"Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman.
Tho' they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human."
--_Burns._
"Is it the little home on the hill?" said the half-indignant _calèche_
driver, "well, to be sure I know it as well as I do the nose on my face;
step in sur, and: you'll soon see if I do or not."
Jumping hastily up, Guy settled himself for, as he hoped, the last drive
to the first part of the success he strove so hard to win.
Quebec, as every tourist has acknowledged, is a "fine old place," and
now that his heart was somewhat lighter, Guy allowed himself to realize,
like the others, that he had indeed come to a "fine old place," and one
whose memory threatened to cling around his heart for the remaining
years of his life. Many thoughts filled his busy brain as he rattled
along in his two-wheeled conveyance over the country roads, drinking in
the freshness and beauty of his rural surroundings, and yielding gladly
to the bracing currents of country air that swept past his troubled
face, cooling and refreshing him considerably.
By and by, growing a little curious about the nature of the place to
which he had ordered this man to drive him, he leaned forward a little
and asked the broad-faced Irishman, who was lilting a merry tune to
himself as they jaunted along.
"What sort of a place is this we are driving to, Pat."
"Och, faith yer honor, mebbe 'tis dhrivin' to the divil we are, for all
Pat knows. G'long there, Sally."
"But I mean the convent, Pat, surely his devilship does not intrude
there?"
"Oh thin, the Lord forbid," Pat answered as he, turned the contents of
his battered felt hat towards Guy; this characteristic piece of
head-wear was just completing that interesting transformation that is
the inevitable fate of all long-lived black felts, viz. to develop
themselves into a promising green, which is quite in its place on the
head of an Irish hackman.
Guy thought it worth his while to interest himself in the fellow, and
asked rather curiously--
"You are a Catholic Pat, are you not?"
"Faith I niver was anything else since I was anything at all," was the
contented reply. "I got my honest name in a Catholic chapel in th' ould
sod, an' I'll take it as honest as I got it, to a Catholic churchyard
when I die."
"That's right," said Guy, half seriously, though slightly amused at the
strange way the fellow spoke his determination.
"Have you ever been to this place, we are going to, Pat?"
"Troth there isn't an inch nor a fut o' ground in all Quaybec that this
ould nag and meself didn't explore some time or other."
"Who runs the institution?" Guy queried next.
"The divil a run it iver got as long as I know it," said Pat, as he
gathered up his shabby whip, to the accompaniment of some snack of his
oily tongue, which succeeded miserably in inducing his languid old mare
to stretch her angular supports over more space at a time, "tis allays
bin standin in the wan spot since me father was a lad, and that's longer
ago nor I can remember, seein' that they put off rearing me up 'till the
rest was all grown up an' out o' the way."
Guy could not refrain from smiling at the droll way in which his
companion handled a subject, he had learned before, and therefore
to-day's experience was nothing new to him, that direct questions will
never get direct answers from an illiterate Irishman, and so he resigned
himself beforehand to the ordeal he was passing through at present.
By and by however, Pat drew forth from a depository of doubtful
cleanliness and respectability, a short, black pipe, that fitted
becomingly between his plentiful lips. Then after a moment's hesitation,
he said doubtfully, over the sea-green shoulder of his ancient
broad-cloth.
"I suppose, sir, you're something of a smoker?"
Taking this as one way of asking a permission to indulge, Guy answered
readily. "Indeed I am, Mr. Crowley, that precious weed and myself are
not strangers, at all."
"So then, ye carry it about with you, as well as meself?" he said, with
a timid chuckle. Guy agreed that he did, just to satisfy him; the next
moment the forefinger and thumb of the amusing Pat Crowley, in all their
innocence of toilet attentions, were thrust into the depths of his
waistcoat pocket, from whence they unearthed a solitary match;
instinctively he flourished this on the leg of his baggy trousers, and
applied the flame to the empty briar-root, that protruded on its short
stem from his substantial mouth; but after a vain puff or two, he flung
it impatiently away and replaced the time worn pipe within the flavored
precincts of his waistcoat pocket.
Guy, who watched these interesting proceedings in silent amusement,
could not subdue the curiosity which prompted him to say.
"I thought you were going to have a smoke for yourself, Mr. Crowley?"
"H'm, so did I, meself," returned Pat.
