the last to
leave the upper room. His questions followed Jacques around the turns
of the stairs.
“You are well provisioned, Jacques?”
“Yes, m’sieur.”
“At daybreak you will remember to have Papillon help you bring in an
abundant supply of water?”
“Yes, m’sieur.”
“Bar the doors when you see any one approaching and keep watch on all
sides every day.”
“Yes, m’sieur.”
Jacques jammed his candle-end into a crack of the rock floor, undid the
fastenings, and with a jerk let the moonlight in on their semi-darkness.
They went out to the palisade gate, the Indians dragged the boat
carefully to its launching, and Jacques stored in it Dollard’s
provisions.
“Good-bye, my man,” said Dollard.
“M’sieur,” said Jacques, “I have always obeyed you. There is but one
thing in my heart against you, and I will cleanse myself of that now.”
“Quickly, then.” The young man had one foot in the boat.
“It is the same old hard spot. Thou wouldst rule me out of this
expedition. A man that loves thee as I love thee!”
“Jacques, if I had reasons before on Renée’s account, what reasons have
I not now?”
“Bless thee, my master Adam Daulac!”
“Bless thee, my Jacques!”
The boat shot off, and Jacques went in and fastened the gate and the
door.
XI.
MADEMOISELLE DE GRANVILLE’S BROTHER.
SOON after 1 o’clock Claire awoke and sat upright in her dim room. Her
alarm at the absence of Dollard was swallowed instantly by greater
alarm at the presence of some one else.
This small chamber, like the saloon, was lighted by one square window,
and male housekeeping at St. Bernard, combined with the quality of
glass manufactured for colonial use at that date, veiled generous
moonlight which would have thrown up sharply every object in the severe
place.
Claire’s garments, folded and laid upon a stool, were motionless to her
expanding eyes; so were her boxes where Louise had placed them. All
the luggage which a young lady of rank then carried with her to the
ends of the earth could be lifted upstairs in the arms of a stout maid.
Unstirring was the small black velvet cap which Claire had chosen from
her belongings to wear during the voyage. It was stuck against the
wall like a dim blot of ink. But nothing else visible seemed quite so
motionless and unstirring as the figure by the bed. It was Mademoiselle
de Granville. Except that her personality was oppressive, she seemed
a lifeless lump without breath or sight, until Claire’s tenser pupils
adapted to duskiness found eyes in the mask, eyes stiffly gazing.
The bride’s voice sunk in her throat, but she forced it to husky action.
“What do you want?”
Automatically, holding its elbows to its sides, the figure lifted one
forearm and pointed to Claire’s garments.
“Do you require me to put them on?”
It continued to point.
“Be so kind as to withdraw, then, and I will put them on.”
It continued to point, without change of attitude or sound of human
breath.
The girl crept out of her couch at that corner farthest from the
figure, rolled up and pinned her white curls as best she could, and
assimilated the garments from the stool, keeping her eye braced
repellantly against the automaton pointing at her. She finished by
drawing her mantle over her dress, and the velvet cap over her hair.
“Now I am ready, if you are determined I shall go somewhere with you.”
The figure turned itself about and opened the door into the saloon.
Claire followed, keeping far behind those silent feet, and thus they
walked through that grim room over which touches of beauty had never
been thrown by a woman’s keeping.
Claire followed into another chamber and was shut in darkness. It was
the rock side of the house, without moonlighted windows. Mademoiselle
de Granville had left her, and she stood confused, forgetting which way
she should turn to the door-latch of release. The absence of Dollard
now rushed back over her, and helped the dark to heap her with terrors.
The sanest people have felt sparks of madness flash across the brain.
One such flash created for her a trap in the floor to swallow her to
the depths of the island.
Directly her surroundings were lighted by a door opening to an inner
room. A priest stood there in black cassock, his face smooth and
dark, his eyes dark and attentive. He was not tonsured, but with hair
clustering high upon his head he looked like Dollard grown to sudden
middle age, his fire burnt to ashes, his shoulders bowed by penances,
his soul dried as a fern might be dried betwixt the wooden lids of his
breviary. Behind him stood an altar, two tall candles burning upon it,
and above the altar hung a crucifix. She took note of nothing else in
the room.
“Pardon me, father; I am lost in the house. Mademoiselle de Granville
brought me here and has left me.”
“Yes.” His voice had depth and volume, and was like Dollard’s voice
grown older. “She brought you at my request.”
“At _your_ request, father? Where is Mademoiselle de Granville?”
“In that closet,” he replied, showing a door at the corner of his
chapel room. “My poor lifeless sister is at her devotions.”
“I see my way now. With your permission I will go back,” said Claire.
This unwholesome priest like a demon presentation of Dollard made her
shudder.
“Stop, Mademoiselle Laval.”
“I am Madame des Ormeaux; as you should know, being inmate of this
house and evidently my husband’s brother.”
“Mademoiselle de Granville has but one brother,” said the priest.
“The Sieur des Ormeaux is her brother.”
“There is no Sieur des Ormeaux.” He smiled in making the assertion, his
lips parting indulgently.
“I mean Dollard, commandant of the fort of Montreal.”
“There is no Dollard, commandant of the fort of Montreal. I am the Abbé
de Granville.”
Claire silently observed him, gathering her convictions. The priest
leaned towards her, rubbing his hands.
