Wendling came to Fort Anne on the day that the Reverend Ezra Badgley and
an unknown girl were buried. And that was a notable thing. The man had
been found dead at his evening meal; the girl had died on the same day;
and they were buried side by side. This caused much scandal, for the man
was holy, and the girl, as many women said, was probably evil altogether.
At the graves, when the minister's people saw what was being done, they
piously protested; but the Factor, to whom Pierre had whispered a word,
answered them gravely that the matter should go on: since none knew but
the woman was as worthy of heaven as the man. Wendling chanced to stand
beside Pretty Pierre.
"Who knows!" he said aloud, looking hard at the graves, "who knows!....
She died before him, but the dead can strike."
Pierre did not answer immediately, for the Factor was calling the earth
down on both coffins; but after a moment he added: "Yes, the dead can
strike." And then the eyes of the two men caught and stayed, and they
knew that they had things to say to each other in the world.
They became friends. And that, perhaps, was not greatly to Wendling's
credit; for in the eyes of many Pierre was an outcast as an outlaw.
Maybe some of the women disliked this friendship most; since Wendling was
a handsome man, and Pierre was never known to seek them, good or bad; and
they blamed him for the other's coldness, for his unconcerned yet
respectful eye.
"There's Nelly Nolan would dance after him to the world's end," said Shon
McGann to Pierre one day; "and the Widdy Jerome herself, wid her flamin'
cheeks and the wild fun in her eye, croons like a babe at the breast as
he slides out his cash on the bar; and over on Gansonby's Flat there's--"
"There's many a fool, 'voila,'" sharply interjected Pierre, as he pushed
the needle through a button he was sewing on his coat.
"Bedad, there's a pair of fools here, anyway, I say; for the women might
die without lift at waist or brush of lip, and neither of ye'd say,
'Here's to the joy of us, goddess, me own!'"
Pierre seemed to be intently watching the needlepoint as it pierced up
the button-eye, and his reply was given with a slowness corresponding to
the sedate passage of the needle. "Wendling, you think, cares nothing
for women? Well, men who are like that cared once for one woman, and
when that was over--But, pshaw! I will not talk. You are no thinker,
Shon McGann. You blunder through the world. And you'll tremble as much
to a woman's thumb in fifty years as now."
"By the holy smoke," said Shon, "though I tremble at that, maybe, I'll
not tremble, as Wendling, at nothing at all." Here Pierre looked up
sharply, then dropped his eyes on his work again. Shon lapsed suddenly
into a moodiness.
"Yes," said Pierre, "as Wendling, at nothing at all? Well?"
"Well, this, Pierre, for you that's a thinker from me that's none. I was
walking with him in Red Glen yesterday. Sudden he took to shiverin', and
snatched me by the arm, and a mad look shot out of his handsome face.
'Hush!' says he. I listened. There was a sound like the hard rattle of
a creek over stones, and then another sound behind that. 'Come quick,'
says he, the sweat standin' thick on him; and he ran me up the bank--for
it was at the beginnin' of the Glen where the sides were low--and there
we stood pantin' and starin' flat at each other. 'What's that? and
what's got its hand on ye? for y' are cold as death, an' pinched in the
face, an' you've bruised my arm,' said I. And he looked round him slow
and breathed hard, then drew his fingers through the sweat on his cheek.
'I'm not well, and I thought I heard--you heard it; what was it like?'
said he; and he peered close at me. 'Like water,' said I; 'a little
creek near, and a flood comin' far off.' 'Yes, just that,' said he; 'it's
some trick of wind in the place, but it makes a man foolish, and an inch
of brandy would be the right thing.' I didn't say no to that. And on we
came, and brandy we had with a wish in the eye of Nelly Nolan that'd warm
the heart of a tomb. . . . And there's a cud for your chewin',
Pierre. Think that by the neck and the tail, and the divil absolve ye."
During this, Pierre had finished with the button. He had drawn on his
coat and lifted his hat, and now lounged, trying the point of the needle
with his forefinger. When Shon ended, he said with a sidelong glance:
"But what did you think of all that, Shon?"