"And why don't you? I don't object."
"Och divil a thing but smoke was in the insthrument, bad luck to
it,--however sir, as ye say ye carry the tabakky about wid ye, take a
loan o' the pipe an' welcome, for 'twould never be Pat Crowley, 'ud sit
down with that in his pocket, that could make another man happy, and him
not wantin' it nayther."
The hint had the desired affect. Guy's face broke into a broad smile, as
the true meaning of the words showed itself.
"I have the tobacco he said, and no pipe as you suspect, and your moral
is mine, too Crowley, so here's the tobacco and use your pipe to the
best of its advantages old fellow."
As Crowley's gratified smile wrinkled over his face and rested in
emphatic creases around his eyes, he readjusted the dwarfed pipe between
his sallow teeth, and Guy heard him mutter, as he leaned forward to rest
the lines, while he rubbed the little shavings between his brawny hands.
"Ye're a dacent mother's son, ivery inch o'you, so ye are."
When the curling clouds of smoke, piled upwards over Crowley's head from
Guy's good tobacco, the "nag" was touched up, with a multiplied emphasis
on the technical snack, and was kept trotting to the utmost limit of her
lazy agility during the remainder of the drive. Crowley must have
repented his own surliness in the stingy information he gave, respecting
the place they were driving to, for, settling himself in a safe heap on
the leather cushion of his semi-respectable conveyance, he began:
"This house, yer honor, that we're dhrivin to, mebbe, you'd like to
know, now that I do remember that I know somethin' of it, 'tis the
natest little hole in Quaybec, though I don't think many knows much
about it, ye see, it doesn't belong to any reg'lar nuns, them allays
does good, and so does these, although they remind me more of the 'old
maid,' they live in what they call 'volunthry sayclusion,' an faith it
don't matther a hang to the world what they live in, I belave there's no
love lost between 'em an' the world, leastways no one knows where they
came from, an' there's not manny as tries to find out, they do be
singin' an' prayin' an' carryin' on wid all sorts o' religis capers, and
in troth, I think meself, that Pat Crowley's battered ould sowl 'ud look
as fine in Heaven any day, that is, if it ever gets there."
"I daresay, Pat," Guy answered, "you are a very good man no doubt."
"I'm not good, bad luck to me," the old fellow returned half gruffly,
"but faith if I do the 'ould boy' a turn now and thin, it's sore agin me
grain, an' I'm not without tellin' him so, but shure he's the very divil
for plaguing the best natured man in creation, unto doin' mischief."
Guy laughed outright at this original declaration and said teasingly:--
"You should run away from the devil, Crowley, like the ladies in this
little retreat, and wisely shun temptation in such seclusion."
"Troth, the deuce a temptation 'ud iver bother thim, while there was
anyone else to be had, divil a one o' them 'ud be there at all, if they
iver got the temptation to marry, och I know all about 'volunthry
sayclusion,' I'd do it meself rather than be an ould maid."
"I think," Guy said, laughing, "that you are in as much danger of one of
these, as the other, but you should be a little more partial to these
virtuous ladies than you are. I'll not speak any more of them, lest you
should condemn them altogether."
"Well, sir," said the old cabman, rising from his seat, "ye may go in
now and judge for yerself, here's the blessed saintly spot itself and a
dale more snug and genteel it looks than my little house. Now, I'd bet
me Sunday brogues, 'tis yerself'll be sorry such fine young women 'ud
believe in volunthary sayclusion. When you get inside them walls ye'll
see that 'tis jokin' I was, an' that there's fine specimins of beauty
and gentility there that 'ud make quare havic among your own kind, if
they remained outside," he said laughing broadly, and poking the end of
his whip into Guy.
"I dare say, Crowley, but my mission here is strictly a charitable one,
and I don't intend to let anything else distract me from it," said Guy,
good humoredly, and as Crowley knotted the cracked leather lines around
a trimly painted post that stood by the entrance, Guy closed the modest
little gate and walked steadily up the gravel path, to the long low
square building that stood before him. There were even rows of small
windows, tastily but simply decked in muslin screens and showing dainty
bows of spotless ribbons; a few pots of blooming plants standing outside
on the broad flat sills lent a charm to the quiet beauty of the shining
panes and the muslin screens. Neat beds in the front of the house were
covered with the richest flowers, and well trimmed lawns sloping away at
either side of the spacious building, thrust the idea of primness on the
intruder. As a limit to the grounds were groves of tall thick trees
encircling all the well-kept _parterre_ within.
