“But what do you suppose I came to Cheticamp for?” I pleaded.
“Not merely to see me—that I know, Jacques,” came the decided answer.
“You could never get leave of absence just for that. You cold-blooded
English could never make a woman’s wishes so important.”
“Couldn’t we, indeed?” I protested. In my eagerness I leaned forward
into the glimmer, seeking closer proximity to the fair enshadowed face
that seemed to waver off alluringly just beyond my reach. Then, in a
panic lest I had revealed myself and displayed to her the error which I
was finding so agreeable, I drew myself back hastily into the gloom. To
cover my alarm I reproached her plaintively.
“Why do you keep so far away, sweet one? Surely you are glad to see me
again!”
She laughed softly, deliciously, under her hood.
“I haven’t seen you yet, really, you know, Jacques. Perhaps you have
changed, and I might not like you so well. Men do change, especially
Englishmen and soldiers, they say. But tell me, why have you come to
Cheticamp; what reason beside to see me?”
This was a poser. I feared the game was up. But experience has taught me
that when one has no good lie ready to hand it is safest to throw
oneself on the mercy of Truth and trust to her good nature. She has so
many sides that one of them can generally be found to serve any
occasion. I told the truth, yet with an air that would permit her to
doubt, should the game require it.
“The business which gained me the privilege of coming where I might be
once more blessed by the light of your sweet eyes, provoking one, was
the need conceived in the heart of our good Governor of putting a stop
to certain transactions with the French at Louisbourg, which, as you
doubtless know very well, have laid all this Cheticamp coast under grave
suspicion. Your people, I dare wager, are too wise to be mixed up in
such perilous enterprises.”
No sooner had I spoken than I realised that, for once, Truth had tricked
me. I had better have trusted to invention.
“Thank you, Jacques. That is just what I wanted to know. You are so
kind. Good night.”
There was a mocking note in the sweet voice, a little ring of triumph
and hostility. For one instant the face was raised, and I saw it
plainly, as if by the radiance of the scornful eyes. Then, before I
could in any way gather my wits, it vanished.
I thrust my head forward, heedless of concealment, and gained one
glimpse of a shadow disappearing through the shrubbery. I sprang out to
follow. But no, I forget myself. The window was somewhat small for one
of my inches. I climbed out laboriously. The witch was nowhere to be
seen. Then, still more laboriously, I climbed back again, cursing
Fortune and my own stupidity which had bungled so sweet a game. I sat
down on the edge of my bed to consider.
The errand which had brought me from Halifax to Cheticamp, with six
soldiers to support me, was one of some moment, and here was I already
in danger of distraction, thinking of a girl’s voice, of half-seen,
mocking eyes, rather than of my undertaking. I got up, shook myself
angrily, then sat down again to lay my plans for the morrow.
The old Seigneur of Cheticamp, Monsieur Raoul St. Michel le Fevre, had
heartily accepted the English rule, and dwelt in high favour with the
powers at Halifax. But he had died a year back, leaving his estates to
his nephew, young St. Michel. It had come to the ears of the Government
that this youth, a headstrong partisan of France, was taking advantage
of his position as seigneur to prosecute very successfully the forbidden
traffic with Louisbourg. Great and merited was the official indignation.
It was resolved that the estates should be confiscated at once, and
young Monsieur St. Michel le Fevre captured, if possible. Thereupon the
estates were conferred upon myself, to whom the Governor was somewhat
deeply indebted. It was passing comfortable to him to pay a debt out of
a pocket other than his own. I was dispatched to Cheticamp to gather in
Monsieur le Fevre for the Governor and the le Fevre estates for myself.
They were fair estates, I had heard, and I vowed that I would presently
teach them to serve well the cause of England’s king.
My first thought in the morning, when the level sun streaming through
the hop vines brought me on the sudden wide awake—as a soldier should
wake, slipping cleanly and completely out of his sleep-heaviness—my
first thought, I say, was of a shadowed face vanishing into the
night-glimmer, and something enchantingly mysterious to be sought for in
this remote Acadian village. Then, remembering my business and hoping
that my indiscretion had not muddled it, I resolutely put the folly from
me and sprang up.
