Just then Mam'selle knew the twinge of sadness that is the penalty of
achievement. Heretofore there had been purpose, necessity, and
obligation but now? Why, there was nothing; really nothing. She need
not labour early and late; there was no demand upon her. For a moment
her breath came quick and hard; her eyes dimmed and vaguely she realized
that the struggle had held a glory that victory lacked.
Fifteen years ago she had stood as she was standing now, but had looked
upon a far different scene. Then the house was falling to decay, and was
but a sad shelter for the poor sister who lay muttering unintelligible
words all day long while she played with bits of bright coloured rags.
The barns and outhouses were empty and forlorn, the harvest a failure;
the wood pile dangerously small.
Jo had but just returned from her father's funeral and she was
wondering, helplessly, what she could do next in order to keep the
wretched home, and procure food and clothing for Cecile and herself. She
was thankful, even then, that her father was dead; glad that her poor
mother, who had given up the struggle years before, did not complicate
the barren present--it would be easier to attack the problem single
handed.
And as she stood bewildered, but undaunted, Captain Longville came up
the highway and paused near the ramshackle gate. Longville was the
power in Point of Pines with whom all reckoned, first or last. He was
of French descent, clever, lazy, and cruel but with an outward courtesy
that defied the usual methods of retaliation. He had money and capacity
for gaining more and more. He managed to obtain information and secrets
that added to his control of people. He was a silent, forceful creature
who never expended more than was necessary in money, time, or words to
reach his goal--but he always had a definite goal in view.
"Good day, Mam'selle," he called to Jo in his perfect English which had
merely a trace of accent, "it was a fine funeral and I never saw the
father look better nor more as he should. He and you did yourselves
proud." Longville's manner and choice of words were as composite as
were his neighbours; Point of Pines was conglomerate, the homing place
of many from many lands for generations past.
"I did my best for him," Jo responded, "and it's all paid for, Captain."
The dark eyes were turned upon the visitor proudly but helplessly.
"Paid, eh?" questioned Longville. This aspect of affairs surprised and
disturbed him. "Paid, eh?"
"Yes, I saved. I knew what was coming."
"Well, now, Mam'selle, I have an offer to make. While your father lived
I lent, and lent often, laying a debt on my own land in order to save
his, but pay day has come. This is all--mine! But I'm no hard and fast
master, specially to women, and in turning things about in my mind I
have come to this conclusion. Back of my house is a small cabin, I
offer it to you and Cecile. Bring what you choose from here and make
the place homelike and, for the help you give Madame when the States'
folks summer with us, we'll give you your clothing and keep. What do you
say, eh?"
For full a minute Jo said nothing. She was a woman whose roots struck
deep in every direction, and she recoiled at the idea of change. Then
something happened to her. Without thought or conscious volition she
began to speak.
"I--I want the chance, Captain Longville, only the chance."
"The chance, eh? What chance, Mam'selle?"
"The chance to--to get it back!" The screened eyes seemed to gather all
the old, familiar wretchedness into their own misery.
Longville laughed, not brutally, but this was too much, coming as it did
from Morey's daughter.
"Why, Mam'selle," he said, "the interest hasn't been paid in years."
"The interest--and how much is that?" murmured Jo.
"Oh, a matter of a couple of hundreds." This was flung out
off-handedly.
"But if--if I could pay that and promise to keep it up, would you give
me the chance? My money is as good as another's and the first time I
fail, Captain, I'll fetch Cecile over to the cabin and sell myself to
you."
This was not a gracious way to put it and it made Longville scowl, still
it amused him mightily. There was a bit of the sport in him, too, and
the words, wild and improbable as they were, set in motion various
ideas.
If Jo could save from the wreck of things in the past enough money to
pay for the funeral might she not, the sly minx, have saved more?
Stolen was what Longville really thought. Ready money, as much as he
could lay hands on, was the dearest thing in life to him and the fun of
having any one scrimping and delving to procure it for him was a joy not
to be lightly thrown away. And might he not accomplish all he had in
mind by giving Jo her chance? He did not want the land and the
ramshackle house, except for what they would bring in cash; and if
Mam'selle must slave to earn, might she not be willing to slave in his
kitchen as well as in another's? To be sure he would have, under this
new dispensation, to pay her, or credit her, with a certain amount--but
he could make it desirably small and should she rebel he would threaten
her, in a kindly way, with disinclination to carry on further business
relations with her.
So Longville pursed up his thin lips and considered.
"But the money, the interest money, Mam'selle, the chance depends upon
that."
Jo turned and walked to the house. Presently she came back with a
cracked teapot in her hands.
"In this," she said slowly as if repeating words suggested to her,
"there are two hundred and forty-two dollars and seventy-nine cents,
Captain. All through the years I have saved and saved. I've sold my
linens and woollens to the city folks--I've lied--but now it will buy
the chance."
A slow anger grew in Longville's eyes.
"And you did this, while owing everything to me?" he asked.
"It was father who owed you; your money went for drink, for anything and
everything but safety for Cecile and me. The work of my own hands--is
mine!"
"Not so say our good laws!" sneered Longville, "and now I could take it
all from you and turn you out on the world."
"And will--you?" Jo asked.
She was a miserable figure standing there with her outstretched hands
holding the cracked teapot.
Longville considered further. He longed to stand well in the community
when it did not cost him too much. Without going into details he could
so arrange this business with Jo Morey that he might shine forth
radiantly--and he did not always radiate by any means.
"No!" he said presently; "I'm going to give you your chance, Mam'selle,
that is, if you give me all your money."
"You said--two hundred!"
"_About_, Mam'selle, _about_. That was my word."
"But winter is near and there is Cecile. Captain, will you leave me a
bit to begin on?"
"Well, now, let us see. How about our building up your wood pile;
starting you in with potatoes, pork, and the like and leaving say
twenty-five dollars in the teapot? How about that, eh?"
"Will you write it down and sign?" Jo was quivering.
"You're sharp, devilishly sharp, Mam'selle. How about being good
friends instead of hard drivers of bargains?"
"You must write it out and sign, Captain. We'll be better friends for
that."
Again Longville considered.
The arrangement would be brief at best, he concluded.
"I'll sign!" he finally agreed, "but, Mam'selle, it's like a play
between you and me."
"It's no play, Captain, as you will see."
And so it had begun, that grim struggle which lasted fifteen long years
with never a failure to meet the interest; and, in due time, the
payments on the original loan were undertaken. Early and late Jo
slaved, denying herself all but the barest necessities, but she managed
to give poor Cecile better fare.
During the second year of Jo's struggle, two staggering things had
occurred that threatened, for a time, to defeat her. She had known but
little brightness in her dun-coloured girlhood, but that little had been
connected with Henry Langley the best, by far, of the young men of the
place. He was an American who had come from the States to Canada, as
many others had, believing his chance on the land to be better than at
home. He was an educated man with ambitions for a future of
independence and a free life. He bought a small farm for himself and
built a rude but comfortable cabin upon it. When he was not working out
of doors he was studying within and his only extravagances were books
and a violin.
Jo Morey had always attracted him; her mind, her courage, her defiance
of conditions, called forth all that was fine in him. Without fully
understanding he recognized in her the qualities that, added to his own,
would secure the success he craved. So he taught her, read with her,
and made her think. He was not calculating and selfish, the crude
foundation was but the safety upon which he built a romance that was as
simple and pure as any he had ever known. The plain, brave girl with
her quiet humour and delicate ideals appealed mightily to him. His
emotions were in abeyance to his good common sense, so he and Jo had
planned for a future--never very definite, but always sincere.
After the death of Morey, Jo, according to her bargain with Longville,
went to help in the care of the summer boarders who, that year, filled
Madame Longville's house to overflowing and brought in a harvest that
the Captain, not his womankind, gathered. That was the summer when poor
Jo, over-worked, worried at leaving Cecile alone for so many weary
hours, grew grim and unlovely and found little time or inclination to
play the happy part with Langley that had been the joy and salvation of
their lives. And just then a girl from the States appeared--a delicate,
pretty thing ordered to the river-pines to regain her health. She
belonged to the class of women who know no terminals in their lives, but
accept everything as an open passage to the broad sea of their desires.
She was obliged to work for her existence and the effort had all but
cost her her life; she must get someone, therefore, to undertake the
business for the future. Her resources were apparently limited, while
the immediate necessity was pressing. Since nothing was to her finite
and binding, she looked upon Henry Langley and beheld in him a
possibility; a stepping stone. She promptly began her attack, by way of
poor Jo, who, she keenly realized, was her safest and surest course to
Langley's citadel. She made almost frantic efforts to include the tired
drudge in the summer frivolities; her sweet compassion and delicate
prettiness were in terrific contrast to Jo's shabbiness and lack of
charm. While Langley tried to be just and loyal he could but acknowledge
that Jo's blunt refusals to accept, what of course she could not accept,
were often brutal and coarse. Then, as his senses began to blind him,
he became stupidly critical, groping and bungling. He could not see,
beneath Jo's fierce retorts to his very reasonable demands, the
scorching hurt and ever-growing recognition of defeat.
It was the old game played between a professional and an amateur--and
the professional won!
Quite unbeknown to poor Jo, toiling in Madame Longville's kitchen,
Langley quietly sold his belongings to the Captain and, taking his prize
off secretly, left explanations to others.
Longville made them.
"Mam'selle," he said, standing before Jo as she bent over a steaming pan
of dishes in the stifling kitchen, "we've been cheated out of a merry
wedding."
"A wedding?" asked Jo listlessly, "has any one time to marry now?"
"They made time and made off with themselves as well. Langley was
married last night and is on his way, heaven knows where!"
Jo raised herself and faced Longville. Her hair was hanging limply, her
eyes were terror-filled.
"Langley married and gone?" she gasped. Then: "My God!"
That was all, but Longville watching her drew his own evil conclusions
and laughed good-naturedly.
"It's all in the day's work, Mam'selle," he said, and wondered silently
if the slave before him would be able to finish out the summer.
Jo finished out the summer efficiently and silently. In September Cecile
simply stopped babbling and playing with rags and became wholly dead.
After the burial Jo, with her dog at her heels, went away. No one but
Longville noticed. Her work at his house was over; the last boarder had
departed.
Often Jo's home was unvisited for weeks at a time, so her absence, now,
caused no surprise. Two weeks elapsed, then she reappeared, draggled
and worn, the dog closely following.
That was all, and the endless work of weaving and spinning was resumed.
Jo invented three marvellously beautiful designs that winter.
But now, this glorious autumn day, she stood victoriously reviewing the
past. Suddenly she turned. As if playing an appointed part in the grim
drama, Longville again stood by the gate looking a bit keener and
grayer, but little older. In his hands, signed and properly executed,
were all the papers that set Jo free from him forever unless he could,
by some other method, draw her within his power. That money of hers in
the bank lay heavy on his sense of propriety.
"Unless she's paying and paying me," he pondered, "what need has she of
money? Too much money is bad for a woman--I'll give her interest."
And just then Jo hailed him in the tone and manner of a free creature.
"Ah, Captain, it's a good day, to be sure. A good day!"
"Here are the papers!" Longville came near and held them toward her.
"Thanks, there was no hurry."
"And now," Longville leered broadly. "'Tis I as comes a-begging. How
about those hundreds in the bank, Mam'selle? I will pay the same
interest as others and one good turn deserves another."
But Jo shook her head.
"No. I'm done with borrowing and lending, Captain. In the future, when
I part with my money, I will give it. I've never had that pleasure in
my life before."
"That's a course that will end in your begging again at my door."
Longville's smile had vanished.
"If so be," and Jo tossed her head, "I'll come humbly, having learned my
lesson from the best of teachers."
Jo plunged her hands deeper in the pockets of her father's old coat.
