Not a cloud in the sky, and, ruling all, a sweet sun, liberal in
warmth and eager in brightness as its distance from the northern world
decreased. As Mrs. Flynn entered the door of the post-office she sang
out to Maximilian Cour, with a buoyant lilt: “Oh, isn’t it the fun o’
the world to be alive!”
The tailor over the way heard it, and lifted his head with a smile;
Rosalie Evanturel, behind the postal wicket, heard it, and her face swam
with colour. Rosalie busied herself with the letters and papers for a
moment before she answered Mrs. Flynn’s greeting, for there were ringing
in her ears the words she herself had said a few days before: “It is
good to live, isn’t it?”
To-day it was so good to live that life seemed an endless being and
a tireless happy doing--a gift of labour, an inspiring daytime, and
a rejoicing sleep. Exaltation, a painful joy, and a wide embarrassing
wonderment possessed her. She met Mrs. Flynn’s face at the wicket with
shining eyes and a timid smile.
“Ah, there y’are, darlin’!” said Mrs. Flynn. “And how’s the dear father
to-day?”
“He seems about the same, thank you.”
“Ah, that’s foine. Shure, if we could always be ‘about the same,’ we’d
do. True for you, darlin’, ‘tis as you say. If ould Mary Flynn could be
always ‘‘bout the same,’ the clods o’ the valley would never cover her
bones. But there ‘tis--we’re here to-day, and away tomorrow. Shure,
though, I am not complainin’. Not I--not Mary Flynn. Teddy Flynn used
to say to me, says he: ‘Niver born to know distress! Happy as worms in
a garden av cucumbers. Seventeen years in this country, Mary,’ says he,
‘an’ nivir in the pinitintiary yet.’ There y’are. Ah, the birds do be
singin’ to-day! ‘Tis good! ‘Tis good, darlin’! You’ll not mind Mary
Flynn callin’ you darlin’, though y’are postmistress, an’ ‘ll be more
than that--more than that wan day--or Mary Flynn’s a fool. Aye, more
than that y’ll be, darlin’, and y’re eyes like purty brown topazzes
and y’re cheeks like roses-shure, is there anny lether for Mary Flynn,
darlin’?” she hastily added as she saw the Seigneur standing in the
doorway. He had evidently been listening.
“Ye didn’t hear what y’re ould fool of a cook was sayin’,” she added
to the Seigneur, as Rosalie shook her head and answered: “No letters,
Madame--dear.” Rosalie timidly added the dear, for there was something
so great-hearted in Mrs. Flynn that she longed to clasp her round the
neck, longed as she had never done in her life to lay her head upon
some motherly breast and pour out her heart. But it was not to be now.
Secrecy was her duty still.
“Can’t ye speak to y’re ould fool of a cook, sir?” Mrs. Flynn said
again, as the Seigneur made way for her to leave the shop.
“How did you guess?” he said to her in a low voice, his sharp eyes
peering into hers.
“By the looks in y’re face these past weeks, and the look in hers,” she
whispered, and went on her way rejoicing.
“I’ll wind thim both round me finger like a wisp o’ straw,” she said,
going up the road with a light step, despite her weight, till she was
stopped by the malicious grocer-man of the village, whose tongue had
been wagging for hours upon an unwholesome theme.
Meanwhile, in the post-office, the Seigneur and Rosalie were face to
face.
“It is Michaelmas day,” he said. “May I speak with you, Mademoiselle?”
She looked at the clock. It was on the stroke of noon. The shop always
closed from twelve till half-past twelve.
“Will you step into the parlour, Monsieur?” she said, and coming round
the counter, locked the shop-door. She was trembling and confused,
and entered the little parlour shyly. Yet her eyes met the Seigneur’s
bravely. “Your father, how is he?” he said, offering her a chair. The
sunlight streaming in the window made a sort of pathway of light between
them, while they were in the shade.
“He seems no worse, and to-day he is wheeling himself about.”
“He is stronger, then--that’s good. Is there any fear that he must go to
the hospital again?”
She inclined her head. “The doctor says he may have to go any moment. It
may be his one chance. The Cure is very kind, and says that, with your
permission, his sister will keep the office here, if--if needed.”
The Seigneur nodded briskly. “Of course, of course. But have you not
thought that we might secure another postmistress?”
Her face clouded a little; her heart beat hard. She knew what was
coming. She dreaded it, but it was better to have it over now.
“We could not live without it,” she said helplessly.
“What we have saved is not enough. The little my mother had must pay for
the visits to the hospital. I have kept it for that. You see, I need the
place here.”
“But you have thought, just the same. Do you not know the day?” he asked
meaningly.
She was silent.
“I have come to ask you to marry me--this is Michaelmas day, Rosalie.”
She did not speak. He had hopes from her silence. “If anything happened
to your father, you could not live here alone--but a young girl! Your
father may be in the hospital for a long time. You cannot afford that.
If I were to offer you money, you would refuse. If you marry me, all
that I have is yours to dispose of at your will: to make others happy,
to take you now and then from this narrow place, to see what’s going on
in the world.”