It is curious, when one looks back, to note what petty details stand
forth in a clear light, as it were, upon the background of great and
essential experience. I am no gourmand, but apt to eat whatever is set
before me, with little concern save that it be cleanly and sufficient.
Yet never do I hear or think of Cheticamp village without a remembered
savour of barley cakes and brown honey, crossed delicately with the
smell of bean blossoms blown in through a sunny window. At the time, I
am sure, I took little heed of these things. My care was chiefly to see
that two of my men set forth promptly to watch the two wharves on each
side of the creek, which served the fleet of the fishermen. Then I
dispatched two others to spy on the roadway entering and leaving the
village, and a fifth to sentinel a hill at the back overlooking all the
open country. With the remaining fellow, my orderly, at my heels, I set
out for the dwelling of young Monsieur St. Michel le Fevre de Cheticamp,
rehearsing his full name with care as I went, in order that there should
be no lack of courteous ceremony to disguise the rudeness of my errand.
I needed none to point me out the house of the le Fevres. On the crest
of a dark-wooded knoll at the south-east end of the one long village
street, it spread its cluster of grey gables, low and of a comfortable
air. Fir groves sheltered it to north and east. On the west gathered the
cool, green ranks of its apple orchard. Down the slope in front unrolled
a careless garden—thyme plots and hollyhock rows, gooseberry bushes and
marigold beds, and a wide waste of blossoming roses—all as unlike the
formal pleasances of France and England as garden-close could be, yet
bewitching, like a fair and wilful woman.
“It shall not be changed by so much as one gooseberry bush,” said I to
myself, highly pleased with the prospect. Then, rounding a lilac
thicket, I arrived at the open gate. And then, face to face, I met a
girl.
The meeting was so sudden, and so closely did I confront her, that I
felt my coming a most uncivil intrusion. Moreover, she was most
disconcerting to look upon. Stammering apologies and snatching my hat
from my head, I flushed and dropped my eyes before her—which was not in
accordance with my custom. I dropped my eyes, as I say, but even then I
saw her as clearly within my brain as if my eyes were boldly resting
upon her face.
The lady of the manor, evidently. I had heard there was a sister to the
recalcitrant young seigneur, one Mademoiselle Irene, over whose beauty
and caprices had more than one duel been fought among the gallants of
Quebec.
The picture which, during those few heart-beats while I stood
stuttering, burned itself into my memory was one that not absence,
years, or habitude has any power to dull. The face was a face for which
some men would die a hundred deaths and dream all beauty in dying, while
other men, blind fools, and many women, of the envious sort, would
protest it to be not even passable; a face small, thin, clear, and very
dark; the chin obstinate; the mouth full, somewhat large, sorrowful,
mocking, maddening, unforgettably scarlet; the nose whimsical, dainty;
the eyes of a strange green radiance, very large and trustfully wide
open, frank as a child’s, yet unfathomable; a face to trust, to adore,
yet not to understand. The hair black, thick, half curling, with a dull
burnish, falling over each side of the brow almost to cover the little
delicate ears. The figure, clad in some soft, whitish stuff descending
only to the ankles, was under middle height, slight to thinness,
straight, lithe, fine, indescribably alive—in some strange way reminding
me of a flame. In narrow little shoes of red leather the light feet
stood poised like birds’. From one small nut-brown hand swung a
broad-brimmed hat of black beaver, with an ample black feather at the
side. Beside this entrancing picture I was vaguely conscious of a wide,
yellow pathway sloping upward through roses, roses, roses drenched in
sun.
Presently I heard the sound of my stammering cease, and a soft voice,
troubling me with a familiar note, said courteously: “You are very
welcome to Cheticamp, monsieur. My brother is away from home, unhappily,
but in his absence you must allow me the honour of taking his place as
your host in my poor way.”
I looked up and met her eyes fairly, my confusion lost in surprise, and
on the instant my heart signalled to me: “It is none other than the maid
of the window! Take care!”
Yes, I saw it plain. Yet I should never have known it but for a
perception somehow more subtle than that of ear and eye—for she had
disguised her voice the night before, and her dress had been that of a
peasant maid, and the bright riddle of her face had been in shadow. I
perceived, too, that she felt herself safe from discovery, and that it
was for me to save her blushes by leaving her security unassailed. In
all this sudden turmoil of my wits, however, I fear that I was near
forgetting my manners.