"A woman and her money are soon parted," growled Longville.
"You quote wrong, Captain. It is a fool and money; a woman is not
always a fool."
Longville reserved his opinion as to this but assumed his grinning,
playful manner which reminded one of the antics of a wild cat.
"Ah, Mam'selle, you must buy a husband. He will manage you and your
good money."
A deep flush rose to Jo's dark face; her scowling brows hid her
suffering eyes.
"You think I must buy what I could not win, Captain?" she asked quietly.
"God help me from falling to such folly."
The two talked a little longer, but the real meaning and purpose that
had held them together during the past years was gone. They both
realized this fully, for the first time, as they tried now to make talk.
They spoke of the future only to find that they had no common future.
Jo retreated as Longville advanced.
They clutched at the fast receding past with the realization that it was
a dead thing and eluded them already.
The present was all that was left and that was heavy with new emotions.
Longville presently became aware of a desire to hurt Jo Morey, since he
could no longer control her; and Jo eyed the Captain as a suddenly
released animal eyes its late torturer: free, but haunted by memories
that still fetter its movements. She wanted to get rid of the
disturbing presence.
"Yes, Mam'selle, since you put it that way," Longville shifted from one
foot to the other as he harked back to the words that he saw hurt, "you
must buy a husband."
"I must go inside," Jo returned bluntly, "good afternoon, Captain." And
she abruptly left him.
It was rather awkward to be left standing alone on Jo Morey's trim lawn,
so Longville muttered an uncomplimentary opinion of his late victim and
strode toward home.
*CHAPTER II*
*MAM'SELLE MUST BUY A HUSBAND*
Longville turned the affairs of Jo Morey over and over in his scheming
mind as he walked home. He had made the suggestion as to buying a
husband from a mistaken idea of pleasantry, but its effect upon Jo had
caused him to take the idea seriously, first as a lash, then as purpose.
By the time he reached home he had arrived at a definite conclusion, had
selected Jo's future mate, and had all but settled the details.
He ate his evening meal silently, sullenly, and watched his wife
contemplatively.
There were times when Longville had an uncomfortable sensation when
looking at Marcel. It was similar to the sensation one has when he
discovers that he has been addressing a stranger instead of the intimate
he had supposed.
He was the type of man who among his own sex sneers at women because of
attributes with which he endows them, but who, when alone with women,
has a creeping doubt as to his boasted conclusions and seeks to right
matters by bullying methods.
Marcel had been bought and absorbed by Longville when she was too young
and ignorant to resist openly. What life had taught her she held in
reserve. There had never been what seemed an imperative need for
rebellion so Marcel had been outwardly complacent. She had fulfilled
the duties, that others had declared hers, because she was not clear in
her own mind as to any other course, but under her slow outward manner
there were currents running from heart to brain that Longville had never
discovered, though there were times, like the present, when he stepped
cautiously as he advanced toward his wife with a desire for
cooeperation.
"Marcel," he said presently with his awkward, playful manner, "I have an
idea!"
He stretched his long legs toward the stove. He had eaten to his fill
and now lighted his pipe, watching his wife as she bent over the
steaming pan of dishes in the sink.
Marcel did not turn; ideas were uninteresting, and Longville's generally
involved her in more work and no profit.
"'Tis about Pierre, your good-for-nothing brother."
"What about him?" asked Marcel. Blood was blood after all and she
resented Longville's superior tone.
"Since Margot died he has had a rough time of it," mused the Captain,
"caring for the boy and shifting for himself. It has been hard for
Pierre."
"You want him and Tom--here?" Marcel turned now, the greasy water
dripping from her red hands. She had small use for her brother, but her
heart yearned over the motherless Tom.
"God forbid," ejaculated Longville, "but a man must pity such a life as
Pierre's."
"Pierre takes his pleasures," sighed Marcel, "as all can testify."
"You mean that a man should have no pleasure?" snapped the Captain.
"You women are devilish hard."
"I meant no wrong. 'Tis no business of mine."
"'Tis the business of all women to marry off the odds and ends"; and now
Longville was ready. He launched out with a clear statement of Jo
Morey's finances and the absolute necessity of male control of the same.
Marcel listened and waited.
"Mam'selle Jo Morey must marry," Longville continued. He had his pipe
lighted and between long puffs blinked luxuriously as he outlined the
future. "She has too much money for a woman and--there is Pierre!"
"Mam'selle Jo and Pierre!" Almost Marcel laughed. "But Mam'selle is so
homely and Pierre, being the handsome man he is, detests an ugly woman."
"What matters? Once married, the good law of the land gives the wife's
money to her master. 'Tis a righteous law. And Pierre has a way with
women that breaks them or kills them--generally both!"
This was meant jocosely, but Marcel gave a shudder as she bent again
over the steaming suds.
"But Mam'selle with money," she murmured more to herself than to
Longville. "Will Mam'selle sell herself?"
This almost staggered Longville. He took his pipe from his lips and
stared at the back of the drudge near him. Then he spoke slowly,
wonderingly:
"Will a woman marry? What mean you? All women will sell their souls
for a man. Mam'selle, being ugly, must buy one. Besides----" And here
Longville paused to impress his next words.
"Besides, you remember Langley?"
For a moment Marcel did not; so much had come and gone since Langley's
time. Then she recalled the flurry his going with one of the summer
people had caused, and she nodded.
"You know Langley walked and talked with Mam'selle before that red and
white woman from the States caught him up in her petticoat and carried
him off?"
It began to come back to Marcel now. Again she nodded indifferently.
"And some months after," Longville was whispering as if he feared the
cat purring under the stove would hear, "some months later, what
happened then." Marcel rummaged in her litter of bleak memories.
"Oh! Cecile died!" She brought forth triumphantly.
"Cecile died, yes! And Mam'selle went away. And what for?" The
whispered words struck Marcel's dull brain like sharp strokes.
"I do not know," she faltered.
"You cannot guess--and you a woman?"
"I cannot."
"Then patch this and this together. Why does a woman go away and hide
when a man has deserted her? Why?"
Marcel wiped the suds from her red, wrinkled hands. She stared at her
husband like an idiot, then she sat down heavily in a chair.
"And that's why Mam'selle will buy Pierre."
For a full moment Marcel looked at her husband as if she had never seen
him before, then her dreary eyes wandered to the window.
Across the road, in the growing darkness, lay three small graves in a
row. Marcel was seeking them, now, seeking them with all the fierce
love and loyalty that lay deep in her heart. And out of those pitiful
mounds little forms, oh! such tiny forms, seemed to rise and plead for
Jo Morey.
Who was it that had shared the black hours when Marcel's babies
came--and went? Whose understanding and sympathy had made life possible
when all else failed?
"I'll do no harm to Mam'selle Jo Morey!" The tone and words electrified
Longville.
"What?" he asked roughly.
"If what you hint is true," Marcel spoke as from a great distance, her
voice trailing pitifully; "I'll never use it to hurt Mam'selle, or I
could not meet my God."
"You'll do what I say!"
But as he spoke Longville had a sense of doubt. For the second time that
day he was conscious of being baffled by a woman; his purposes being
threatened.
"You may regret," he growled, "if you do not help along with this--this
matter of Pierre. There will come a time when Pierre will lie at your
door. What then, eh?"
"Is that any reason why I should throw him at the door of another
woman?" Marcel's pale face twitched. "Why should a man expect any
woman's door to open to him," she went on, "when he has disgraced
himself all his life?"
Longville stirred restlessly. Actually he dared not strike his wife,
but he had all the impulse to do so. He resorted to hoary argument.
"'Tis the unselfish, the noble woman who saves--man!" he muttered, half
ashamed of his own words.
At this Marcel laughed openly. Something was rising to the surface,
something that life had taught her.
"It's a poor argument to use when the unworthy one is the gainer by a
woman's unselfishness," retorted Marcel. "Unless she, too, gets
something out of her--her nobleness, I should think a man would hate to
fling it always in her teeth."
Longville half rose; his jaw looked ugly.
"'Tis my purpose," he said slowly, harshly, "to marry Mam'selle and
Pierre. I have my reasons, and if you cannot help you can keep out of
the way!"
"Yes, I can do that," murmured Marcel. She had taken up her knitting
and she rarely spoke while she knitted. She thought!
But if Longville's suggestion seemed to die in the mind of his own
woman, it had no such fate in that of Jo Morey. When she went into her
orderly house, after leaving the Captain, she put her papers on the
table and stood staring ahead into space. She seemed waiting for the
ugly thought he had left to follow its creator, but instead it clung to
her like a stinging nettle.
"Buy a husband!" she repeated; "buy a husband."
Into poor Jo's dry and empty heart the words ate their way like a spark
in the autumn's brush. The flame left a blackened trail over which she
toiled drearily back, back to that one blessed taste she had had of love
and happiness. Memories, long considered dead, rose from their shallow
graves like spectres, claiming Mam'selle for their own at last.
She had believed herself beyond suffering. She had thought that
loneliness and hard labour had secured her at least from the agony she
was now enduring, but with the consciousness that she could feel as she
was feeling, a sort of terror overcame her.
Her past days of toil had been blessed with nights of exhausted slumber.
But with the newly-won freedom there would be hours when she must
succumb to the tortures of memory. She could not go on slaving with no
actual need to spur her, she must have a reason, a motive for existence.
Like many another, poor Jo realized that while she had plenty to retire
on, she had nothing to retire to, for in her single purpose of freeing
herself from Longville, she had freed herself from all other ties.
But Jo Morey would not have been the woman she was if obstacles could
down her. She turned abruptly and strode toward the barn across the
road. Nick, her dog, materialized at this point. Nick had no faith in
men and discreetly kept out of sight when one appeared. He was no
coward, but caution was a marked characteristic in him and unless
necessity called he did not care, nor deem it advisable, to display his
feelings to strangers.
Jo felt for Nick an affection based upon tradition and fact. His mother
had been her sole companion during the darkest period of her life and
Nick was a worthy son of a faithful mother. Jo talked to the dog
constantly when she was most troubled and confused. She devoutly
believed she often received inspiration and solution from his strange,
earnest eyes.
"Well, old chap," she said now as she felt his sturdy body press against
her knee. "What do you think of that?"
Nick gave a sharp, resentful yelp.
"We want no man planting his tobacco in our front yard; do we, sir? He
might even expect us to plant it!"
Jo always spoke editorially when conversing with Nick. "And fancy a man
sitting by the new stove, Nick, spitting and snoring and kicking no
doubt _you_, my good friend, if not me!"
Nick refused to contemplate such a monstrous absurdity. He showed his
teeth in a sardonic grin and, to ease his feelings, made a dash after a
giddy hen who had forgotten the way to the coop and was frantically
proclaiming the fact in the gathering darkness.
"If that hussy," muttered Jo, "don't stick closer to the roost, I'll
have her for dinner!" Then a light broke upon Jo's face. From trifles,
often, our lives are turned into new channels. "I declare, I'll have
her anyway! I'll live from now on like folks."
States' folks, Jo had in mind, the easy-going summer type. "Chicken
twice a week, hereafter, and no getting up before daybreak."
Nick had chased the doomed hen to the coop and was virtuously returning
when his mistress again addressed him.
"Nick, the little red cow is about to calve. What do you think of
that?"
Nick thought very little of it. The red cow was a nuisance. She calved
at off times of the year and had an abnormal affection for her
offspring. She would not be comforted when it was torn from her for
financial reasons. She made known her objections by kicking over milk
pails and making nights hideous by her wailing; then, too, she had a way
of looking at one that weakened the moral fibre. Nick followed his
mistress to the cow shed and stood contemplatively by while Jo smoothed
the glossy head of the offending cow and murmured:
"Poor little lass, you cannot understand, but you do not want to be
alone, do you?" The animal pressed close and gave a low, sweet sound of
appreciation.