"Think! There it was! What's the use of thinkin'? There's many a trick
in the world with wind or with spirit, as I've seen often enough in ould
Ireland, and it's not to be guessed by me." Here his voice got a little
lower and a trifle solemn. "For, Pierre," spoke he, "there's what's more
than life or death, and sorra wan can we tell what it is; but we'll know
some day whin--"
"When we've taken the leap at the Almighty Ditch," said Pierre, with a
grave kind of lightness. "Yes, it is all strange. But even the Almighty
Ditch is worth the doing: nearly everything is worth the doing; being
young, growing old, fighting, loving--when youth is on--hating, eating,
drinking, working, playing big games. All is worth it except two
things."
"And what are they, bedad?"
"Thy neighbour's wife and murder. Those are horrible. They double on a
man one time or another; always."
Here, as in curiosity, Pierre pierced his finger with the needle, and
watched the blood form in a little globule. Looking at it meditatively
and sardonically, he said: "There is only one end to these. Blood for
blood is a great matter; and I used to wonder if it would not be terrible
for a man to see his death coming on him drop by drop, like that." He
let the spot of blood fall to the floor. "But now I know that there is a
punishment worse than that . . . 'mon Dieu!' worse than that," he
added.
Into Shon's face a strange look had suddenly come. "Yes, there's
something worse than that, Pierre."
"So, 'bien?'"
Shon made the sacred gesture of his creed. "To be punished by the dead.
And not see them--only hear them." And his eyes steadied firmly to the
other's.
Pierre was about to reply, but there came the sound of footsteps through
the open door, and presently Wendling entered slowly. He was pale and
worn, and his eyes looked out with a searching anxiousness. But that did
not render him less comely. He had always dressed in black and white,
and this now added to the easy and yet severe refinement of his person.
His birth and breeding had occurred in places unfrequented by such as
Shon and Pierre; but plains and wild life level all; and men are friends
according to their taste and will, and by no other law. Hence these with
Wendling. He stretched out his hand to each without a word. The hand-
shake was unusual; he had little demonstration ever. Shon looked up
surprised, but responded. Pierre followed with a swift, inquiring look;
then, in the succeeding pause, he offered cigarettes. Wendling took one;
and all, silent, sat down. The sun streamed intemperately through the
doorway, making a broad ribbon of light straight across the floor to
Wendling's feet. After lighting his cigarette, he looked into the
sunlight for a moment, still not speaking. Shon meanwhile had started
his pipe, and now, as if he found the silence awkward,--"It's a day for
God's country, this," he said: "to make man a Christian for little or
much, though he play with the Divil betunewhiles." Without looking at
them, Wendling said, in a low voice: "It was just such a day, down there
in Quebec, when It happened. You could hear the swill of the river, the
water licking the piers, and the saws in the Big Mill and the Little Mill
as they marched through the timber, flashing their teeth like bayonets.
It's a wonderful sound on a hot, clear day--that wild, keen singing of
the saws, like the cry of a live thing fighting and conquering. Up from
the fresh-cut lumber in the yards there came a smell like the juice of
apples, and the sawdust, as you thrust your hand into it, was as cool and
soft as the leaves of a clove-flower in the dew. On these days the town
was always still. It looked sleeping, and you saw the heat quivering up
from the wooden walls and the roofs of cedar shingles as though the
houses were breathing."
Here he paused, still intent on the shaking sunshine. Then he turned to
the others as if suddenly aware that he had been talking to them. Shon
was about to speak, but Pierre threw a restraining glance, and, instead,
they all looked through the doorway and beyond. In the settlement below
they saw the effect that Wendling had described. The houses breathed.
A grasshopper went clacking past, a dog at the door snapped up a fly; but
there seemed no other life of day. Wendling nodded his head towards the
distance. "It was quiet, like that. I stood and watched the mills and
the yards, and listened to the saws, and looked at the great slide, and
the logs on the river: and I said ever to myself that it was all mine--
all. Then I turned to a big house on the hillock beyond the cedars,
whose windows were open, with a cool dusk lying behind them. More than
all else, I loved to think I owned that house and what was in it. . . .
She was a beautiful woman. And she used to sit in a room facing the
mill--though the house fronted another way--thinking of me, I did not
doubt, and working at some delicate needle-stuff. There never had been a
sharp word between us, save when I quarrelled bitterly with her brother,
and he left the mill and went away. But she got over that mostly, though
the lad's name was, never mentioned between us. That day I was so hungry
for the sight of her that I got my field-glass--used to watch my vessels
and rafts making across the bay--and trained it on the window where I
knew she sat. I thought, it would amuse her, too, when I went back at
night, if I told her what she had been doing. I laughed to myself at the
thought of it as I adjusted the glass. . . . I looked. . . .