“But, mademoiselle,” I demanded bluntly, “how do you know who I am?”
“It is the part of the conquered to know their conquerors, monsieur,”
she answered, in a manner that eluded the bitterness of the words. “But,
indeed, the place of an English officer, on duty that is doubtless
official, is here at the Seigneury and not at the village inn. We cannot
let you put a slight upon our hospitality.”
I was in sore embarrassment; and the parchment deed conveying to me the
Seigneury of Cheticamp began to burn my pocket. I felt a vehement desire
to accept the sweetly proffered hospitality of this enchanting witch.
The temptation dragged at my heartstrings. There was nothing to do but
take it by the throat rudely if I would save any shreds of honour.
“Alas! mademoiselle,” I said, avoiding her eyes, “I am here on a rough
errand, and your courtesy pierces me. I am here to arrest your brother
and carry him a prisoner to Halifax.”
“Monsieur, monsieur, what do you mean?” she cried, with a faintness in
her voice. But looking up suddenly, I saw that her surprise was a pretty
piece of feigning, though her agitation was real enough.
“I mean that your brother, though succeeding to these estates under
protection of English law, and owing allegiance to the English Crown, is
giving aid to England’s enemies. He is supplying Louisbourg with grain
and flax and cattle from these lands of Acadia, which are now English.
The Governor has proofs beyond cavil. He has sent me to arrest your
brother, mademoiselle, not to be happy in the hospitality of your
brother’s sister.”
And now, to my amaze, the merriest and most persuasive smile spread a
dazzle over my lady witch’s face.
“Those proofs of your good Governor’s, monsieur,” she cried, with pretty
scorn, “I will show you what folly they are. You have all been deceived.
You must come with me now, and give me fullest opportunity to clear my
brother’s honour. And in any case it is my right, as well as my
pleasure, to entertain the Governor’s representative when he visits the
place of my father’s people.”
But I was stubborn. That deed in my pocket weighed tons. Yet my
inclination must have shown in my eyes, plainly enough for one less keen
than Mademoiselle Irene le Fevre to decipher it. A little air of
confidence flitted over her face. Nevertheless, I shook my head.
“Most gracious lady,” I protested, “you honour me too much. It will
delight me to learn that your brother has been maligned”—and in this,
faith, I spoke true, forgetting the contingent peril to my pocket—“but
were he never so innocent it would be my duty to take him to Halifax,
for the Governor himself to weigh the evidence. The irony of life has
sent me as your foe, not as your guest.”
“Then, monsieur, come as a foe who but observes the courtesies. Come
with your hands free to arrest my brother at any moment on his own
hearthstone (he is far away from it now, praise Mary!), or to arrest
your hostess either, if your duty should demand that unkindness. Come as
one who graciously accepts what he could, if he would, take as his
right. Let us play that you come here as our friend, monsieur—and give
me the hope of winning an advocate for my brother against the evil day
that may bring him before the cold English judges at Halifax.”
Her strong, little eloquent hands were clasped in appeal—and who was I
to deny her? But I looked into her eyes; and I saw in their childlike
deeps, underneath the mocking and the feigning, a clear spirit, which I
could not bear to delude. I understood now very plainly her mad game of
the night before. She was unmasking a danger for her brother. I
justified her in my heart; for my own part in the folly I felt a
creeping shame. How lightly she must hold me. This thought, and a sense
that I was about to hurt her, brought the hot flush to my face; and I
looked away as I spoke.
“But, mademoiselle—forgive me that I bear such tidings—the estates of
Monsieur Raoul le Fevre, Seigneur of Cheticamp, are confiscated to the
Crown.”
Lifting my eyes at the last words, I saw that the girl had grown very
white and was staring at me in a sort of terror. There was plainly no
feigning here. This blow was unexpected, unprepared for, something
beyond her bright young wit to deal with. I seemed to see in her heart a
sudden, hopeless desolation, as if all her world had fallen to ruin
about her and left her life naked to the storm of time. Not a word had
she ready in such a crisis.