"All right, girl. I'll fill Nick up and take a bite, then I'll be back
and bide with you."
The mild maternal eyes now rested upon Nick and his grew forgiving!
"Come, Nick!" called Jo. "We'll have to hurry. The little red cow, once
she decides, does not waste time. It's a snack and dash for us, old
man, until after the trouble is over. But there's no need of early
bed-going to-night, Nick, and before we sleep we'll have the fire in the
stove!"
So Nick followed obediently, ate voraciously but rapidly, and Jo took
her snack while moving about the kitchen and planning for the
celebration that was to follow the little red cow's accouchement.
It must be a desolate life indeed, a life barren of imagination, that
has not had some sort of star to which the chariot of desire has been
hitched. Jo Morey had a vast imagination and it had kept her safe
through all the years of grind and weariness. Her star was a stove!
Back in the time when her relations with Longville were growing less
strained and she could look beyond her obligations and still see--money,
she had closed the fireplace in the living room and bought, on the
instalment plan, a most marvellous invention of iron, nickle, and glass,
with broad ovens and cavernous belly, and set it up in state.
Jo's conception of honesty would not permit her to build a fire in the
monster until every cent was paid, but she had polished it, almost
worshipped before it, and had silently vowed that upon the day when she
was free from all debt to man she would revel in such warmth and glory
as she had never known before.
"No more roasted fronts and frozen backs,"
Mam'selle had secretly sworn. "No more huddling in the kitchen and
scrimping of fires. From the first frost to the first thaw I'll have
two fires going. The new stove will heat the north chamber and perhaps
the upper room as well. 'Tis a wondrous heater, I'm told."
But the red cow's affairs had postponed the thrilling event. Still
neither Jo nor Nick ever expected perfection in fulfillment and they
took the delay with patient dignity.
Later they again started for the cow shed, this time guided by a
lantern, for night had fallen upon Point of Pines.
Jo took a seat upon an upturned potato basket with Nick close beside
her, and so they waited. Waited until all need and danger were past;
then, tenderly stroking the head of the newly-made mother, Jo spoke in
the tone that few ever heard. Margot Gavot had heard it as she drifted
out of life, her hungry eyes fastened on Jo and the sobbing boy--Tom.
Marcel Longville had heard it as she clung to the hard, rough hand that
seemed to be her only anchor when life and death battled for her and
ended in taking her babies. The little red cow had heard it once before
and now turned her grateful eyes to Mam'selle.
"So! So, lass," murmured Jo; "we don't understand, but we had to see it
through. Brave lass, cuddle the wee thing and take your rest. So, so!"
Then back to the house went Jo and Nick, the lantern swinging between
them like a captured star.
A wonderful, uplifted feeling rose in Jo Morey's heart. She was unlike
her old, unheeding self, she heeded everything; she started at the
slightest sound and drew her breath in sharply. She was almost afraid
of the sensation that overcame her. Depression had fled; exhilaration
had taken its place. A sense of freedom, of adventure, possessed her.
She was ready at last to fling aside the bonds and go forth! Then Nick
stopped short and strained forward as if sensing something in the dark
that not even the lantern could disclose.
"So, Nick!" laughed Jo, "you feel it, too? It's all right, old man.
The mystery of the shed has upset us both. It's always the same,
whether it comes to woman or creature. Something hidden makes us see
it, but our eyes are blind, blind to the meaning."
Then Jo resorted to action. She carried a load of wood from the pile to
the living room; with bated breath she placed it in the stove.
"Suppose it shouldn't draw?" she whispered to Nick, and struck a match.
The first test proved this fear ungrounded. The draw was so terrific
that it threatened to suck everything up.
In a panic Jo experimented with the dampers and soon had the matter in
control. She was perspiring, and Nick was yelping and dashing about in
circles, when the fire was brought to a sense of its responsibility,
ceased roaring like a wild bull, and settled down into a steady,
reliable body of glowing heat.
Then Jo drew a chair close, pulled up her absurd skirts, put her
man-shod feet into the oven, and gave a sigh of supreme content.
Nick took the hint. Since this was not an accident but, apparently, a
permanent innovation, it behooved him to adapt himself as his mistress
had done. Behind the fiery monster there was a space, hot as Tophet,
but commanding a good view. It might be utilized, so Nick appropriated
it.
"There seems no end to what this stove can do," muttered Jo, twisting
about and disdaining the smell of overheated leather and wool. "No more
undressing in the kitchen and freezing in bed in the north chamber.
I've never been warm in winter since I was born, but that's done with
now! I shouldn't wonder if I might open the room upstairs after a
bit--I shouldn't wonder!"
Then Jo caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror over the stove!
As she looked, her excitement lessened, the depression of the afternoon
overcame her. She acknowledged that she looked old and ugly. A woman
first to be despised, then ridiculed, by men. "Buy a husband!" She, Jo
Morey, who had once had her vision and the dreams of a woman. She, who
had had so much to offer in her shabby youth, so much that was fine and
noble. Intelligence that had striven with, and overcome, obstacles; a
passion for service, passion and love. All, all she had had except the
one, poor, pitiful thing called beauty. That might have interpreted all
else to man for her and won her the sacred desires of her soul.
She had had faith until Langley betrayed it. She had scorned the doubt
that, what she lacked, could deprive her of her rights.
Through a never-to-be-forgotten spring and early summer she had been as
other girls. Love had stirred her senses and set its seal upon the man
who shared her few free hours. He had felt the screened loveliness of
the spirit and character of Jo Morey; had revelled in her appreciation
and understanding. He had loved her; told her so, and planned, with her,
for a future rich in all that made life worth while. That was the spring
when Jo had first noticed how the sand pipers, circling against the blue
sky, made a brown blur that changed its form as the birds rose higher or
when they dipped again, disappearing behind the tamarack pines on the
hilltop.
That was the spring when the swift, incoming tide of the St. Lawrence
made music in the fragrant stillness and she and Langley had sung
together in their queer halting French "A la Claire Fontaine" and had
laughed their honest English laughs at their clumsy tongues struggling
with the rippling words.
And then; the girl had come, and--the end!
Jo believed that something had died in her at that time, but it had only
been stunned. It arose now, and in the still, hot room demanded its
own!
"Fifteen years ago!" murmured Jo and looked about at the evidences of
her toiling years: the quaint room and the furnishings. The floor was
painted yellow and on it were islands of gay, tinted rugs all woven by
her tireless hands. There were round rugs and square rugs, long ones
and short ones. In the middle of the room was a large table covered by
a cloth designed and wrought by the same restless hands. Neatly painted
chairs were ranged around the walls, and beneath the low broad window
stood a hard, unyielding couch upon which lay a thick blanket and
several bright pillows stuffed with sweet-grass.
At the casement were spotless curtains, standing out stiffly like
starched skirts on prim little girls, and behind them rows of tin cans
in which were growing gorgeous begonias and geraniums pressed against
the glistening glass, like curious children peering into the black outer
world. So had Jo's inarticulate life developed and expressed itself in
this home-like room, while her mind had matured and her thoughts
deepened. Then her eyes travelled to the winding stairway in the
farthest corner. Her gaze kept to the strip of yellow paint in the
middle of the white steps. It mounted higher and higher. Above was the
upper chamber, the Waiting Room!
Long years ago, while serving in Madame Longville's home, Jo had
conceived an ambition that had never really left her through all the
time that had intervened. Some day she would have a boarder! Not upon
such terms as the Longvilles accepted, however.
Her boarder was not merely to pay and pay in money, but he would be to
her an education, a widening experience. She, alone, would reap the
reward of the toil she expended upon him. And so with this in mind she
had furnished the upper chamber, bit by bit, and had calculated over and
again the proper sum to charge for the benefits to be derived and given.
"And now," said Jo, panting a little as if her eyes mounting the stairs
had tired her. "Come summer I will get my boarder, but love of heaven!
What price shall I set?"
The wind was rising and the pine trees were making that sound that
always reminded Jo of poor Cecile's wordless moan.
Something seemed to press against the door. Nick started and bristled.
"Who's there?" demanded Mam'selle. There was no reply--only that tense
pressure that made the panels creak.
*CHAPTER III*
*MAM'SELLE DOES NOT BUY A HUSBAND*
The tall clock in the kitchen struck eight in a sharp, affrighted way
much as a chaperone might have done who wished to call her heedless
charge to the demands of propriety.
Eight o'clock in Point of Pines meant, under ordinary conditions, just
two things: house and bed for the respectable, Dan's Place--a reeking,
dirty tavern--for the others.
And while Jo Morey's door creaked under the unseen pressure from
without, Pierre Gavot and Captain Longville smoked and snoozed by the
red-hot stove at Dan's, occasionally speaking on indifferent subjects.
These two men disliked and distrusted each other, but they hung
together, drank together; for what reason who could tell? Gavot had
eaten earlier in the day at the Longville house and during the meal the
name of Jo Morey had figured rather prominently. However, Gavot had paid
little heed, he had little use for women and no interest, whatever, in
an ugly one. A long past French ancestry had given Gavot as it had
Longville a subtle suavity of manner that somewhat cloaked his
brutality, and he was an extremely handsome man of the big, dark type.
Suddenly now, in the smoky drowsiness of the tavern, Mam'selle Morey's
name again was introduced.
"Mam'selle! Mam'selle!" muttered Pierre impatiently; "I tire of the
mention of the black Mam'selle. Such a woman has but two uses: to serve
while she can, to die when she cannot serve."
"But her service while she can serve, that has its value," Longville
retorted, puffing lustily and blowing the smoke upward until it quite
hid his eyes, no longer sleepy, but decidedly keen.
"The Mam'selle has money, much money," he went on, "that and her service
might come in handy for you and Tom."
And now Pierre sat a little straighter in his chair.
"Me and Tom?" he repeated dazedly. "You mean that I get the Mam'selle
to come to my--my cabin and work?"
Somehow this idea made Longville laugh, and the laugh brought a scowl to
Pierre's face.
"Tom will be going off some day," the Captain said irrelevantly, "then
what?"
"Tom will stick," Gavot broke in, "I'll see to that. Break the spirit of
a woman or child and they stick."
But as he spoke Gavot's tone was not one of assurance. His boy Tom was
not yet broken, even after the years of deprivation and cruelty, and
lately he had shown a disposition for work, work that brought little or
no return. This worried Gavot, who would not work upon any terms so
long as he could survive without it.
"You can't depend upon children," Longville flung back, "a woman's safer
and handier, and while the Mam'selle, having money, might not care to
serve you for nothing, she might----" here the Captain left an eloquent
pause while he leered at his brother-in-law seductively. Gradually the
meaning of the words and the leer got into Gavot's consciousness.
"Good God!" he cried in an undertone, "you mean I should--marry the ugly
Mam'selle Morey?" But even as he spoke the man gripped the idea
savagely and, with a quickness that always marked the end of his muddled
conclusions, he began to fix it among the possibilities of his wretched
life.
"She needs a man to handle her money," Longville was running on. He saw
the spark had ignited the rubbish in Gavot's mind. "And she's a
powerful worker and saver. She cooks like an angel; she studies that
art as another might study her Bible. She has a mind above most women,
but properly handled and with reason----"
"What mean you, Longville, properly handled and with reason? Would any
man marry Mam'selle?"
"A wise man might--yes," Longville was leading his brother-in-law by the
most direct route, but he smiled under cover of the smoke. The Morey
money in Gavot's hands meant Longville control in the near future. So
the Captain smiled.
"She'd marry quick enough," he rambled on, refilling his pipe. "A man
of her own is a big asset for such a woman as the Mam'selle. And then
the law stands by the husband; woman's wit does not count."