“This misguided soldier, sometimes called Dollard, he is but a bad
dream of mine, my poor child. So keen is your beauty that it still
pierces the recollection. In my last dream my conscience tells me I
worked some harm to you. Return to your family, mademoiselle, and
forgive me. I have become myself again, and these holy tokens recall me
to my duty and my vows.”
“I know who you are,” said Claire. “You are Mademoiselle de Granville.”
“I am the Abbé de Granville. Look at me.” He took a candle from the
altar and held it near his face. So masculine was the countenance that
it staggered conviction. The razor had left sleekness there. The tone
of flesh was man-like. “I am Dollard,” he said. “I am a priest. There
can be, of course, no marriage between us. I sent for you to ask your
pardon, and to send you from St. Bernard.”
This gross and stupid cruelty had on Claire merely the effect of
steeping her in color. Her face and throat blushed.
“You are Mademoiselle de Granville,” she repeated.
The priest, as if weary of enforcing his explanations, waved his
fingers with a gesture of dismissal in Dollard’s own manner.
“I am the Abbé de Granville. But we will discuss the subject no
further. I must be at my prayers. A trustworthy witness shall confirm
what I have told you.”
He opened the closet door, carrying the candle with him. His tread had
body and sound, though his feet were shod in sandals.
Claire moved guardedly after him. He crossed the closet and entered a
long passage so narrow that two persons could scarcely walk abreast
in it, nor did she covet the privilege of stepping it thus with her
conductor.
As she crossed the closet her rapid eye searched it for the chrysalis
of Mademoiselle de Granville. The candle was already in the passage
beyond, but distinct enough lay that brocaded figure prostrate on the
floor beneath a crucifix, but the mask faced Claire.
She moved on behind Abbé de Granville as with masculine tread of foot
he strode the length of the passage and opened a door leading out on
the stairway.
“Here, Jacques,” he called in his mellow tones, “tell this demoiselle
about me; and tell her the truth, or it shall be the worse for you.”
Claire, standing on the upper stairs, could see Jacques with his back
to the fire and his mouth opened in consternation at this unpriestly
threat. His candle was yet smoking, so lately had it been divorced from
its flame.
[Illustration: “I know who you are.”]
Abbé de Granville closed the passage door and bolted it.
She went down into the kitchen and Jacques brought her a seat, placed
her before the middle hearth, and stationed himself at the corner in
an attitude of entire dejection. The other inmates rested in unbroken
sleep. The cell occupied by Papillon and his wife resounded with a low
guttural duet.
“Where is Sieur des Ormeaux, Jacques?” inquired the lady of St. Bernard.
Writhing betwixt two dilemmas, Dollard’s follower cunningly seized upon
the less painful one, and nodded up the stairway.
“He’s been out again, has he?”
“Do you mean the priest?”
“Monsieur the abbé.”
“Jacques, who is he?”
“The Abbé de Granville,” replied Jacques with a shrug, first of one
shoulder and then the other, as if the sides of his person took turns
in rejecting this statement. “And he sends you to me for the truth,
madame. Is not that the craziest part of the play when he knows what I
will tell you? There is no limiting a woman, madame, when she takes to
whims.”
“Then it really was Mademoiselle de Granville playing priest?”
“Madame, she befools me sometimes until I know not whether to think
her man or woman. So secret is this half-sister of my master’s, and so
jealous of her pretty abbé, it unsettles a plain soldier. A fine big
robust priest he is, and you would take her for a ghost in petticoats.
It goes against my conscience, so that I have come nigh to mention it
in confession, all this mumming and male-attiring, and even calling for
hot shaving-water! Yet she seems an excellent devoted soul when no one
crosses her, and for days at a time will be Mademoiselle de Granville,
as gentle and timid as a sheep. Besides, women take pleasure in putting
on raiment of different kinds, and when you come to look at a priest’s
cassock, it is not so far from being a petticoat that I need to raise
a scandal against St. Bernard and my commandant’s sister on account of
it. M’sieur he minds none of her pranks, and she hath had her humor
since I was set to keep guard over her; and if it be a mad humor, it
harms no one but herself.”[4]
Claire’s glance rested on the coarse floor where many nailed shoes had
left their prints in the grain.
“Such a monomaniac cannot be a pleasant housemate.”
“No, madame; the poor lady is not charming. And she will have the
biggest of candles for her altar. But then she must amuse herself. I
was, indeed, speechless when I saw her turn you out on the stairway.
She does not like a woman about, especially a pretty woman, and
doubtless she will dismiss my Louise many times. But, madame, let me
entreat you to return to sleep and have no fear. I will even lock the
doors of her chambers. She will disturb you no more.”
Claire listened aside to some outer sound, and then exclaimed:
“You did not tell me where the commandant is, Jacques. He has not gone
back to his fortress, without me?”
Jacques’s face fell into creases of anguish.
“Madame, he said you were to sleep undisturbed till morning.”
“He should have obtained Mademoiselle de Granville’s consent to that.
This is not answering a question I have already repeated to you.”
“Madame, he has taken the Indians and gone in his boat. Soldiers must
do all sorts of things, especially commandants. He would not expose you
to the dangers of the route by night.”
“Listen!” Her expression changed.
Jacques gladly listened.