“Mademoiselle,” I cried, more passionately, perhaps, than was fitting,
“do not misunderstand. The confiscation does not apply at once, of
course, and you are still absolute mistress here. If your brother be
proved innocent, the decree of confiscation may be revoked. So it will
now be held in suspension. You will, I am sure, permit me to go through
the form of visiting your house, to convince me, as the Governor’s
emissary, that Monsieur le Fevre is not there. Then I will return to the
village and see to it that my men shall cause you no annoyance or
embarrassment. I dare not ask you to pity me for the duty that has been
put upon me.”
As I spoke I had been watching her face, without seeming to think of
anything but my own words. First the colour returned to cheek and lips;
then a wild anger was lighted in the great green eyes—anger with a fear
and appeal behind it. Then a resolved look—and I knew that she would
force herself to play out the game, setting her brother’s interest
before all else. And then, last of all, a most fleeting, elusive look of
triumph at the back of her eyes and at the bow of her lips, for the
indeterminable fraction of a second. I took note of this with some
anxiety. Could it be possible that she felt sure of her power over me?
Could it be possible that she had, at all, any hold upon me? No, she was
too confident. She interested me amazingly. She seemed to me the most
beautiful thing that could have ever existed. But I was not in love, and
would not be swerved from my duty even if I were. Yet all this was
flashed instantaneously through my brain—she was speaking—and I was
yielding.
“You are a generous enemy, a chivalrous enemy, monsieur,” she murmured,
in a low, earnest, slightly strained voice. Then she recovered her
lightness. “I am almost your prisoner, in a sense, am I not? A suspect,
certainly. If I accept your leniency, and profit by your permission to
stay here under my confiscated roof, do not make me die under this
weight of favour. Be my guest and let me feel that I am not the only one
in debt.”
Was this the same woman, this half-mocking, all-irresistible creature,
she whom I had seen grey-faced with hopeless trouble not three minutes
before? Said I to myself, “If I put my wits or my heart against hers it
is all up with me. Blank truth is my only hope.” Aloud I said, “I will
be your guest, mademoiselle, though the debt in which I so overwhelm
myself is one from which I can never again get free.”
For this acquiescence my reward was just a look of brilliancy that made
me catch my breath with pleasure. With a gesture that bade me to her
side she turned and moved slowly up the path, between the shining
copiousness of roses.
[Illustration: “‘It is I who must ask forgiveness,’ she said softly,
holding out her hand” (page 192).]
“I will send a servant with your orderly to the inn, monsieur,” she
said, “to fetch your things. Our old walls will be glad to shelter again
a soldier’s uniform, even if the colour of it be something strange to
them.”
“Almost you tempt me to wish that I had been born to the white uniform,”
I answered, in a daze with the nearness of her, the witchery of her, the
nameless charm of her movement, the subtle intoxication of her voice.
“Almost you tempt me to regret,” she retorted, with gracious raillery,
“that the men of your cold and stubborn north cannot be moved to change
by a woman’s arguments.”
“It is to unchangeableness we are moved by a woman, mademoiselle.”
I spoke with an exaggerated lightness, to avoid a too significant
seriousness.
“Is there ever, I wonder, a risk of such steadfastness growing
tiresome?” mused mademoiselle, turning contemplative.
The swift change discomfited me. I turned my words to platitudes on the
beauty of the house, the garden, the landscape. And presently I found
myself established, an honoured yet confessedly hostile guest, in the
Seigneury of Cheticamp.
A little old housekeeper, wizened and taciturn and omnipresent, kept me
under an inscrutable surveillance, but treated me civilly enough. My
chamber, very spacious, but with a low ceiling of broken slopes under
the eaves, its windows looking out over the rose-garden, the village,
and the sea, was furnished with a strange commingling of the luxury and
daintiness of Versailles with the rudeness of a remote, half-barbarous
colony. One of my men, my orderly, was entertained, much to his
satisfaction, in the servants’ quarters, and did me service as regularly
as if we were at home at Goreham-on-Thames; while the rest, lodging at
the inn, came to me with daily reports, which varied not at all in their
trivial sameness. I breakfasted alone. Throughout the morning I walked
exploring the country for miles about and talking with the inhabitants;
or I investigated the roomy, irregular old house, whose half-open doors
and rambling corridors extended trustful invitation to my curiosity; or
I read and wrote in the small but well-stocked library, to which stained
glass from Rouen, a prayer desk, and a corner shrine lent the savour and
sanctity of a chapel. At one hour past noon precisely I dined with
Mademoiselle le Fevre, and afterwards either walked with her in the
garden and in the fir-woods, or, if the weather was unfavourable,
conversed with her, most pleasurably, in the book-room, while she
wrought with more or less affectation of diligence at a curious piece of
tapestry, gold threads and scarlet on a cloth of a soft dull blue.