Gavot was not heeding. His inflamed imagination had outstripped
Longville's words. Once he had mastered the physical aspect of the
matter, the rest became a dazzling lure. Never for an instant did he
doubt that Jo Morey would accept him. The whole thing lay in his power
if----
"She's old and ugly," he grunted half aloud.
"What care you?" reassured Longville, "ugliness does not hamper work,
and her age is an advantage."
"But, what was that Langley story----?" Pierre was groping back
helplessly.
Point of Pines had its moral standards for women, but it rarely
gossiped; it stood by its own, on general principles, so long as its own
demanded little and was content to take what was offered.
"That? Why, who cares for that after all this time?" Longville spoke
benignly. "If Langley left the Mam'selle with that which no woman,
without a ring, has a right to, she was keen enough to rid herself of
the burden and cut her own way back to decent living. She has asked no
favours, but she'd give much for a man to place her among her kind once
more."
A deep silence followed, broken only by the guzzling and snoring of the
other occupants of Dan's Place.
Suddenly Gavot got to his feet and reached for his hat. His inflamed
face gave evidence of his true state.
"Back to Mastin's Point?" Longville asked, stretching himself and
yawning.
"No, by heaven! but to Mam'selle Jo Morey's."
This almost staggered Longville. He was slower, surer than his wife's
brother.
"But your togs," he gasped, "you're not a figure for courting."
"Courting?" Gavot laughed aloud. His drinking added impetus to every
impulse and desire. "Does Mam'selle have to have her pill coated? Will
she not swallow it without a question?"
"But 'tis late, Gavot----"
"And does the chaste Mam'selle keep to the early hours of better women?"
"But to-morrow--the next day," pleaded Longville, seeking to control the
situation he had evolved. He feared he might be defeated by the force he
had set in motion.
"No, by heaven, to-night!" fiercely and hoarsely muttered Gavot,
"to-night or never for the brown and ugly Mam'selle Jo. To-night will
make the morrows safe for me. If I stopped to consider, I could not put
it through."
With that Gavot, big, handsome, and breathing hard, strode from the
tavern and took to the King's Highway.
The wind rushed past him; pushed ahead; pressed at Jo's door with its
warning. But she did not speak, and only when Gavot himself thumped on
the panel was Jo roused from her revery and Nick from his puppy dreams.
"Who's there?" shouted Mam'selle, and clumped across the floor in her
father's old boots. She slipped on one of the rugs and slid to the
entrance before regaining her balance.
"It is I, Mam'selle, I, Pierre Gavot."
Jo opened the door at once.
"Well," she said with a calmness and serenity that chilled the excited
man, "it's a long way from here to Mastin's and the hour's late, tell
your business and get on your way, Pierre Gavot. Come in, sit by the
fire. My, what a wind is stirring. Now, then--out with it!"
This crude opening to what Pierre hoped would be a dramatic scene,
sweeping Jo Morey off her feet, nonplussed the would-be gallant not a
little. He sat heavily down and eyed Nick uneasily. The dog was
sniffing at his heels in a most suspicious fashion. Every hair of his
body was on guard and his eyes were alert and forbidding.
"Well, Pierre Gavot, what is your errand?"
This did not improve matters and a shuffling motion toward Nick with a
heavy boot concluded the investigation on the dog's part. Nick was
convinced of the caller's disposition; he showed his teeth and growled.
"Come, come, now," laughed Mam'selle, whistling Nick to her, "you see,
Pierre Gavot, I have a good care-taker. That being settled, let us
proceed." Then, as Gavot still shuffled uneasily, she went on:
"Maybe it is Tom. I heard the other day that 'twas whispered among your
good friends that unless you did your duty by Tom, there would be a sum
raised to give the poor lad a chance--away from his loving father." Jo
laughed a hard laugh. She pitied Tom Gavot with her woman-heart while
she hated the man who deprived the boy of his rights.
Gavot shut his cruel lips close, but he controlled the desire to voice
his real sentiments concerning the bit of gossip.
"Indeed there is no need for my neighbours showing their hate,
Mam'selle. Tom's best good is what I'm seeking. He's young, young
enough to be cared for and watched. I'm thinking more of Tom than of
myself, and yet I ask nothing for him from you, Mam'selle Jo."
"So, Gavot! Well, then, I am in the dark. Surely you could ask nothing
of me for yourself!"
Again Pierre was chilled and inclined to anger. All his fire and fury
were deserting him; his intention of taking Jo by storm was
disappearing; almost he suspected that she was getting control of the
situation. He slyly looked at her dark, forbidding face and weighed the
possibilities of the future. Jo, he realized, was secure now in her
unusual independent position. Once let him, backed by the good law,
which covers the just and the unjust husband with its mantle of
authority, get possession of her future and her body, he'd manage--ah!
would he not--to utilize the one and degrade the other!
"Mam'selle, I come to you as a lone and helpless man. Mam'selle, I
must--Mam'selle, I want that you should live the rest of the time of our
lives--with me!"
Jo was aroused, frightened. She turned her luminous eyes upon the man.
"You--you are asking me to marry you, Pierre Gavot?"
Gavot, believing that the meaning of his visit had at last brought her
to his feet at the first direct shot, replied with a leer:
"Well, something like that, Mam'selle."
And now Jo's brows drew close; the eyes were darkened, the lips twitched
ominously. As if to emphasize the moment, Nick, abristle and teeth
showing, snarled gloomily as he eyed Gavot's feet.
"Something like that?" repeated Jo with a thrill in her tones. "You
insult me, Gavot! Something like that. What do you mean?"
"God of mercy, Mam'selle," Gavot was genuinely alarmed, "I ask you
to--be--my wife."
Jo leaned back in her chair. "I wish you'd talk less of the Almighty,
Gavot. I reckon the Lord can speak for himself, if men, specially such
men as you, get out of his way. It sickens me to have to find the
meaning of God through--men. And you ask me to be your wife? You. And
I was with Margot when she died!"
Gavot's eyes, for an instant, fell.
"Margot was out of her head," he muttered. "She talked madness."
"It was more truth than fever, Gavot. Her tongue ran loose--with truth.
I know, I know."
"Well, then, Mam'selle, 'tis said a second wife reaps the harvest the
first wife sowed. I have learned, Mam'selle Jo."
"Almost it is a greater insult than what I first thought!" Jo sighed
sadly. "But 'tis the best you have to offer--I should not forget
that--and some women would lay much stress on the chance you are
offering me. One thing Margot said, Gavot, has never passed my lips
until now--though often I've thought of it. When she'd emptied her poor
soul of all that you had poured into it, when she had shriven herself,
and was ready to meet her God, the God you had never let her find before
because you got in between, she looked at Tom. The poor lad sat huddled
up on the foot of the bed watching his mother going forth. 'Jo,' she
whispered, 'when all's said and done, it paid because of Tom! When I
tell God about Tom and what Tom meant, He'll forgive a lot else. He
does with women.'"
Gavot dared not look up, and for a moment a death-like silence fell in
the hot, tidy room. Jo looked about at her place of safety and freedom
and wondered how she could hurry the disturbing element out.
Just then Gavot spoke. He had grasped the only straw in sight on the
turgid stream.
"Mam'selle, you're not too old yet to bear a child, but you'll best
waste no time." And then he smiled a loathsome smile that had its roots
in all that had soiled and killed poor Margot Gavot's life. Jo recoiled
as if something unclean were, indeed, near her.
"Don't," she shuddered warningly, "don't!" Then quite suddenly she
turned upon the man, her eyes blazing, her mouth twisted with revolt and
disdain.
"I wonder--if you could understand, if I showed you a woman's heart?"
she asked with a curious break in her voice. "Long, long years I've
ached to show the poor, dead thing lying here," she put her
work-hardened hands across her breast, "to someone. There have been
times when I have wondered if the telling might not help other women in
Point of Pines; might not make men see plainer the wrong they do women;
but until now there has never been any one to tell."
Expression was crying aloud, and the incongruity of the situation did
not strike Jo Morey in her excitement.
"You've got to hear me out, Pierre Gavot," she went on. "You've come,
God knows why, to offer me all that you have to give in exchange
for--well! I'm going to give you all that I have to give you--all, all!
"There was a time, Gavot, when I longed for the thing that most women
long for, the thing that made Margot take you--you! She knew her
chances, poor soul, but you seemed the only way to her desires, so she
took you!
"'Tis no shame to a woman to want what her nature cries out for, and the
call comes when she's least able to understand and choose. Here in
Point of Pines a girl has small choice. It is all well enough for them
who do not know to talk of love and the rest. The burning desire in man
and woman is there with or without love; it's the mercy of God when love
is added. I knew what I wanted, all that counted to me must come
through man, and love--my own love--sanctified everything for me. I did
not understand, I did not try to, I was lifted up----"
Jo choked and Gavot twisted uneasily in his chair. This was all very
boring, but he must endure it for the time being.
"I--I was willing to play the game and take my chances," Jo had got
control of herself, "and I never feared, until it was forced upon me,
that my ugliness stood in the way. All that I had to offer, and I had
much, Gavot, much, counted as nothing with men because their eyes were
held by this face of mine and could not see what lay behind.
"Perhaps that was God's way of saving me. I thought that for the first
when I saw Margot dying.
"I had my love killed in me, but the desire was there for years and
years; the longing for a home of my own and--children, children! After
love was gone, after I staggered back to feeling, there were times when
I would have bartered myself, as many another woman has, for the rights
that _are_ rights. But, since they must come by man's favour, I was
denied and starved. Then the soul died within me, first with longing,
then with contempt and hatred. By and by I took to praying, if one
could call my state prayer. I prayed to the God of man. I demanded
something--something from life, and this man's God was just. He let me
succeed as men do, and this, this is the result!"
Jo flung her arms wide as if disclosing to Gavot's stupid eyes all that
his greed ached to possess: her fields and barns; her house and her fat
bank account. But the man dared not speak. He seemed to be confronting
an awful Presence. He looked weakly at Jo Morey, estimating his chances
after she had had her foolish way with him. Vaguely he knew that in the
future this outburst of hers would be an added weapon in his hand; not
even yet did he doubt but what he would gain his object.
"It's all wrong," Jo rushed on, seemingly forgetting her companion,
"that women should have to wait for what their souls crave and die for
until some man, looking at their faces, makes it possible. A pretty
face is not all and everything: it should not be the only thing that
counts against the rest. Why, the time came, Gavot, when a man meant
nothing to me compared with--with other things."
The fire and purpose died away. The outbreak, caused by the day's
experience, left Jo weak and trembling. She turned shamed and hating
eyes upon Gavot. She had let loose the thought of her lonely years.
"And now you come, you!" she said, "and offer me, what?"
Pierre breathed hard, his time had come at last.
"Marriage, Mam'selle. I'm willing to risk it."
"Marriage! My God! Marriage, what does that mean to such as you,
Pierre Gavot? And you think I would give up my clean, safe life for
anything you have to offer? Do men think so low of women?"
Gavot snarled at this, his lips drew back in an ugly smile.
"God made the law for man and woman, Mam'selle----"
"Stop!" Jo stood up and flung her head back. "Stop! What do such as
you know of God and his law? It's your own law you've made to cover all
your wickedness and selfishness and then you--you label it with God's
mark. But it's not God's fault. We women must show up the fraud and
learn the true from the false. Oh! I've worked it out in my mind all
these years while I've toiled and thought. But, Gavot, while we've been
talking something has come to me quite clear. Not meaning to, you've
done me a good turn.
"There's one way I can get something of what I want, and it's taken this
scene to show me the path. Come to-morrow. You shall see, all of you,
that I'm not the helpless thing you think me. Thinking isn't all. When
we've thought our way out, we must act. And now get along, Gavot, the
Lord takes queer ways and folks to work out his plans. Good-night to you
and thank you!"
