The voices of the gentlemen mingled with her aunt's in eager greetings.
She well knew which must be the voice of Colonel Philibert--the rest
were all so familiar to her ear. Suddenly footsteps ran up the
grand stair, clearing three at a time. She waited, trembling with
anticipation. Le Gardeur rushed into the room with outstretched arms,
embraced her, and kissed her in a transport of brotherly affection.
“Oh, Le Gardeur!” cried she, returning his kiss with fond affection, and
looking in his face with tenderness and joy. “O my brother, how I have
prayed and longed for your coming. Thank God! you are here at last. You
are well, brother, are you not?” said she, looking up with a glance that
seemed to betray some anxiety.
“Never better, Amélie,” replied he, in a gayer tone than was quite
natural to him, and shyly averting his eyes from her tender scrutiny.
“Never better. Why, if I had been in my grave, I should have risen up to
welcome a friend whom I have met to-day after years of separation. Oh,
Amélie, I have such news for you!”
“News for me, Le Gardeur! What can it be?” A blush stole over her
countenance, and her bosom heaved, for she was very conscious of the
nature of the news her brother was about to impart.
“Guess! you unsuspecting queen of shepherdesses,” cried he, archly
twisting a lock of her hair that hung over her shoulder. “Guess, you
pretty gipsy, you!”
“Guess? How can I guess, Le Gardeur? Can there be any news left in the
city of Quebec after an hour's visit from Madame de Grandmaison and
Madame Couillard? I did not go down, but I know they inquired much after
you, by the way!” Amélie, with a little touch of feminine perversity,
shyly put off the grand burst of Le Gardeur's intelligence, knowing it
was sure to come.
“Pshaw! who cares for those old scandal-mongers! But you can never guess
my news, Amélie, so I may as well tell you.” Le Gardeur fairly swelled
with the announcement he was about to make.
“Have mercy then, brother, and tell me at once, for you do now set my
curiosity on tiptoe.” She was a true woman, and would not for anything
have admitted her knowledge of the presence of Colonel Philibert in the
house.
“Amélie,” said he, taking her by both hands, as if to prevent her
escape, “I was at Beaumanoir--you know the Intendant gave a grand
hunting party,” added he, noticing the quick glance she gave him; “and
who do you think came to the Château and recognized me, or rather I
recognized him? A stranger--and not such a stranger, either Amélie.”
“Nay; go on, brother! Who could this mysterious stranger and no stranger
have been?”
“Pierre Philibert, Amélie! Pierre--our Pierre, you know! You recollect
him, sister!”
“Recollect Pierre Philibert? Why, how could I ever forget him while you
are living? since to him we are all indebted for your life, brother!”
“I know that; are you not glad, as I am, at his return?” asked Le
Gardeur, with a penetrating look.
She threw her arms round him involuntarily, for she was much agitated.
“Glad, brother? Yes, I am glad because you are glad.”
“No more than that, Amélie? That is a small thing to be glad for.”
“Oh, brother! I am glad for gladness's sake! We can never overpay the
debt of gratitude we owe Pierre Philibert.”
“O my sweet sister,” replied he, kissing her, “I knew my news would
please you. Come, we will go down and see him at once, for Pierre is in
the house.”
“But, Le Gardeur!” She blushed and hesitated. “Pierre Philibert I
knew--I could speak to him; but I shall hardly dare recognize him in the
stately soldier of to-day. Voilà la différence!” added she, repeating
the refrain of a song very popular both in New France and in Old at that
period.
Le Gardeur did not comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,--“Pierre
is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the
seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,--he was always
that,--but in heart the same generous, noble Pierre Philibert he was
when a boy. Voilà la ressemblance!” added he, pulling her hair archly as
he repeated the antistrophe of the same ditty.
Amélie gave her brother a fond look, but she did not reply, except by a
tight pressure of the hand. The voices of the Chevalier La Corne and
the Lady de Tilly and Colonel Philibert were again heard in animated
conversation. “Come, brother, we will go now,” said she; and quick
in executing any resolution she had formed, she took the arm of
her brother, swept with him down the broad stair, and entered the
drawing-room.
Philibert rose to his feet in admiration of the vision of loveliness
that suddenly beamed upon his eyes. It was the incarnation of all the
shapes of grace and beauty that had passed through his fervid fancy
during so many years of absence from his native land. Something there
was of the features of the young girl who had ridden with flying
locks, like a sprite, through the woods of Tilly. But comparing his
recollection of that slight girl with the tall, lithe, perfect womanhood
of the half-blushing girl before him, he hesitated, although intuitively
aware that it could be no other than the idol of his heart, Amélie de
Repentigny.