“I am happy here,” she said falteringly.
“Chaudiere is the finest place in the world,” he replied proudly, and as
a matter of fact. “But, for the sake of knowledge, you should see what
the rest of the world is. It helps you to understand Chaudiere better. I
ask you to be my wife, Rosalie.”
She shook her head sorrowfully.
“You said before, it was not because I am old, not because I am rich,
not because I am Seigneur, not because I am I, that you refused me.”
She smiled at him now. “That is true,” she said.
“Then what reason can you have? None, none. ‘Pon honour, I believe you
are afraid of marriage because it’s marriage. By my life, there’s naught
to dread. A little giving here and taking there, and it’s easy. And when
a woman is all that’s good, to a man, it can be done without fear or
trembling. Even the Cure would tell you that.”
“Ah, I know, I know,” she said, in a voice half painful, half joyous.
“I know that it is so. But, oh, dear Monsieur, I cannot marry
you--never--never.”
He hung on bravely. “I want to make life easy and happy for you. I want
the right to do so. When trouble comes upon you--”
“When it does I will turn to you--ah, yes, I would turn to you without
fear, dear Monsieur,” she said, and her heart ached within her, for a
premonition of sorrow came upon her and filled her eyes, and made her
heart like lead within her breast. “I know how true a gentleman you
are,” she added. “I could give you everything but that which is life to
me, which is being, and soul, and the beginning and the end.”
The weight of the revealing hour of her life, its wonder, its agony,
its irrevocability, was upon her. It was giving new meanings to
existence-primitive woman, child of nature as she was. All morning she
had longed to go out into the woods and bury herself among the ferns and
bracken, and laugh and weep for very excess of feeling, downright joy
and vague woe possessing her at once. She looked the Seigneur in the
eyes with consuming earnestness.
“Oh, it is not because I am young,” she said, in a low voice, “for I am
old--indeed, I am very old. It is because I cannot love you, and never
can love you in the one great way; and I will not marry without love.
My heart is fixed on that. When I marry, it will be when I love a man so
much that I cannot live without him. If he is so poor that each meal
is a miracle, it will make no difference. Oh, can’t you see, can’t you
feel, what I mean, Monsieur--you who are so wise and learned, and know
the world so well?”
“Wise and learned!” he said, a little roughly, for his voice was husky
with emotion. “‘Pon honour, I think I am a fool! A bewildered fool, that
knows no more of woman than my cook knows Sanscrit. Faith, a hundred
times less! For Mary Flynn’s got an eye to see, and, without telling,
she knew I had a mind set on you. But Mary Flynn thought more than that,
for she has an idea that you’ve a mind set on some one, Rosalie. She
thought it might be me.”
“A woman is not so easily read as a man,” she replied, half smiling, but
with her eyes turned to the street. A few people were gathering in front
of the house--she wondered why.
“There is some one else--that is it, Rosalie. There is some one else.
You shall tell me who it is. You shall--”
He stopped short, for there was a loud knocking at the shop-door, and
the voice of M. Evanturel calling: “Rosalie! Rosalie! Rosalie! Ah, come
quickly--ah, my Rosalie!”
Without a look at the Seigneur, Rosalie rushed into the shop and
opened the front door. Her father was deathly pale, and was trembling
violently.
“Rosalie, my bird,” he cried indignantly, “they’re saying you stole the
cross from the church door.”
He was now wheeled inside the shop, and people gathered round,
looking at him and Rosalie, some covertly, some as friends, some in a
half-frightened way, as though strange things were about to happen.
“Shure, ‘tis a lie, or me name’s not Mary Flynn--the darlin’!” said the
Seigneur’s cook, with blazing face. “Who makes this charge?” roared an
angry voice. No one had seen the Seigneur enter from the little room
beside the shop, and at the sound of the sharp voice the people fell
back, for he was as free with his stick as his tongue.
“I do,” said the grocer, to whom Paulette Dubois had told her story.
“Ye shall be tarred and feathered before y’are a day older,” said Mary
Flynn.
Rosalie was very pale.
The Seigneur was struck by this and by the strangeness of her look.
“Clear the room,” he said to Filion Lacasse, who was now a constable of
the parish.
“Not yet!” said a voice at the doorway. “What is the trouble?” It was
the Cure, who had already heard rumours of the scandal, and had come at
once to Rosalie. M. Evanturel tried to speak, and could not. But Mary
Flynn did, with a face like a piece of scarlet bunting. Having finished
with a flourish, she could scarce keep her hands off the cowardly
grocer.
The Cure turned to Rosalie. “It is absurd,” he said. “Forgive me,” he
added to the Seigneur. “It is better that Rosalie should answer this
charge. If she gives her word of honour, I will deny communion to
whoever slanders her hereafter.”
“She did it,” said the grocer stubbornly. “She can’t deny it.”
“Answer, Rosalie,” said the Cure firmly.
“Excuse me; I will answer,” said a voice at the door. The tailor of
Chaudiere made his way into the shop, through the fast-gathering crowd.