Pierre found himself on his feet and headed toward the door which Jo was
holding open.
Outraged and flouted, knowing no mercy or justice, he had only one thing
to say:
"Curse you!" he muttered; "curse and blast you."
Then he slunk out into the wild, black night.
A woman scorned and a man rejected have much in common, and there was
the explanation to the Longvilles to be faced!
*CHAPTER IV*
*BUT MAM'SELLE MAKES A VOW*
After Mam'selle was certain that Gavot was beyond seeing her next move,
she flung the door wide open, letting the fresh, pure night air sweep
through the hot room.
Nick sprang to his feet but, deciding that the change in temperature had
nothing to do with the late guest, he sidled over to Jo who stood on the
threshold and pushed his questioning nose into her hand.
"Come, old fellow," she said gently, "we do not want sleep; let us go
out and have a look at the sky. It will do us both good."
Quietly they went forth into the night and stood under a clump of pine
trees back of the house and near the foot of the hill.
The clouds were splendid and the wind, like a mighty sculptor, changed
their form and design moment by moment. They were silver-edged clouds,
for a moon was hidden somewhere among them; here and there in the rifts
stars shone and the murmuring of the pines, so like Cecile's cry,
touched Mam'selle strangely. It seemed to her, standing there with Nick
beside her, that something of the old, happy past was being given back
to her. She smiled, wanly, to be sure, and tears, softer than had
blurred her eyes for many a year, wet her lashes. In a numb sort of way
she tried to understand the language of the night and the hour; it was
bringing her peace--after all her storms. It was like having passed
from a foul spot in a dark valley, to find oneself in a clear open space
with a safe path leading----? With this thought Jo drew in her breath
sharply. As surely as she had ever felt it in her life, she now felt
that something new and compelling was about to occur. The meaning and
purpose of her life seemed about to be revealed. Jo was a mystic; a
fatalist, though she was never to realize this. Standing under the
wind-swept sky she opened her arms wide, ready to accept! And then it
came to her in definite form, the thought that had arisen during her
talk with Gavot. She had said that she could have done without man if
only the rest had been vouchsafed.
Well, then, what remained? She had house and lands and money. She
might be denied the travail and mystery of having a child, but there
were children; forgotten, disinherited children. They were possible,
and if she accepted what was hers to take, her life need not be aimless
and cheerless. She might yet know, vicariously, what her poor soul had
craved.
A wave of religious exaltation swept over Jo Morey. Such moments have
been epoch-making since the world began. The shepherds on Judea's
plains, caught in the power of this emotion, lifted their eyes and saw
the guiding star that led them to the Manger and the world's salvation!
Down the ages it has turned the eyes of lesser men and women to their
rightful course, and it now pointed Jo Morey to her new hope!
"I will adopt a child!" she said aloud and reverently as if dedicating
herself. "A man child."
And then, in imagination, she followed the star.
Over at St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks there was a Catholic institution
where baby driftwood was taken in without question. St. Michael's was a
harbour town boasting a summer colony. Women there, as elsewhere, paid
for too much faith or unsanctified greed, and the institution was often
the solution of the pitiful outcome.
Jo had repeatedly contributed to the Home. She had no affiliation with
the church that supported it, but the priest of Point of Pines had
gained her respect and liking, and for his sake she had secretly aided
causes that he approved. Tom Gavot, for instance, and the St. Michael's
institution.
"Come, Nick," she said presently, "we'll sleep on it."
All night Mam'selle tossed about on her bed trying to argue herself into
common sense. When she came down from the heights her decision appeared
wild and unreasonable.
What would people say?
Rarely did Jo consider this, but it caught and held her now. Her hard,
detached life had set her apart from the common conditions of the women
near her. She was in many ways as innocent and guileless as a child
although the deepest meanings of suffering and sorrow had not been
hidden from her. That any one suspected her of being what she was not,
had never occurred to her. She had shrunk from everyone at the time of
Langley's desertion, because she neither wanted, nor looked for,
sympathy and understanding. She was grateful for the indifference that
followed that period of her life, but never for a moment had she known
of that which lay hidden in the silence of her people.
Poor Jo! What Point of Pines was destined to think was impossible for
her to conceive, because her planning was so wide of the reality that
was to ensue. Tossing and restless, Jo tried to laugh her sudden
resolve to scorn, but it would not be scorned either by reason or mirth.
"Very well!" she concluded for the second time, "I'll adopt a child, a
man child! No girl things for me. I could not watch them straining out
for their lives with the chance of losing them. A man can get what he
wants and I'll do my best, under God, to make him merciful."
Toward morning Jo slept.
The next day she cooked and planned as calmly as if she were arranging
for an invited guest. All her excitement and fire were smothered, but
she did not falter in her determination. She explained to Nick as she
tossed scraps to him. Nick was obligingly broad in his appetite and
tastes, bones and bits of dough were equally acceptable, and he patted
the floor thankfully with his sturdy little tail whenever Jo remembered
him.
"We'll take it as a sign, Nick," she said, "that what I'm trying to do
is right if there is at St. Michael's a man-thing, handsome and under a
year old. We must have him handsome, that's half of the battle, and he
must be so young that he can't remember. I want to begin on him.
"Now I'll bet you, Nick, that the Home is bristling with girl children
and we'll have none of them."
Nick thumpingly agreed to all this but kept his eye on a plate of
cookies that Mam'selle was lavishly sugaring. Nick did not spurn scraps
but, like others, he yearned for tidbits.
All day Jo worked, cooking and setting her house in order.
Late in the afternoon she contemplated cutting a door between the two
north chambers, her own and the one her father had used, which had never
been occupied since.
"The child will soon need a place of his own," mused Jo, already looking
ahead as a real mother might have done. Suddenly she started, recalling
for the first time since before Pierre Gavot's diverting call her
ambition concerning a boarder.
"Well, the boarder will have to wait," she thought, "they hate babies,
and boys are terribly noisy and messy. I'll take a boarder when the lad
goes away to school. I'll need company then."
By nightfall the little white house was spotless and in order. The
fragrance of cooking mingled with the odour of wood fire was soothing to
Jo's tired nerves; it meant home and achievement.
"I'll not let on about the child," she concluded just before she went to
sleep. "When the doors of St. Michael's close on a child going in or
out, they close, and that is the end of it. If folks care to pry it
will give them something to do and keep them alive, but it's little
they'll get from the Sisters or me.
"I'm a fool, a big fool, but I can pay for my folly and that's more than
many women can do."
Early on the following morning Jo set forth in her broad-bellied little
cart in which were a hamper of goodies for the waifs of St. Michael's,
and a smaller basket containing Jo's own midday meal. Jo, herself, sat
on the shaft beside the fat Molly and bobbed along in the best of
spirits.
"You're to watch the place, Nick," she commanded, "and if he returns,
you know who, just save a nip of him for me, that's a good beastie."
With this possibility of adventure, Nick had to be content.
Madame Longville saw Jo pass and remarked to the Captain who was eating
the pancakes his wife was making:
"There goes Mam'selle, and so early, too; somehow she doesn't look as if
she had taken up with Pierre."
"How does she look?" asked the Captain with his mouth full.
"Sort of easy and cheerful."
"Fool," muttered Longville and reached for more cakes. "Is she afoot?"
"No. She's in the little cart and it's empty."
"She's going to fetch Gavot, bag and baggage." Longville felt that he
had solved the problem. "It takes a woman like Mam'selle to clinch a
good bargain."
Then Longville laughed and sputtered.
"It was a good turn I did for your rascal brother when I turned him on
to Mam'selle," he continued. "I took the matter in my own hands."
"I'm glad you did," Marcel returned, "but all the same Jo Morey doesn't
look as if she had taken up with Pierre."
The repetition irritated Longville and again he muttered "fool!" then
added "damn fool" and let the matter rest.
But Jo was out of sight by that time and seemed to have the empty world
to herself. And what a world it was. The wind of the past few hours
had swept the sky clear of clouds and for that time of year the day was
warm.
Presently Jo found herself singing: "A la Claire Fontaine" and was
surprised that it caused her no heartache. So grateful was she for
this, that she dismounted and stood under one of the tall crosses by the
wayside and prayed in her silent, wordless fashion, recalling the years
that were gone as another might count the beads of a rosary. Her state
of mind was most perplexing and surprising, but it was wonderful. What
did it matter, the cause that resulted in this sense of freedom, and, at
the same time, of being used and controlled? Jo felt herself a part of
a great and powerful plan. Surely there is no truer freedom than that.
At noon the roofs of St. Michael's were in plain sight over the
pastures; by the road was a delectable pine grove with an opening broad
enough to drive in, so in Jo drove. She unhitched Molly and fed her,
then taking her own food to a log lying in the warm sunlight, she laid
out her feast and seated herself upon the fragrant pine needles. She
was healthfully hungry and thirsty and, for a few minutes, ate and drank
without heeding anything but her needs. Then a stirring in the bushes
attracted her attention. She raised her eyes and noted that the
branches of a crimson sumach near the road were moving restlessly.
Thinking some hungry but shy creature of the woods was hiding, Jo kept
perfectly still, holding a morsel of food out enticingly.
The branches ceased trembling, there was no sound, but suddenly Jo
realized that she was looking straight into eyes that were holding hers
by a strange magnetism.
"What do you want?" she asked. "Who are you?"
There was no reply from the flaming bush, only that stare of fright and
alertness.
"Come here. I will not hurt you. No one shall hurt you."
Either the words, or actual necessity, compelled obedience: the branches
parted and out crawled a human figure covered by a coarse horse blanket
over the dingy uniform of St. Michael's.
For a moment Jo was not sure whether the stranger were a boy or girl,
for a rough boyish cap rested on the head, but when the form rose
stiffly, tremblingly she saw it was that of a girl. She was pale and
thin, with long braids of hair known as tow-colour, a faintly freckled
face, and marvellous eyes. 'Twas the eyes that had caught and held Jo
from the start, yellow eyes they were and black fringed. They were like
pools in a wintry landscape; pools in which the sunlight was reflected.
"I--I am starving to death," said the girl advancing cautiously, slowly.
"Sit down and eat, then," commanded Jo, and her throat contracted as it
always did when she witnessed suffering. "After you've had enough, tell
me about yourself."
For a few minutes it seemed as if there were not enough food to satisfy
the hungry child. She ate, not greedily or disgustingly, but
tragically. At last, after a gulp of milk, she leaned back against a
tree and gave Jo a grateful, pitiful smile.
"And now," said Jo, "where did you come from?"
"Over there," a denuded chicken bone pointed toward the Home.
"You live there?"
"I used to. I ran away last night. I've run away many times. They
always caught me before."
The words were spoken in good, plain English. For this Jo was thankful.
French, or the composite, always hampered her.
"Where were you last night?" she asked.
"Here in the woods."
Remembering the manner of night it was, Jo shivered and her face
hardened.
"Were they cruel to you over there?" she said gruffly.
"Do you mean, did they beat me? No, they didn't beat my body, but they
beat something else, something inside of me, all out of shape. They
tried to make me into something I am not, something I do not want to be.
They, they flattened me out. They were always teaching me, teaching me."
There was a comical fierceness in the words. Jo Morey recognized the
spirit back of it and set her jaw.
"I never saw you at the Home," she said; "I've often been there."
"They only show the good ones--the ones they can be sure of. I took
care of the babies when I wasn't being punished, locked up, you know.
You see, I learned and could teach."
"They locked you up?" Mam'selle and the child were being drawn close by
ties that neither understood.
"Yes, to keep me from running away. You're not going to tell them about
me, are you?"
The wonderful eyes seemed searching Jo's very soul.
"No. But where are you going?"