There was a low, broad verandah in front of the house whose steps Guy
had just mounted, and when about to drop the shining knocker he held in
his hand, the saddest, sweetest strains of a human voice he had ever
heard, arrested the movement. He laid the heavy "dog's head" quietly
back and walked a couple of steps towards the end of the platform, which
commanded a view of the rear lawn, with its summer-houses, and vines,
and rockeries, and all such lovely elements, which contributed towards
making the rustic nook a veritable paradise.
Glancing stealthily through the green lattice-work that separated him
from the grounds, Guy saw, with intense admiration and wonder, the
figure of a young and lovely girl, seated on a low rustic bench, with a
great, shaggy dog crouched at her feet. She held within her dainty
hands, a small book covered in black cloth, and swinging from the end of
which was a long silk tape and a medal, with which her delicate fingers
were toying carelessly. Presently she closed the little volume, bound
the long tape around it, securing it with the tiny medal, then folding
her hands, she raised her eyes, and in the saddest, sweetest and
clearest tones, her musical voice warbled the words,--
"Mother pure and mother mild
Hear the wailing of thy child.
Listen to my pleading cry,
Hearken to my heart's deep sigh--"
_Ora pro me_
The dreamy, dark eyes rested for a moment in their upturned attitude,
the slender hands remained clasped tightly together, but only while the
echo lingered of the sweet, sad voice, which had stolen from her lips as
a breathing anthem from on high. Guy was mesmerized--lost to everything
but the one vision which fascinated his gaze; he had ever been
susceptible to beauty's influence--with some people, the silent
contemplation of breathing beauty becomes a wild passion, and in Guy
Elersley, appreciation of such eloquent loveliness was bordering on this
superlative limit--and yet there was so little art about the being he
was devouring with such greedy eyes. She wore a plain, neat costume of
drab serge, a deep linen collar fastened high at her throat, and deep
bands of the same at her wrists; her rich, dark hair was short and crept
in large negligent waves over her shapely head, her face was very pale,
which contrasted favorably with the dark hair and eyes, and the deep
rich color of her well-curved lips. The close-fitting spencer jacket was
gathered in with a very broad belt at her small waist, and the neat,
heavy skirt fell in uninterrupted, plain folds to her ankles. Suddenly,
while Guy watched her, she started as if waking from a lethargy, and
turning to the animal that crouched lovingly beside her, she said,--
"Come Sailor dear, we are late for study hour."
Instinctively the brute roused and shook his shaggy fur at the sound of
her voice, looking up trustfully into the kind face of his mistress.
With a light and fleet step, Fifine turned towards the side entrance of
the building, wherein she and her faithful companion vanished in a
moment, leaving Guy petrified with silent wonder and admiration on the
other side of the lattice work.
It would be impossible to describe the conflict of emotions that passed
through Guy Elersley's breast at this moment; the bitter indignation he
had felt up to this for Vivian Standish was nothing when compared with
the inveterate contempt and hatred that substituted it at sight of this
lovely wrecked flower, which he saw pining and withering in beautiful
decline, far away from the world she could so easily have dazzled. It
was with a dangerous light in his eyes, and a threatening vow in his
heart, that Guy knocked this time at the broad hall door. His call was
answered by an elderly woman of quiet, reserved appearance, who neither
seemed surprised nor concerned by his visit. In as respectful and
business-like a manner as possible, Guy asked for the lady directress of
the institution, and was immediately shown by this silent noiseless
woman into an apartment at the right, where she left him to wait alone
in his wonder for a few moments.
The room was scrupulously neat, and tolerably well-furnished, but there
was a painful simplicity and provoking fitness and quaintness about the
things he saw, that upset his nerves uncomfortably. Every element of
furniture was so intensely appropriate, and consistent with all the
surroundings; the silence was so settled and sacred, and the noiseless
tread of the inmates, as they glided here and there through the
passages, almost irritated him. He was soon distracted from these trying
observations, however, by the entrance of a dignified haughty-looking
woman of about forty years; she was attired in the same simple costume
which he had just admired on the young girl in the garden, except that
her hair, sprinkled here and there with silver threads, was tucked
neatly under an old-fashioned head-dress of muslin that strangely became
her handsome face. Still standing a little inside the door-way, this
cold, reserved woman looked enquiringly, and waited for Guy to speak his
errand, whatever it might be.
