No one ever visited the House except the Little Chemist, the Avocat,
and Medallion; and Medallion, though merely an auctioneer, was the only
person on terms of intimacy with its owner, the old Seigneur, who for
many years had never stirred beyond the limits of his little garden. At
rare intervals he might be seen sitting in the large stone porch which
gave overweighted dignity to the house, itself not very large.
An air of mystery surrounded the place: in summer the grass was rank,
the trees seemed huddled together in gloom about the houses, the vines
appeared to ooze on the walls, and at one end, where the window-shutters
were always closed and barred, a great willow drooped and shivered; in
winter the stone walls showed naked and grim among the gaunt trees and
furtive shrubs.
None who ever saw the Seigneur could forget him--a tall figure with
stooping shoulders; a pale, deeply lined, clean-shaven face, and a
forehead painfully white, with blue veins showing; the eyes handsome,
penetrative, brooding, and made indescribably sorrowful by the dark skin
around them. There were those in Pontiac, such as the Cure, who
remembered when the Seigneur was constantly to be seen in the village;
and then another person was with him always, a tall, handsome youth, his
son. They were fond and proud of each other, and were religious and good
citizens in a highbred, punctilious way.
At that time the Seigneur was all health and stalwart strength. But one
day a rumour went abroad that he had quarrelled with his son because of
the wife of Farette the miller. No one outside knew if the thing was
true, but Julie, the miller's wife, seemed rather to plume herself that
she had made a stir in her little world. Yet the curious habitants came
to know that the young man had gone, and after a few years his having
once lived there had become a mere memory. But whenever the Little
Chemist set foot inside the tall porch he remembered; the Avocat was kept
in mind by papers which he was called upon to read and alter from time to
time; the Cure never forgot, because when the young man went he lost not
one of his flock but two; and Medallion, knowing something of the story,
had wormed a deal of truth out of the miller's wife. Medallion knew that
the closed, barred rooms were the young man's; and he knew also that the
old man was waiting, waiting, in a hope which he never even named to
himself.
One day the silent old housekeeper came rapping at Medallion's door, and
simply said to him: "Come--the Seigneur!"
Medallion went, and for hours sat beside the Seigneur's chair, while the
Little Chemist watched and sighed softly in a corner, now and again
rising to feel the sick man's pulse or to prepare a cordial. The
housekeeper hovered behind the high-backed chair, and when the Seigneur
dropped his handkerchief--now, as always, of the exquisite fashion of a
past century--she put it gently in his hand.
Once when the Little Chemist touched his wrist, his dark eyes rested on
him with inquiry, and he said: "Soon?"
It was useless trying to shirk the persistency of that look. "Eight
hours, perhaps, sir," the Little Chemist answered, with painful shyness.
The Seigneur seemed to draw himself up a little, and his hand grasped his
handkerchief tightly for an instant; then he said: "Soon. Thank you."
After a little, his eyes turned to Medallion and he seemed about to
speak, but still kept silent. His chin dropped on his breast, and for a
time he was motionless and shrunken; but still there was a strange little
curl of pride--or disdain--on his lips. At last he drew up his head, his
shoulders came erect, heavily, to the carved back of the chair, where,
strange to say, the Stations of the Cross were figured, and he said, in a
cold, ironical voice: "The Angel of Patience has lied!"
The evening wore on, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the
clock, the beat of rain upon the windows, and the deep breathing of the
Seigneur. Presently he started, his eyes opened wide, and his whole body
seemed to listen.
"I heard a voice," he said.
"No one spoke, my master," said the housekeeper.
"It was a voice without," he said.
"Monsieur," said the Little Chemist, "it was the wind in the eaves."
His face was almost painfully eager and sensitively alert.
"Hush!" he said; "I hear a voice in the tall porch."
"Sir," said Medallion, laying a hand respectfully on his arm, "it is
nothing."
With a light on his face and a proud, trembling energy, he got to his
feet. "It is the voice of my son," he said. "Go--go, and bring him in."
No one moved. But he was not to be disobeyed.
His ears had been growing keener as he neared the subtle atmosphere of
that Brink where man strips himself to the soul for a lonely voyaging,
and he waved the woman to the door.
"Wait," he said, as her hand fluttered at the handle. "Take him to
another room. Prepare a supper such as we used to have. When it is
ready I will come. But, listen, and obey. Tell him not that I have
but four hours of life. Go, good woman, and bring him in."
It was as he said. They found the son weak and fainting, fallen within
the porch--a worn, bearded man, returned from failure and suffering and
the husks of evil. They clothed him and cared for him, and strengthened
him with wine, while the woman wept over him and at last set him at the
loaded, well-lighted table. Then the Seigneur came in, leaning his arm
very lightly on that of Medallion with a kind of kingly air; and,
greeting his son before them all, as if they had parted yesterday, sat
down. For an hour they sat there, and the Seigneur talked gaily with a
colour to his face, and his great eyes glowing. At last he rose, lifted
his glass, and said: "The Angel of Patience is wise. I drink to my son!"
He was about to say something more, but a sudden whiteness passed over
his face. He drank off the wine, and as he put the glass down, shivered,
and fell back in his chair.
"Two hours short, Chemist!" he said, and smiled, and was Still.