Before sunset we supped, and in the evening, with doors and windows open
and the scented breath of sea and rose and meadow flowing through, she
played to me on her spinet, or sang ballads of old France, till
candle-light and “good night” brought the day to a close.
Small wonder, being so gently occupied, that I was in no haste to force
events, to ask myself what I desired or expected should happen. The man
I was sent to seek was obviously not here. It was a plain and pleasant
duty for me to stay here and await him. Meanwhile, I was serving the
King by my presence, which was security that the Seigneury of Cheticamp
should render no assistance to the King’s enemies at Louisbourg. To be
sure, it was rendering continual assistance to Mademoiselle Irene le
Fevre de Cheticamp, but I could not bring myself to consider for a
moment that the King could be so unhappy as to count her among his
enemies. And so the days slipped by. I was not—as I should have sworn to
myself in all honesty had one suggested it to me—in the least in love
with mademoiselle. I merely found it unavoidable to think about her or
dream about her all the time; impossible to engage my interest in
anything whatever that I could not connect with her. For her part, she
grew day by day more sweetly serious, more womanly courteous, until our
pretty masquerading that night at my window among the hop vines came to
be a remote, unbelievable dream.
But the situation, seemingly so quiet and easy that it might aspire to
last for ever, was, in fact, a bubble of rainbow tissue blown to its
extremes of tension and ready to shatter at a breath. When the breath
came it was a light one, truly, yet how the face of the world changed
under it. I awoke one morning in the first rosiness of dawn with a kind
of foreboding. I went to the window. There in the misty bay, hove-to at
a discreet distance from the wharves, was a small schooner, signalling.
The signals were unintelligible to me, which meant it was my duty to be
concerned with them. I remembered that there was a flag-pole on the
knoll, behind the house. With a sudden leaden sinking at the heart I
realised that mademoiselle’s brother was at last in evidence, and I
could imagine nothing that would more embarrass me than that I should
succeed in capturing him. After watching the signals for some time, and
wondering if it were mademoiselle herself manipulating the unseen
replies, I decided that there was nothing to be done but parade my guard
openly along the coast. Then, if he should persist in stupidly running
his neck into the noose, I would have to do my duty and pull it.
“Oh, why has she a brother!” I groaned, cursing him heartily, but
straight revoked my curse, remembering that but for his delinquencies I
had never come at all to Cheticamp.
Slowly I made my toilet, and before it was finished the little vessel
was under way again, beating out of the inlet against a light westerly
wind. Both to north and south of Cheticamp Harbour were little sheltered
ports with anchorage for such small craft as she; and I concluded that
with this wind she would seek the next haven northward. I resolved to
send my men to search the southerly coves. Then I stepped out upon the
terrace and met mademoiselle herself tripping through the dew, her hair
dishevelled, her eyes like stars, her small face one gipsy sparkle with
excitement.
At sight of me an apprehension dimmed the sparkle for an instant. Then
she came forward to greet me with her usual courtesy. But now there was
a challenge deep in her eyes, and presently a return of the old subtle
audacity, as if I were a foe to be fenced with, bewildered, eluded. It
hurt me keenly, and I took no thought of the utter unreasonableness of
my grievance.
“Good morning, monsieur,” she cried gaily. “Have you a bad conscience
that you sleep so lightly and arise so early?”
“Mademoiselle,” said I gravely, bending low over her cool brown fingers,
and noticing that they trembled, “I have been watching the signals from
yonder ship.”
The brown fingers were withdrawn nervously.
“They were quite unintelligible to me,” I continued, “but I readily
infer that your brother has returned and is on shipboard.”
A strange look—was it relief?—passed over her face. Then she nodded her
dark head as if in frankest acquiescence.
“Allow me to say at once that I must try to capture him, but that I
earnestly hope that I shall not be so unfortunate as to succeed.”