"I have intruded here," Guy began with not too much confidence in his
colloquial powers, "to enquire for a young girl named Josephine de
Maistre, who, I am told was admitted here some time ago. I do not know
the young lady personally," Guy frankly avowed, "nor have I ever spoken
to her; but I have been entrusted with a very serious duty to discharge
relative to her, and if it be not encroaching on your rules, I would be
glad to interview the young lady."
An answer came in cold words, from an unmoved face:
"It is not our custom," the stately woman began, "to admit young male
visitors to our home without urgent cause for so doing. Show me that you
are justified in seeking a deviation from our custom, and I will grant
it."
Guy fidgeted with his watch chain, and with a little hesitation which
shewed how much he dreaded any indiscretion on his part, he asked,
"Are you acquainted with any details of Miss de Maistre's life before
her coming here?"
With the same placid face, his companion answered,
"I know everything--she has had no secret from me."
"Then I am safe in broaching the subject to you," Guy answered more
freely, and accordingly, in as brief terms as possible, he confided his
mission to this haughty woman, leaving her then to judge for herself
whether the responsibility bequeathed him by dying lips justified or not
his intrusion within this quiet home. When he had finished, the set brow
of his listener relaxed a little, into an almost involuntary expression
of interest.
"You may see her presently," said the stern lady, "I am glad you have
come so soon. It was very hard to persuade her at first that God's
retribution would come time enough, she was so eager to avenge her
wrongs with her own hand, but now that she has fully conquered her
sinful desire for vengeance, God thinks fit to act. I will send her to
you directly," and with these words she swept noiselessly out through
the shadowy doorway, leaving Guy tangled up in the strangest sensations.
There was a moment of suspense before the dignified woman re-appeared,
leading the beautiful heroine of his vision in the grounds into Guy's
presence. There was a melancholy beauty in that face, whose memory never
after ceased to haunt his heart. Something so appealingly sorrowful, and
yet so coldly sad, that one pitied and admired and loved in the one
glance. The long, dark lashes that fringed the white lids, and rested
languidly on the pallid cheeks, every now and then shaded the deepest,
dreamiest and most mournful eyes Guy had ever seen, and the subdued
passion and smothered emotion that the keen glance might detect
trembling on her full, red lips, was grander to Guy than anything else
human he could conceive. Then the large, creeping waves of the dry, dark
hair that encircled her intelligent brow, and nestled around her
well-formed ears to her shapely neck behind, capped the climax of Guy's
rapturous admiration.
The childish simplicity with which she stood before him coupled so
strangely with a mien of reserve and independence, put Guy greatly at a
loss to know how he was to take this strange creature. There was no
conceit, no vanity, no empty pride accompanying all that dazzling
beauty. Guy allowed that at one time this face must have worn becomingly
the expression of coquetry--may be there was once a pleasure in showing
this face to its best advantage, with the assistance of studied apparel,
but now! all that was a buried past. There was now a look of wild,
natural beauty that had not been fettered by rules of fashion or style;
no attempt at effect in the plain, simple costume that clung so
becomingly to her _svelte_ figure. No artful use was made of those
perfect features; she looked like a child-woman--so sweet, so innocent,
so simple, and yet so grand, so sad, so serious.
Guy stretched forth his hand in a friendly way, as she entered, saying,
"We are strangers in one way, Mademoiselle de Maistre, but in a thousand
ways we are very good friends, at least, such is my disposition towards
you."
She placed her small, tender hand in his, and scanned his face a little
doubtingly.
The majestic lady "directress" encircling the girl in her arms, said
earnestly,
"I will leave you with this gentleman; trust him, my dear, he is your
friend," and then she very considerately left the room.
Guy, on finding himself alone with the object of his search, entered
into business immediately.
His voice was touchingly respectful and sympathetic as he addressed
Fifine.