"I'm, I'm looking for someone." As she spoke the light vanished from
the yellow eyes, a blankness spread over the pale, thin face.
"Looking for whom?"
"I do not know."
"What is your name?" Jo was struck by the change in the girl, she had
become listless, dull.
"I do not know. Over there they call me Marie, but that isn't my name."
"I can't let you go off alone by yourself," Jo was talking more to
herself than to the girl.
"Then, what are you going to do with me? Please try to help me. You
see I was very sick once and I--I cannot remember what happened before
that, but it keeps coming closer and closer and pressing harder and
harder--here." The girl put her hand to her head. "Once in awhile I
catch little bits and then I hold them close and keep them. If I could
be let alone I think soon I would remember."
The pleading eyes filled with tears, the lips trembled.
Now the obvious thing to do, Jo knew very well: she ought to bundle the
girl into the cart and drive as fast as possible to the Home. But
Mam'selle Jo knew that she was not going to do the obvious thing, and
before she had time to plan another course she saw two black-robed
figures coming across the pasture opposite. The girl saw them, too, and
rushed to Jo. She clung to her fiercely and implored:
"God in heaven, save me! If they get me, I will kill myself."
The appeal turned Jo to stone.
"Get in the cart," she commanded, "and cover up in the straw."
The two Sisters from the Home were in the road as Jo bent to gather up
the debris of the meal.
"Ah, 'tis the Mam'selle Morey," said the older Sister. "You were coming
to St. Michael's perhaps, with your goodly gifts?" The words were
spoken in pure French.
"I was coming, Sister--to--to adopt a child!"
The blunt statement, in bungling words, made both Sisters stare.
"'Tis like your good heart to think of this thing, Mam'selle Morey.
Another day we will consider it."
"Why not to-day, Sister? My time is never empty. I want a boy, very
young and--and good to look at."
"Oh, but Mam'selle Morey, one does not adopt a child as one does a stray
cat. Another day, Mam'selle, and we will consider gladly, but
to-day----"
"What of to-day, Sister?"
"Well, one of our little flock has strayed, a child sadly lacking but
dearly loved; we must find her."
"She has been gone long?" Jo was moving to the cart with her basket and
bottles.
"She has just been missed. We will soon find her."
Jo's hand, searching the straw, was patting the cold one that trembled
beneath her touch. "May I give you a lift along the road?" she asked
grimly, the humour of the thing striking her while she reassured the
hidden girl by a whispered word.
"Thanks, no, Mam'selle. We will not keep to the roads. The lost one
loved the woods. She'd seek them."
Jo waited until the Sisters had departed, her hand never having left the
trembling one beneath hers.
"You are going to--to take me with you?" The words came muffled, from
the straw.
"Yes."
"And where?"
"To Point of Pines."
"What a lovely name. And you, what may I call you?"
"Jo, Mam'selle Jo."
"Mam'selle Jo. That is pretty, too, like Point of Pines. How kind you
are and good. I did not know any one could be so good."
"Lie down now, child, and sleep."
Jo was hitching Molly to the cart; her hands fumbled and there was a
deep fire in her dark eyes.
"We're going home," she said presently, but the girl was already asleep.
Through the autumn sunset and under the clear stars the little cart
bobbed along to Point of Pines. The stirring in the straw, the touch,
now and then, of a small, groping hand were all that disturbed Jo's
troubled thoughts. When she reached her darkened house, Nick met her at
the gate. Very solemnly Jo dismounted and took the dog's head in her
hands.
"Nick," she explained, "Nick, it's a girl, and an ugly one at that.
She's old enough to remember, too, but she don't--she don't, Nick. God
help me! I'm a fool, but I could do nothing else."
*CHAPTER V*
*ENTER DONELLE*
Many times during the next few weeks Jo Morey repeated that "I could do
nothing else." It was like a defense of her action to all the opposing
forces.
Poor Jo! She, who had stood before Longville a free woman but a short
time ago; she who had flouted Gavot and sworn to have something of her
own out of life in spite of man, was now held in the clutch of Fate.
The girl she had brought into her home was raving with fever and tossing
restlessly on Jo's own bed in the little north chamber. No one ever
sent for a doctor in Point of Pines until the need of one was
practically past. Every woman was trained to care for the sick, and
Mam'selle Jo was a master of the art, so she watched and cared for the
sufferer, mechanically dazed by conditions and reiterating that she
could have done nothing else.
The sweet autumn weather had changed suddenly, and winter came howling
over the hills sheathed in icy rain that lashed the trees and houses and
flooded the roads. No one came to disturb Jo Morey, and her secret was
safe for the time being. But the long, dark, storm-racked nights; the
dull days filled with anxiety and hard work, wore upon Jo. Constant
journeys to the wood pile were necessary in order to keep the fires to
their full duty; food had to be provided and the animals cared for.
Nick grew sedate and nervous; he followed his mistress closely and often
sat by the bed upon which lay the stranger who had caused all the
disturbance.
And so the storm raged, and in the loneliness poor Jo, like Nick,
developed nerves.
She moved about, looking over her shoulder affrightedly if she heard an
unusual sound. She forced herself to eat and when she could, she slept,
lying beside the sick girl, her hand upon the hot body. At such times
the flesh looses its hold upon the spirit and strange things happen. At
such times, since the world began, miracles have occurred, and Jo became
convinced, presently, that she had been led to do what she had done, by
a Power over which she had no control and which she had no longer any
desire to defy. She submitted; ceased to rebel; did not even reiterate
that she could have done nothing else.
At first she listened to the sick girl's ravings, hoping she might learn
something of the past, but as no names or places entered into the
confused words she lost interest. Nevertheless, the words sank into her
subconsciousness and made an impression. The fevered brain was groping
back past the St. Michael days, groping in strange, distant places, but
never finding anything definite. There seemed to be long, tiresome
journeys, there were pathetic appeals to stop and rest. More than once
the hoarse, weak voice cried: "They'll believe me if I tell. I saw how
it was. Let me tell, they'll believe me."
But when Jo questioned as to this the burning eyes only stared and the
lips closed. At other times the girl grew strangely still and her face
softened.
"The white high-top is all pink," she once whispered looking toward the
north window against which the sheet of icy rain was dashing; "it is
morning!"
Jo grew superstitious; she felt haunted and afraid for the first time in
her life and finally she decided to call in Marcel Longville and let her
share the secret vigil.
The night of the day she decided upon this, something remarkable
happened. Toward evening the rain ceased and the wind took to sobbing
remorsefully in long, wearied gasps. The girl in the north chamber lay
resting with lowered temperature and steadier pulse. "The crisis is
past," murmured Jo, and when all was made comfortable, she went to the
living room, put her feet in the oven, and looked at her weary, haggard
face in the glass. The reflection did not move her, she was too utterly
worn out, but she did think of the morrow and the coming of Marcel.
"Now that there is no need," she muttered, "I must have someone. I'm
all but done for. I cannot think straight, and there has got to be some
straight thinking from now on."
She was still looking at her plain face in the glass when she heard the
clock in the kitchen strike ten and heard the even breathing of the girl
in her north chamber. She was still looking in the glass, still
hearing--what? Why, footsteps coming up the little white-shell path!
Familiar steps they were, but coming from, oh! such a distance, and out
of the many years! They caused no surprise nor alarm, however, and Jo
smiled. She saw, quite distinctly, the face in the glass smiling, and
now it was no longer old and haggard, and it seemed right that those
steps should be near. Jo's smile broadened.
The steps came close; they were at the door. There was a quick, sharp
knock as if the comer were hurrying gladly. Mam'selle sprang up
and--found herself standing in the middle of the room, the fire all but
burned out, the lamp sputtering!
"I've been dreaming!" murmured Jo, pushing her hair back from her face.
"Nick!"
Mam'selle was fully roused by now and her eyes were riveted upon her
dog. He stood near the door all a-bristle, as if awaiting the entrance
of one he knew and loved. Then he whined and capered about for all the
world as if he were fawning at the feet of someone.
"Nick, come here!"
But Nick paid no heed.
"None of that, sir!"
The cold sweat stood on Jo Morey's face. "None of that!" Then, with a
gasp, "You, too, heard the steps, the steps that have no right here.
Nick!"
And now the dog turned and came abjectly toward his mistress. He looked
foolish and apologetic.
"We're both going mad!" muttered Jo, but bent to soothe poor Nick before
she turned to the north chamber.
Under the spell of her dream she trembled, and was filled with
apprehension. How quiet the sick room was! The candle sputtering in
its holder made flashes of light and cast queer shadows. The girl was
not sleeping, her eyes were wide open, her hands groping feebly.
"Father," she moaned as Jo bent over her, "father, where are you? I'll
remember, father. The name--Mam'selle Jo Morey, and she will
understand!"
Then--all was still, deadly, terribly still. During the past weeks of
strain and watching a door had been gradually opening into a darkened
room, but now a sudden light was flashed and Jo saw and understood!
Undoubting, stunned, but keenly alive, she believed she was looking upon
Henry Langley's child and felt that she had always known! It was most
natural, Langley had been coming home to her: because he could trust
her; knew that she would understand. Understand--what? But did that
matter? Something had happened, Jo meant to find all that out later.
Now she must act, and act quickly. The crisis had not passed; it was
here. Jo set to work and for hours she fought death off by primitive
but effective means. She knew the danger; counted the chances and
strained every nerve to her task. When morning came she saw she had
saved the girl and she dropped by the bedside, faint and listless, but
lifting up her soul, where another woman would have prayed, to the Power
that she acknowledged and trusted.
Mam'selle did not send for Marcel Longville, she was given strength to
go on alone for a little longer. The sick girl rallied with wonderful
response to Jo's care which now had a new meaning. She was docile,
sweet, and pathetically grateful, but she did not want Jo long out of
her sight.
"It is queer, Mam'selle," she sometimes said, "but when you go out of
the door it seems as if something, a feeling, got me. And when you come
in again, it goes."
"What kind of a feeling, child?"
"I do not know, but I am afraid of it and _It_ is afraid of you. You're
like a light, making the darkness go. When I was sickest, sometimes I
felt I was lost in the blackness. Then I touched your hand, and I found
my way back."
After awhile the "Mam'selle" was shortened to "Mam'sle," then, and quite
unconsciously, to Mamsey. To that the girl clung always. And Jo, for
no reason but a quaint whim, disdained the Marie by which the girl had
been known and called her Donelle after poor Mrs. Morey who had died at
Cecile's birth.
The winter after the ice storm settled down seriously. It had no more
tantrums, but grew still and white and lonely. The snow was deep and
glistening, the sky blue and cloudless and the pines cracked in the cold
like the rifles of hunters in the woods. Donelle crept, a little, pale
ghost, from the north chamber to the sunny living room. By putting her
hand on Nick's head she walked more steadily and laughed at the progress
she made. Jo tucked her up on the hard couch under the glowing begonias
and geraniums.
"Good Mamsey! It's like coming back from a far, far place," whispered
the girl. As strength returned Donelle grew often strangely thoughtful.
"I thought," she confided one night to Jo, "that when I was left alone I
could remember, but I cannot."
Then Jo took things in her own hands. She was always one to muster all
the help in sight, and not be too particular. She was developing a deep
passion for the girl she had rescued; she meant to see the thing through
and _well_ through. As soon as she could she meant to go to St.
Michael's and learn all that the Sisters knew of the girl's past. She
felt she had a power over them that might wring the truth from their
frozen silence. Then she meant to use her last dollar in procuring the
proper medical skill for the girl. There was a big doctor every summer
at St. Michael's Hotel; until summer Jo must do her best.
As her nerves grew calm and steady the experiences of the night of
Donelle's crisis lost their hold.