At this her eyes softened upon me. Never had I seen anything, in life or
in dream, so beautiful as the smile upon her lips. But I went on: “My
men will patrol the coast; but they are few, and I cannot, of course,
prevent your messengers eluding their vigilance and communicating with
Monsieur le Fevre. I am glad I cannot prevent it. I doubt not you will
warn him that all this neighbourhood is strictly watched. My men would
at once recognise him, if they saw him, from the descriptions they have
had.”
Then, as I watched her face, my restraint was shaken. The love which I
had not till that day let myself realise laid mighty grasp upon me. The
long-chained passion crept into my voice, and it changed, trembling, as
I continued:
“Oh, you can prevent him falling into our hands. I beseech you let not
that evil come upon me that your brother should be my prisoner.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” she said very simply, putting her hand in mine
with a confidence like a child’s. Her eyes searched my very heart for a
second. “I think, with such assistance, we can elude your vigilance,
monsieur.”
But on the instant her look changed to one of the deepest gravity. As I
have so often thought of that look since, it was a surrender in part, in
part a sacrament.
“The South Cove at noon,” she said, with a sort of sob, and flushed and
ran hastily into the house.
For a moment or two I stood staring after her in utter bewilderment. The
dominant feeling, which sent great gushes of light and warmth through
heart and brain and nerve, was that she loved me, that she had revealed
herself to me on a swift, inexplicable impulse. This set me reeling in a
kind of intoxication. But underneath, clamouring harshly to be heeded,
was the problem she had thrust upon me. She had forced me to know just
what I had striven so desperately not to know. For the moment, however,
I did not think. I simply let myself feel; and, turning mechanically, I
walked in a daze down the winding road through the rose garden.
“Of course,” said I to myself, and half aloud to the roses, “she means
that I am to act upon her word and take my men safely out of the way to
South Cove before noon, leaving the North Harbour, where the ship has
gone, perfectly secure. She knows that I can act with a clear conscience
on so definite a piece of information as that. She knows that there is
nothing else for me to do. She sees that I love her. She trusts me. And
she trusts my wit to comprehend her subtle devisings. Irene! Irene!”
And I swung gaily down towards the village through an air more light and
sweet, through a sunshine more radiant and clear, under a sky more blue,
than ever before my travelled senses had encountered.
I breakfasted at the inn. By the time my messengers had got hold of my
scattered men and given them my orders to report to me at South Cove, it
wanted but an hour of noon. To South Cove was an hour’s brisk walking,
and I set out, with my orderly at my heels. He was a trusty, discreet
fellow, with whom I was wont to talk not a little; but to-day my dreams
were all-sufficient to me, and I would not let the lad so much as stir
his tongue. Arriving at the point where the upland dipped down to South
Cove, a narrow inlet thickly screened with woods, I noted the hour as
exact noon. Then, liking well the look of the leafage below me, with the
glint of water sparkling through, and craving no company but my own and
my thoughts, I bade my man wait where he was and watch the roads both
ways, and halt the others as they should come up.
The path down through the trees was green-mossed, winding, and steep. I
went swiftly but noiselessly. Near the foot, as I was just about to
emerge upon the beach, the sound of voices below caught my ear. I
essayed to stop myself, slipped, crashed through a brittle screen of
dead spruce boughs, and came down, erect upon my feet but somewhat
jarred, not ten paces from the spot where a lady and a cavalier, locked
in one another’s arms, stood beside a small boat drawn up upon the
shingle.
It was mademoiselle, and the man was her brother, as I saw on the
instant from the likeness between them. They had unlocked their arms and
turned towards me, startled at the sound of my fall. Mademoiselle’s face
went white, then flushed crimson, and, drawing herself up, she
confronted me with a look of unutterable scorn, mingled with pain and
reproach. Apprehension and amusement struggled together in the face of
the young seigneur.
For my own part, I had realised on the instant the whole enormity of my
mistake. Mademoiselle had told me the plain truth, staking everything on
my love, trusting me utterly. My heart sinks now as I recall the anguish
of that moment. I had but one thought—to justify myself in her eyes. I
sprang forward, stammering.
“Forgive me, mademoiselle, I did not understand—I quite misunderstood.