"I hope," he began, "that you will not object to my recalling certain
events of your past life, mademoiselle. I have been commissioned to bear
you a message, relative to a detail of your unusually sad experience,
but I would first like to know that it does not pain you too much to
hear your past repeated."
"Oh, sir!" she said, clasping her hands and looking devoutly up, "don't
spare me on that account. When we have been able to do wrong, we should
be able to bear the consequences, whatever they be. Besides, my past has
never been a past to me--all is as vivid to-day as it was in the first
hours of my experience. I have only memory left me from that frightful
past."
"Then we may as well proceed to the point immediately," added Guy, who
was feeling slightly uncomfortable over the task.
"I am a doctor by profession, mademoiselle, and have, for the last few
years, been practising in the city of New York. Some months ago I was
summoned to the bed-side of a man in typhoid fever, in whom I recognized
an old school friend. He was evidently delighted at the freak of good
fortune that brought us together, for, as he told me, there was a secret
gnawing at his heart, that he longed to disclose. I sat down beside him
and heard, mademoiselle, from his fevered lips, the shameful account of
a wedding ceremony, of which you were such an unfortunate victim."
Fifine was clutching her fingers convulsively, and there was a look of
suppression in her sad face that touched Guy, he was, however, anxious
to get through with his disagreeable tale, and hurried on.
"He bade me seek you out, mademoiselle, only to tell you that since that
eventful night, he has wandered through life, dogged and shadowed by a
cruel remorse, which ultimately laid him on the bed where I found him.
One thing he craved with his dying lips, mademoiselle, that the message
be borne you from him, of your freedom; that you be told how that
ceremony was a mockery, null and void, and after this disclosure, if
pardon were possible, that you might try to forgive him his blind share
in the disgraceful deed. The person I allude to, mademoiselle, was the
pretended clergyman who married you that night." He looked now into the
struggling face beside him, he knew the conflict that was raging in that
soul. The trembling lips parted while he watched, and he heard the low
murmur of a sanctified soul, as it breathed. "As we forgive them that
trespass against us," she answered back the look of anxious enquiry he
cast upon her face for a moment, and then cried:
"Do you say I am free? Not bound to anyone? Untrammelled all this time
that I have lived in imaginary slavery, oh, how much I have suf--" but
she checked the impulse that bade her murmur, and said instead, "because
I have done wrong myself, I can forgive. _I_ know how the guilty heart
craves for pardon, how the loaded conscience aches for relief, and
therefore, you can take my entire forgiveness back to the penitent who
asks it. After all," she continued, in a sort of soliloquy, "forgiveness
_is_ easier than revenge."
"You are a noble little soul," said Guy, touched by the piety and fervor
of this blighted little heart.
"Ah, sir! it is not that," Fifine said regretfully, "I might have been
that, if I had lived contentedly among the comforts, where God had so
generously placed me, and not sighed to adopt a world of sin and shame,
rather than sacrifice it. I can never be that now. I have killed my poor
loving father: I have blighted my life--there is only penance and
atonement now to bid me hope," then passing her hand wearily over her
eyes, she exclaimed in a long sigh, "So strange, all this! I thought
that ugly chapter was over and done with, for everyone but me. And this
man that sent you, who is he?" queried she.
In words as brief and clear as possible, Guy told her the story of his
night by Nicholas Bencroft's bed-side, dwelling emphatically upon the
pitiful effects that remorse and reverses had left, where innocence and
prosperity had once been. The girl's face clouded at intervals, as she
listened to the strange, touching recital, and she felt a sympathy in
the end, for this other poor victim, who, like herself, had been led
into evil, blindfolded.
After a long, long interval, Guy rose to depart, not however, without
having made every arrangement with Fifine that was necessary to render
her justice, and give Vivian Standish his due. Even towards this latter,
she would not now indulge feelings of her old hatred. She asked that he
be dealt with as leniently as possible, "for, sir," she argued, "the
wicked are wicked only because of their weakness. They are _so_ much
weaker than the good; and just as the man of physical strength is
merciful with one who is physically weak, so should the rule apply to
moral strength, and let him who can brave temptation deal gently with
the poor, weak sinner." And then they parted to the time, Fifine having
agreed to seek permission to enable her to take any active steps that
should be deemed necessary for the rendering of calm, quiet justice to
Vivian Standish's victims.