There was no more laughing. . . . I saw her, and in front of her a
man, with his back half on me. I could not recognise him, though at the
instant I thought he was something familiar. I failed to get his face at
all. Hers I found indistinctly. But I saw him catch her playfully by
the chin! After a little they rose. He put his arm about her and kissed
her, and he ran his fingers through her hair. She had such fine golden
hair--so light, and it lifted to every breath. Something got into my
brain. I know now it was the maggot which sent Othello mad. The world
in that hour was malicious, awful. . . .
"After a time--it seemed ages, she and everything had receded so far--
I went . . . home. At the door I asked the servant who had been
there. She hesitated, confused, and then said the young curate of the
parish. I was very cool: for madness is a strange thing; you see
everything with an intense aching clearness--that is the trouble. . . .
She was more kind than common. I do not think I was unusual. I was
playing a part well, my grandmother had Indian blood like yours, Pierre,
and I was waiting. I was even nicely critical of her to myself. I
balanced the mole on her neck against her general beauty; the curve of
her instep, I decided, was a little too emphatic. I passed her backwards
and forwards, weighing her at every point; but yet these two things were
the only imperfections. I pronounced her an exceeding piece of art--and
infamy. I was much interested to see how she could appear perfect in her
soul. I encouraged her to talk. I saw with devilish irony that an angel
spoke. And, to cap it all, she assumed the fascinating air of the
mediator--for her brother; seeking a reconciliation between us. Her
amazing art of person and mind so worked upon me that it became
unendurable; it was so exquisite--and so shameless. I was sitting where
the priest had sat that afternoon; and when she leaned towards me I
caught her chin lightly and trailed my fingers through her hair as he
had done: and that ended it, for I was cold, and my heart worked with
horrible slowness. Just as a wave poises at its height before breaking
upon the shore, it hung at every pulse-beat, and then seemed to fall over
with a sickening thud. I arose, and acting still, spoke impatiently of
her brother. Tears sprang to her eyes. Such divine dissimulation,
I thought--too good for earth. She turned to leave the room, and I did
not stay her. Yet we were together again that night. . . . I was
only waiting."
The cigarette had dropped from his fingers to the floor, and lay there
smoking. Shon's face was fixed with anxiety; Pierre's eyes played
gravely with the sunshine. Wendling drew a heavy breath, and then went
on.
"Again, next day, it was like this-the world draining the heat. . . .
I watched from the Big Mill. I saw them again. He leaned over her chair
and buried his face in her hair. The proof was absolute now. . . .
I started away, going a roundabout, that I might not be seen. It took me
some time. I was passing through a clump of cedar when I saw them making
towards the trees skirting the river. Their backs were on me. Suddenly
they diverted their steps--towards the great slide, shut off from water
this last few months, and used as a quarry to deepen it. Some petrified
things had been found in the rocks, but I did not think they were going
to these. I saw them climb down the rocky steps; and presently they were
lost to view. The gates of the slide could be opened by machinery from
the Little Mill. A terrible, deliciously malignant thought came to me.
I remember how the sunlight crept away from me and left me in the dark.
I stole through that darkness to the Little Mill. I went to the
machinery for opening the gates. Very gently I set it in motion, facing
the slide as I did so. I could see it through the open sides of the
mill. I smiled to think what the tiny creek, always creeping through a
faint leak in the gates and falling with a granite rattle on the stones,
would now become. I pushed the lever harder--harder. I saw the gates
suddenly give, then fly open, and the river sprang roaring massively
through them. I heard a shriek through the roar. I shuddered; and a
horrible sickness came on me. . . . And as I turned from the
machinery, I saw the young priest coming at me through a doorway! . . .
It was not the priest and my wife that I had killed; but my wife and her
brother. . . ."
He threw his head back as though something clamped his throat. His voice
roughened with misery. "The young priest buried them both, and people
did not know the truth. They were even sorry for me. But I gave up the
mills--all; and I became homeless . . . this."
Now he looked up at the two men, and said: "I have told you because you
know something, and because there will, I think, be an end soon." He got
up and reached out a trembling hand for a cigarette. Pierre gave him
one. "Will you walk with me?" he asked.