Believe me, I never dreamed——”
But, shaken and humiliated as she was, she did not lose her presence of
mind. She played another card boldly.
“Captain Scott,” she said, as if this were the most ceremonious meeting
in the world, “this is my fiancé, Monsieur de St. Ange.”
By great good fortune I had wit enough to seem to believe her. In fact,
perhaps my belief was too well simulated, for the expressions that
passed over her face in the next few seconds were inexplicable to me and
mightily increased my confusion. But toward this “Monsieur de St. Ange”
I felt most cordial.
“Delighted, monsieur, I am sure,” I exclaimed, bowing low, while he
bowed with equal ceremony, but in silence.
“I congratulate you,” I went on, terribly at a loss. Then I looked at
mademoiselle, who had turned away white and indifferent.
“There has been some mistake,” I continued desperately. “That you should
wish to see your betrothed is, of course, to me sufficient explanation
of your presence here. But others might think I should inquire more
searchingly into an enemy’s purpose in visiting a place like this. My
men are in the neighbourhood; I will go at once and withdraw them. But I
beg you, monsieur, to withdraw yourself as speedily as possible.”
I backed away, striving in vain to win a look from mademoiselle. As for
her brother, he was most civil.
“I thank you for your great courtesy, monsieur,” he answered, the
corners of his mouth restraining themselves from mirth. “Much as it
would be to my pleasure to know you better, I am aware that I might find
it inconvenient. I shall comply as speedily as possible with your most
reasonable request.”
At the foot of the path, finding that mademoiselle was quite oblivious
to my presence, I turned and made all haste from the calamitous spot.
When I found my men, I hurried them off toward Cheticamp with an
eagerness that hinted at a fresh and important clue. From the inn I sent
them in parties of two, on errands of urgency that would take them as
far as possible from South Cove. Then, hurrying back to the Seigneury, I
awaited, in sickening suspense, the return of mademoiselle to a belated
meal.
At the suggestion of the wizened old housekeeper, I ate the meal
alone—or, rather, I put some dry, chip-like substances into my mouth,
which chose to collect themselves in a lump some little way below my
throat. The old lady seemed as ignorant as I of the reason of
mademoiselle’s delay, though once and again, from the shrewd scrutiny
which I caught her bestowing upon my countenance, I suspected that she
knew more than she would confess. The afternoon went by in that misery
of waiting that turns one’s blood to gall. I would go out among the
roses, but cursing them for their false, disastrous speech, I found them
not contenting company. Then I would go back into the library and spend
the sluggish minutes in jumping up, sitting down, trying this book,
rejecting that, while every sense was on the rack of intensity to catch
some hint of her presence in the house. But all in vain. The stillness
seemed unnatural. There was a menace in the clear pour of the afternoon
sun. When at last, toward sundown, the humpbacked old gardener went by
the window with a watering-pot, I was startled to see that the affairs
of life were going on as usual. There was somehow a grain of comfort, of
reassurance, in the sight of the old humpback. I left the library and
went to find the housekeeper, determined to put her through such an
inquisition as should in some way relieve my suspense.
I found her in the supper-room, putting flowers on a table that was set
for—only one.
“Supper is served, monsieur,” she said, as I came in.
“For me alone?” I gasped, feeling that the world had come to an end.
“For monsieur,” she answered.
“Tell me”—and the tone made her look at me quickly with a deference not
before observable in her manner—“tell me at once where Mademoiselle le
Fevre is gone.”
“Certainly, monsieur, certainly. There is no desire to deceive monsieur.
Mademoiselle and her maid have removed to the inn at Cheticamp, where
mademoiselle intends to reside till she can join monsieur her brother at
Louisbourg.”
I heard her through, then rushed from the room, snatched up my hat, and
sped down to the inn of Cheticamp. I fear that the civil salutations of
the villagers whom I passed went outrageously unregarded.
My demand was urgent, so within a very few minutes of my coming I was
ushered into mademoiselle’s parlour, and with a thrill of hope at the
omen I noted that it was the same room which I had occupied on the night
of my arrival at Cheticamp, the same dear room through whose
hop-garlanded window I had made such bold and merry counterfeit with
mademoiselle in her disguise. But not nourishing to hope was
mademoiselle’s greeting. I had not dreamed so small a dame could ever
look so tall. Her slim figure was in the gown of creamy linen which she
had worn when I had met her in the rose-garden. Her small, strange,
child-like face was very white, her lips set coldly and less scarlet
than their wont, and her eyes—they were fearfully bright and large, with
a gaze which I could not fathom.