"She heard my name at the Home," Jo argued, "and I myself spoke it when
she was the most frightened and on the verge of fever. In the muddle
and confusion of delirium it came to the surface with the rest of the
floating bits. That's all."
Still there was a lurking familiarity about the girl that haunted Jo's
most prosaic hours. It lay about the girl's mouth, the way she had of
looking at Jo as if puzzled, and then a slow smile breaking. Langley had
that same trick, back in the spring and summer of the past. He would
take a long look, then smile contentedly as if an answer to a longing
had come. But something else caught and held Jo Morey's attention as
she watched the girl. That charm of manner, that poise and ease; how
like they were to--but Jo dared not mention the name, for the hurt had
broken out afresh after all the years!
"But such things do not happen in real life," she argued in her sane,
honest mind. "She wouldn't have been hiding in those bushes just when I
stopped to eat! I'm getting wild to fancy such things, wild!"
So Jo turned from the impossible and attacked the possible, but as often
happens in life, she confused the two.
"See here, child," she said one day when Donelle was brooding and sad,
"You've been very sick and you're weak yet, but while you were at the
worst you remembered, and it will all come back again soon."
The girl brightened at once.
"What did I remember, Mamsey?" she asked.
Jo, weaving a new design, puckered her brow. "Oh, you told of travels
with your father," then with inspiration, "they must have been in
far-off places, for you spoke about high-tops white with snow and the
sun making them pink. They must have been handsome."
Donelle's eyes widened and grew strained.
"Yes," she said dreamily; "they must have been handsome. But my father,
Mamsey, what about my father?"
"Well, child, he died." Jo made the plunge and looked for the results.
"Yes, I think I knew he was dead. Did you know my father, Mamsey?"
Again Jo plunged.
"Yes, child, long ago. He must have been bringing you to me when
something happened. Then you were ill and the Sisters took you----"
"But why did they not bring me to you?" Donelle was clinging to every
word.
"I think they did not know. You forgot what had happened. Your father
was dead----"
"Yes, I see. But always I was trying to get away. Many times I did get
out of the gates, but always they found me until the time when I found
you. Things happen very queer sometimes."
Then, quickly changing the subject;
"Mamsey, did you know my mother, too?"
"Yes, child." And now poor, honest, simple Jo Morey bent her head over
the loom.
"Was she a good--mother?"
For the life of her Jo could not answer. The wide sunny eyes of the
girl were upon her, the awful keenness of an awakening mind was
searching her face and what lay behind her troubled eyes.
The moment of silence made the next harder; conclusions had been reached
by the girl. She came toward Jo, stood before her, and laid her hands
upon her shoulders,
"Mamsey," she faltered; "we will not talk about my mother if it hurts
you." The quick gratitude and sympathy almost frightened Jo.
And they did not for many a year after that speak of Donelle's mother.
"But, child," Jo pleaded, "just do not push yourself, it will all come
back to you some day. You must trust me as your father did. And
another thing, Donelle, you are to live with me now, and--and it was
your father's wish, it is best that you take my name. And you must not
let on about--about--the Home at St. Michael's."
Donelle shivered.
"I will not!" she said. "Do they know where I am?"
"No. But when you are able to be left, I am going to tell them!" This
came firmly. "They will be glad enough to forget you and leave the rest
to me. They have great powers of forgetting and remembering, when it
pays. But they are through with you, child, forever."
"Oh! Mamsey, thank God!"
Donelle folded her thin arms across her breast and swayed to and fro.
This gesture of hers was characteristic. When she was glad she moved
back and forth; when she was troubled she moved from side to side,
holding her slim body close.
"I will mind nothing Mamsey, now. I will begin with you!"
"And I," murmured Jo gruffly, "I will begin with you, Donelle. You and
I, you and I."
But of course the outside world soon had to be considered. People came
to Jo Morey's door on one errand or another, but they got no further.
"I cannot make Mam'selle out," Marcel Longville confided to the Captain,
"she has always been quick to answer a call when sickness was the
reason. Now here is poor Tom laid up with a throat so bad that I know
not what to do and when I went she opened her door but halfway and said,
'send for a doctor!'" Longville grunted. He had his suspicions about
Mam'selle and Gavot, but he could get nothing definite from Pierre and
surely there was nothing hopeful about Jo Morey's attitude.
"I'll call myself," he decided. But to his twice-repeated knocks he got
no response; then he kicked on the door. At this Jo opened a window,
risking the life and health of her begonias and geraniums by so doing.
"Well?" was all she said, but her plain, haggard face startled the
Captain. He had formulated no special errand; he had trusted to
developments, and this unlooked-for welcome to his advances threw him
back upon a flimsy report of Tom Gavot's sore throat.
"I'm sorry, Captain," Jo said, "but I'm not able to do anything to help.
There's no reason why you shouldn't get a doctor. If it's a case of
money, I'll pay the bill for the sake of the poor boy and his dead
mother."
"Mam'selle, you're not yourself," Longville retorted.
"I'm just myself," Jo flung back. "I've just found myself. But I'm
going off for a few days, Captain, so good-bye."
Longville retreated from the house in a sadly befuddled state. Surely
something serious was the matter with Jo Morey. She looked ill and
acted queer, almost suspiciously queer. And she was going away! No one
went away from Point of Pines unless dire necessity drove them. Why
should people ever go away from anywhere unless forced?
Then Longville's thoughts drifted back to the time when Mam'selle had
gone away before and came back so bedraggled and spent.
It was all very odd and unsettling.
"Surely Mam'selle needs watching," mumbled Longville and he decided to
watch.
Night favoured his schemes. He forsook the tavern and made stealthy
trips to the little white house, only to be greeted by blank darkness,
except for a dim gleam at the edges of the curtain at the window of the
small north chamber.
"Mam'selle has not yet gone," concluded Longville, but that was little
comfort. Then one night he got bolder and crept close to the rear and
listened under the chamber window.
Jo was talking to---- At that instant the kitchen door was flung open
and out dashed Nick.
"At him!" commanded Mam'selle, standing in the panel of light, laughing
diabolically, "It's a skunk, no doubt; drive him off, Nick; don't touch
him!"
Longville escaped, how, he could not tell, for Nick sniffed at his
retreating heels well down the highway.
Three or four nights after, Longville, discreetly keeping to the road,
where he had a perfect right to be, paused before the white house again.
It was a dark night, with occasional flashes of moonlight as the wind
scattered the clouds.
Presently the house door opened and Mam'selle came out with Nick close
beside her. They stood quite still on the little lawn, their faces
turned upward. And just then Longville could have sworn he heard a sob,
a deep, smothered sob, and Nick certainly whined piteously. Then the
two went back into the house and Longville, with a nervous start, turned
and faced--Gavot!
"What do you make of it?" whispered Pierre.
"Make of what?" demanded Longville.
"Oh, I've done some watching myself," Gavot replied, "I've watched you
_and_ her! A man doesn't keep to the night when the tavern has a warm
place for him. I've kept you company, Longville, when you didn't know
it."
"Well, then, what's the meaning that you make out, Pierre?"
"The Mam'selle Morey is up to--to tricks," Gavot nodded knowingly, "and
she's not going to escape me."
"'Tis not the first caper she has cut," Longville snorted, "and she will
well need an eye kept on her."
Then the two went amicably arm in arm to Dan's Place.
"Four eyes, brother Longville," said Gavot who always grew nauseously
familiar when he dared. "Four eyes on Mam'selle and four _such_ eyes!"
*CHAPTER VI*
*MAM'SELLE HEARS PART OF THE TRUTH*
Jo Morey came out of her house quite boldly and locked the door!
She had left Nick inside, a most unusual proceeding. Then she harnessed
Molly to the caliche, also an unusual proceeding, for the picturesque
carriage was reserved for the use of summer visitors and brought a good
price when driven by one of the young French-Canadians from the
settlement a few miles away. Openly, indeed encouraging nods and
conversation, Jo started toward St. Michael's in her Sunday best and
nicely poised on the high seat.
"Good morning, Captain," she greeted as she passed Longville on the
road; "I'm off at last, you see! So you can take a rest from watching."
"When do you return, Mam'selle?" asked the Captain, quite taken aback by
the sight.
"That depends," and Jo smiled, another rare proceeding, surely; "the
roads are none too good and time is my own these days."
Then she bobbed along, the high feather on her absurd hat waving
defiance.
But Jo was quite another person to young Tom Gavot whom she met a mile
farther on. The boy was a handsome, shabby fellow and at present his
throat was bound close in a band of red flannel. His clothing was thin
and ragged and his bare hands rested upon the handle of a shovel which
he held. He leaned slightly on it, as he paused to greet Mam'selle
Morey.
"Tom, you've been sick," said Jo, stopping short and leaning toward him.
"I hated not to come to you--but I couldn't."
"'Tis all right, now, Mam'selle. I went to the cure when my throat was
the worst and the good Father took me in and sent for the doctor."
"I'll remember that, Tom, when the cure asks for help this winter. And,
Tom, how goes life?"
The boy's clear, dark eyes looked troubled. "I want to get away,
Mam'selle Jo. I can never make anything of myself here. Sometimes,"
the boy smiled grimly, "sometimes I find myself--longing to forget
everything in----"
"No, Tom, not the tavern! Remember what I've always told you, boy, of
the night your mother went. She said you paid for all she had suffered!
Tom, when you get down and things look black, just remember and keep on
being worth what she went through. It was worse than anything you'll
ever be called upon to bear."
The boy's eyes dimmed.
"I'm holding close," he said grimly. "Holding close to--I don't know
what."
"That's it, Tom, we don't know what; but it's something, isn't it?"
"Yes, Mam'selle."
"Now listen, Tom. How old are you? Let me see----"
"Sixteen, Mam'selle."
"To be sure. And you study hard at the school, the cure has told me.
And you mend the roads in the summer with the men?"
"Yes, Mam'selle," Tom grinned, "and get a bit of money and hide it well.
There's nearly twenty dollars now."
"Good! Well, Tom, this winter, study as you never have before and next
summer, if the men come, work and save. You shall go away some day,
that I swear. I'll promise that, but it must be a secret. You shall
have your chance."
"Mam'selle!" Tom instinctively took off his hat and stood beside Jo
like a ragged and forlorn knight.
"You've got to pay for all your mother suffered!" Jo's lips quivered.
"It's the least you can do."
Then with a nod and a cheery farewell, Jo bobbed along while Tom Gavot
returned to his self-imposed task of filling in the ruts on the road.
Occasionally a traveller tossed him a coin, and the work kept him
occupied, but best of all it assumed the dignity of a job and made him
capable of helping intelligently when the real workers came in the late
spring.
Just after midday Jo Morey drew up before the Home of St.
Michael's-on-the-Rocks. She was very quiet, very dignified and firm,
but her heart was pounding distractedly against her stiffly boned waist.
She was to learn, at last, all there was to learn about the girl who, at
that moment, was locked in the white house behind drawn shades, with
instructions to remain hidden until Jo's return.
There was little doubt now in Mam'selle's mind but that the fantastic
conclusions she had drawn during the strenuous hours of illness were
mere figments and not to be relied upon. They could all be easily
explained, no doubt.
Poor Jo!
But, no matter what she was to hear, and undoubtedly it would be most
prosaic, she meant to keep the girl even if she had to threaten in order
to do so! She, plain, unlovable Jo Morey, had developed a sudden and
violent fancy for the girl she had rescued. Jo was almost ashamed of
her emotions, but she could not, inwardly, control them. Outwardly, she
might scowl and glower, but her heart beat quick at the touch of the
girl's hands, her colour rose at the tones of the low voice; some women
are thus moved by little children. Jo, repressed and suppressed, was
like a delicate instrument upon which her own starved maternal instinct
now played riotously.
She was led to the bare little reception room of the Home and left to
her own devices while a small maid scurried away to summon the Sister in
charge.
Alone, Jo sat on the edge of a hard chair and tried to believe that she
was prepared for anything--or nothing, but all the time she was getting
more and more agitated. When things were at the tensest she always
looked the sternest, so when Sister Angela entered the room, she was
rather taken aback by the face Mam'selle turned toward her soft
greeting. Sister Angela was the older of the two nuns who had questioned
Jo while the lost girl lay hidden under the straw in the cart that first
day.
"Ah, it's Mam'selle Morey! A good day to you, Mam'selle."
"Have you found that girl yet?" bluntly spoke Jo.
The manner and question took the Sister off her guard.
"Oh! the girl! I remember, Mam'selle. We met you while we were looking
for her. The child is quite safe, thank you. We have long wanted to
find a good home for her."
"So you found her?"
Mam'selle was struggling with the fragments of French at her command and
making poor work with them. The Sister pretended not to understand.
"The girl," Jo was losing what little control she had, "is over at my
house; she's been terribly ill."
Sister Angela's face grew ashy and she drew her chair close. "And now?"
she whispered.
"She's going to get well." Jo settled back.
"And--and she has talked? She had an illness here once, the physician
told us another shock might restore her memory. That sometimes does
happen. Mam'selle, the girl has remembered and--talked?"
"She's talked, yes!" Jo was groping along. "I want her story, Sister."
"What is there to tell, Mam'selle?" Sister Angela took a chance. "We
always give the sinning mothers an hour in which to consider whether
they will keep their children or not. We try to make them see their
duty, if they will not, we assume it. And the past is dead. You know
our way here, we do the best we can for the children. 'Tis wiser to
forget--much."
"Sister Angela, I said the girl talked and she remembered!"
Under Jo's lowering brows the dark eyes gleamed.
"Then, Mam'selle, if the girl remembered and talked surely you can see
why it was best to hush her story?"
The colour again receded from Sister Angela's face. She did not look
guilty, but she looked anxious.
She had circulated a report that the missing girl was on probation in a
good home; she had carried on a still hunt untiringly; and now if
Mam'selle Jo Morey could be prevailed upon to adopt the girl, how
perfectly everything would work out. And there was to be a meeting of
the managers in a week!
"Sister, I mean to take this girl if it can be done legally and quietly,
but I will not unless I hear all I can from you, all there is to know."
"Very well, Mam'selle, we only have the girl's good at heart, I assure
you. Our Sister Mary was the one who brought the girl to us four years
ago. I will send her to you. As to the legal steps, they are practical
and easy, and when one of our fold goes to another, that is the end! We
have educated this girl carefully; she is well trained. We had always
her interest at heart. And now I will send Sister Mary."
Left alone again, Jo clasped her hands close and stiffened as for an
ordeal.
The door opened and closed. A very pale little Sister took a chair near
Mam'selle and, holding to her crucifix as to an anchor, she said gently:
"I am to tell you of the little girl, Marie. 'Tis not much of a story.
We know very little, but the little were best forgot; it is not a pretty
story.
"Four years ago word came from a tavern back in the hills that a man and
child were very ill there and I went over to nurse them. The girl had
fallen and hurt her head. She was quite out of her mind and I decided
to bring her here; the doctor said she could be moved. The man, he was
the father of the child, was dying. I sent for a priest and waited
until the priest came.
"The man was a bit delirious and talked wildly, but at every question he
hushed suddenly as if he were mortally afraid of something.
"He said he wanted no priest, insisted that he was able to start on. He
was taking the child to someone who, he kept repeating, would believe
him and understand.
"When I asked him what there was to believe and to whom he was taking
the child, he looked at me strangely and laughed! He died before the
priest came. I brought the girl away and somehow the report got around
that she, too, had died, and we thought it best to let the matter rest
there.
"A year later two men came to hear what we had to tell about the man who
had died; he was wanted for--murder!"
To Morey sprang to her feet.
"Not--that!" she panted. Then quickly regaining her self-control, "I
see now why you felt you must keep the story secret," she continued, and
sank back limply in her chair.
"Exactly," nodded Sister Mary, then glanced about the room and lowered
her voice.
"I told the men about the father's death--and--I said the girl had died
later. Mam'selle, I took that course because one of the men, he said he
had known the dead man, wanted the girl, and I could not trust the man;
his eyes were bad. I feared for the child. 'Twas better that she stayed
where she was, shielded, cared for. I had grown to be fond of her. I
taught her carefully, she was a great help with the younger children. I
hoped she would come into the Sisterhood, but perhaps it is best she
should have a safe home."
"Is that all? Did those men tell you nothing of the past?" Jo's words
came like hard, quick strokes.
The waxen face of Sister Mary did not change expression. She had left
life's sordid problems so far behind that they were mere words to her.
"Oh! they had their story," she said. "The dead man had shot his wife
because he discovered that she had a lover. He shot her in the presence
of the little girl and the lover. Mam'selle, I believe the man with the
officer was the lover. He wanted the child for reasons of his own; that
was why I said--she was dead.
"That's all, Mam'selle."
Jo Morey felt a strange sympathy with the pale little Sister and a deep
gratitude.
"You're a good woman!" she said to Sister Mary.
"I did my best for the girl," the Sister went on, still holding to her
crucifix, "she never recovered her memory for that, God be praised! But
she had a bright mind and I trained that carefully. She knows much from
books; all that I could get for her. She never took kindly to--religion,
and that is why Sister Angela was thinking of finding a home for her;
the girl was not happy here, but we did our best."
"I am sure you did, Sister!" Jo looked grateful. "I understand. But
those men, did they not mention the name of the man they sought?"
Sister Mary drew her brows together. "The name? Yes, but it has
escaped me. It was an English name if I recall rightly, something
like--Long--no--yes--it was Longley or Longdon, something sounding like
that."
Never in her life had Jo fainted, but she feared she was going to do so
now. The bare little room was effaced as though a huge, icy blackness
engulfed it. In the darkness a clock on a shelf ticked madly, dashingly,
like blow upon blow on iron.
"Here is a glass of water, Mam'selle, you are ill."
Sister Mary pressed the glass to Jo's lips and she drank it to the last
drop.
"I have nursed this girl through a long sickness," she explained. "I am
tired. But I will keep her. Tell Sister Angela to make arrangements and
let me know."
"Very well, Mam'selle. And the girl, Marie; she remembers, Sister
Angela says. 'Tis a miracle. I shall miss her, but God has been kind to
her."
"She will remember only what I tell her, from now on!" Jo set her teeth
over her tingling tongue. "And now, I must go."
Mam'selle almost expected to find it dark when she went out from the dim
room, but it was broad daylight, and when she looked at the clock in the
church tower she saw that she had been but an hour inside.
In all the years of her life she had never experienced half so much as
she had during the space of time with the two Sisters. She was
conscious of trying to keep what she had heard in the Home, out of her
mind; she was afraid to face it in the open. There were children playing
about; a Sister or two looked at her curiously; she must be alone before
she dared take her terrible knowledge into consideration. Gravely she
went to the caleche, stiffly she took the reins and clicked to Molly. A
mile from St. Michael's, much to Molly's disgust, they turned from the
main road and struck into a wood trail where the snowy slush made travel
difficult. Jo did not go far, she merely wanted to hide from any chance
passerby. Then she let the reins drop in her lap and staring straight
ahead--thought!
It was growing cold, that dead cold that comes when the mercury is
dropping. But Jo was back in the summer time of her life, she was
studying Langley, and the woman who had lured him, with the mature power
that suffering years had later evolved in Jo herself. By some psychic
force she seemed able to follow them far, far. So far she went in
imagination that she saw the "white high-tops" changing from shade to
shade. Jo, who had never been fifty miles from her birthplace, went far
in that hour!
She understood Langley as she never had before. She suffered with him,
no longer because of him. The dreadful scene in the lonely wood-cabin;
the stranger man who had told his story! And against that story who
could prevail? But would Langley have been coming to her with his child
had he been guilty of the crime with which he was charged? And
Donelle's words: "They will believe me. Let me tell, I saw how it was."
Mam'selle, stiff with cold, smiled with rare radiance as one might who,
considering her dishonoured dead, knows in her heart that he is
innocent.
"If the child ever remembers, then I can speak," thought poor Jo. "I
believe the man who came to the Home is the guilty one. He wanted the
girl, wanted to hush her story. He must think her dead, dead, unless
she can prove--the truth."
The black tragedy into which poor Mam'selle had been plunged quickened
every sense. Her one determination was to hide Langley's child, not
only for her own safety, but in order that the horrible story of the
crime might be stilled. Langley was dead, he must rest in peace. But
that man might be alive; the merest suspicion of Donelle's existence
would bring about the greatest disaster. He might claim the girl, by
pretending relationship, and then go to any lengths to insure her
silence. No; come what might, all must be hidden.
It was dark when Mam'selle Jo reached Point of Pines. She took Molly to
the stable and fed her, then silently made her way to the little house.
Not a gleam of light shone from the windows; all was quiet and safe.
But was it? As Jo reached the lowest step of the porch she saw a black
figure crouching under the living-room window. So absorbed was the
watcher that he had not heard Jo's approach; neither did he notice when,
on tiptoes, she mounted and stood behind him, the better to see what
might be the object of his spying.
The shade of the broad window was lowered, but the bottom rested on the
pots of flowers, and there was a space through which one might look into
the room. The fire was burning brightly and its radiance clearly showed
Donelle on the couch by the window, fast asleep, Nick crouching beside
her, his eyes glaring at the intruder outside and his teeth showing!
"Well, Captain!"
Longville jumped up as if he had been shot. For an instant Jo had the
master position, but only for an instant; then Longville spoke.
"So that's what you have been hiding!" he said.
"And this is the way you take to find out?" Jo looked dangerous. She
was thinking quickly. She had meant to guard the future by safe
courses, but she had little choice now. Only one thing was clear, she
must save the secret she had just learned. In reaching this conclusion
Jo did not consider how badly she was plunging into dangerous depths.
For herself she gave no thought, her innocence and ignorance made her
blind; she stood before her persecutor and answered blankly like one who
must reply, and does not count the cost.
"Whose girl is that?"
"Mine."
"Yours and Langley's, by God! And you have the shamelessness to stand
there and tell me so to my face. So that's what you went away for, the
summer Langley turned you adrift. All these years you've kept your
disgrace hidden--where?"
Horrified, Jo staggered back and confronted Longville with desperate
eyes. She had meant to tell him that she had adopted the girl; had even
felt she might go so far as to mention the Home, but now! What was she
to do? This mean and suspicious mind had fastened on an explanation of
the child's presence in her house that had not even occurred to her. No
matter what she said she doubted if Longville would believe her. She
stood in the dark, face to face with the Captain, while her mind battled
with the question. "Shall I say the child is my own?" thought Jo.
"That will stop all further questions, no one need ever know about the
murder, and Donelle can be kept safe from the hateful suspicion that
I----" she could not even say the horrible thing to herself.
"Answer me!" Longville, feeling that his victim feared, flung all
disguise aside.
Still she stared and debated with herself. She knew that if she said
that she had adopted Donelle, Longville would not believe her mere
statement; she would have to bare this whole awful story to this
scandal-monger; the man would expect proofs, he would ferret out the
last detail. Everyone in the village would know it next day, the child
would be questioned, her house would be the centre of the curious.
The other horn of the dilemma would be safer for the child; they would
be let alone, she could live the evil name down. Sometime the truth
would come out.
Jo had decided. She faced Longville, her head up, her jaws clamped,
silent.
"Answer me--you--harlot!"
The word stung Jo Morey and she sprang forward. Longville thought she
was going to strike him and like the coward he was, he dodged.