“To what do I owe this honour, monsieur?” she asked. “It is much——”
But I was rude in my trouble.
“Why have you fled from me, mademoiselle?” I interrupted passionately.
“Why have you left your own home in this way? I will leave it at
once—for you shall not be driven from it.”
“My home, monsieur? It is your house. I will not be a pensioner on your
bounty.”
How had she found this out? I was in confusion.
“What—what do you mean, mademoiselle?” I stammered.
“I mean, monsieur,” she said, with ice and fire contending in her voice,
“that all these days, when I thought I was playing the hostess, in a
home belonging either to my brother or to the English Government, I have
been but a beggar living on your charity. I know that you are the owner
of Cheticamp House and all in it, it having been taken from us to give
to you.”
I was in despair over this further complication; but this was not the
time for finding out the betrayer of my secret.
“I had hoped that you would never know, mademoiselle,” I protested. “But
it is not of that I would speak. Forgive me, I beg you on my knees, for
the stupid mistake, the unpardonable mistake I made this morning. And
oh, count it something that I did my best to remedy the error, so that
no harm came of it.”
The anger that flamed into her eyes was of a beauty that did not delight
me.
“Doubtless you did your duty, monsieur, as a servant of your Government.
Doubtless honour required that you should betray the trust so foolishly
reposed in you by a silly girl. You would have taken my brother, and
through his sister’s folly. I cannot feel any very keen gratitude for
the generosity which suffered my fiancé, whom you did not seek, to go
free.”
Light began to struggle in upon the darkness of my brain.
“Your fiancé!” I returned quickly. “Could you think for one moment I did
not know that he was your brother?”
Her face changed marvellously at this declaration.
“I knew your purpose then,” I went on. “But forgive me, forgive me for
not understanding you before. I was not worthy of the simple trust you
placed in me. I thought you meant me to understand that I should take my
men to South Cove at noon to have them out of the way. I thought it was
a piece of your daring strategy, and I was proud because you trusted my
stupid wits to follow your plan. I thought it was to save me the
embarrassment of openly letting your brother go. I thought—oh, I thought
myself so wise, and I was so cheaply careful of my duty. Can you forgive
me? You know, you must know, in the light of what I did afterwards, that
if I had only understood your words in all their uncalculating faith no
power on earth would have prevented me keeping myself and my men as far
as possible from South Cove.”
Her tense attitude relaxed. Her figure seemed no longer so portentously
tall.
“It is I who must ask forgiveness,” she said softly, holding out her
hand. I seized it in both of mine and dared to kiss it fiercely,
hungrily, and marvelled to find that it was not at once withdrawn from
such an ardour.
“I am not so wise, I am not so subtle, as you think me,” she continued.
“It was a clever device, indeed, that you credited me with, and so much
more considerate and fine in every way than my poor little
thoughtlessness which threw the responsibility upon you. But you are
mistaken, monsieur, if you think that I am at all clever or subtle.”
She was looking down, watching, but not seeming to see, how my hands
held both of hers. For myself, I knew that the joy of life had come to
me; but I could find no word to say, so wildly ran my blood. After a
moment’s silence she said musingly:
“I don’t think I ever could deceive any one. I am sure I never did
deceive any one in my life—but once; oh, yes, once.” And here she lifted
up her face and flashed upon me a challenge of dancing eyes and mocking
mouth.
“No, indeed,” said I. “The maid who came to my window did not deceive me
for a moment when afterwards I met her in the rose-garden.”
“Oh!” she gasped with a little sob, while her face grew scarlet. “You
knew all the time? It was horrid of me—too horrid to think of. Oh——”
At this point it seemed to me that she was looking for a spot to hide
her face, and, taking base advantage of her confusion, I drew her into
my arms and let her blushes fly to cover against my coat. Never before,
in my opinion, had the King’s uniform been so highly honoured.
“To my window you came that night, my lady,” I whispered, “but it was to
the door of my heart you came.”
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and
Aylesbury._