Le Gardeur solved the doubt in a moment by exclaiming, in a tone of
exultation, “Pierre Philibert, I bring an old young friend to greet
you--my sister!”
Philibert advanced, and Amélie raised her dark eyes with a momentary
glance that drew into her heart the memory of his face forever. She
held out her hand frankly and courteously. Philibert bent over it as
reverently as he would over the hand of the Madonna.
The greeting of the Lady de Tilly and La Corne St. Luc had been cordial,
nay, affectionate in its kindness. The good lady kissed Pierre as a
mother might have done a long-absent son.
“Colonel Philibert,” said Amélie, straining her nerves to the tension of
steel to preserve her composure, “Colonel Philibert is most welcome; he
has never been forgotten in this house.” She glanced at her aunt, who
smiled approvingly at Amélie's remark.
“Thanks, Mademoiselle de Repentigny; I am indeed happy to be remembered
here; it fulfils one of my most cherished hopes in returning to my
native land.”
“Ay, ay, Pierre,” interrupted La Corne St. Luc, who looked on this
little scene very admiringly, “good blood never lies. Look at Colonel
Philibert there, with the King's epaulets on his shoulders. I have a
sharp eye, as you know, Amélie, when I look after my pretty goddaughter,
but I should not have recognized our lively Pierre in him, had Le
Gardeur not introduced him to me, and I think you would not have known
him either.”
“Thanks for your looking after me, godfather,” replied Amélie, merrily,
very grateful in her heart for his appreciation of Pierre, “but I think
neither aunt nor I should have failed to recognize him.”
“Right, my Amélie!” said the Lady de Tilly. “We should not, and we shall
not be afraid, Pierre,--I must call you Pierre or nothing,--we shall not
be afraid, although you do lay in a new stock of acquaintances in the
capital, that old friends will be put aside as unfashionable remnants.”
“My whole stock of friendship consists of those remnants, my
Lady,--memories of dear friends I love and honor. They will never be
unfashionable with me: I should be bankrupt indeed, were I to part with
one of them.”
“Then they are of a truer fabric than Penelope's web, for she, I read,
pulled in pieces at night what she had woven through the day,” replied
Lady de Tilly. “Give me the friendship that won't unravel.”
“But not a thread of my recollections has ever unravelled, or ever
will,” replied Pierre, looking at Amélie as she clasped the arm of her
aunt, feeling stronger, as is woman's way, by the contact with another.
“Zounds! What is all this merchant's talk about webs and threads and
thrums?” exclaimed La Corne. “There is no memory so good as a soldier's,
Amélie, and for good reason: a soldier on our wild frontiers is
compelled to be faithful to old friends and old flannels; he cannot
help himself to new ones if he would. I was five years and never saw
a woman's face except red ones--some of them were very comely, by the
way,” added the old warrior with a smile.
“The gallantry of the Chevalier La Corne is incontestable,” remarked
Pierre, “for once, when we captured a convoy of soldiers' wives from New
England, he escorted them, with drums beating, to Grand Pré, and sent
a cask of Gasçon wine for them to celebrate their reunion with their
husbands.”
“Frowzy huzzies! not worth the keeping, or I would not have sent them;
fit only for the bobtailed militia of New England!” exclaimed La Corne.
“Not so thought the New Englanders, who had a three days feast when they
remarried their wives--and handsome they were, too,” said Philibert;
“the healths they drank to the Chevalier were enough to make him
immortal.”
La Corne always brushed aside compliments to himself: “Tut, my Lady!
it was more Pierre's good-nature than mine--he out of kindness let the
women rejoin their husbands; on my part it was policy and stratagem, of
war. Hear the sequel! The wives spoiled the husbands, as I guessed they
would do, taught them to be too late at reveille, too early at tattoo.
They neglected guards and pickets, and when the long nights of winter
set in, the men hugged their wives by the firesides instead of their
muskets by their watch-fires. Then came destruction upon them! In a
blinding storm, amid snow-drifts and darkness, Coulon de Villiers, with
his troops on snow-shoes, marched into the New England camp, and made
widows of the most of the poor wives, who fell into our hands the second
time. Poor creatures! I saw that day how hard it was to be a soldier's
wife.” La Corne's shaggy eyelash twinkled with moisture. “But it was the
fortune of war!--the fortune of war, and a cruel fortune it is at the
best!”
The Lady de Tilly pressed her hand to her bosom to suppress the rising
emotion. “Alas, Chevalier! poor widows! I feel all they suffered. War is
indeed a cruel fortune, as I too have had reason to learn.”
“And what became of the poor women, godfather?” Amélie's eyes were
suffused with tears: it was in her heart, if ever in any mortal's, to
love her enemies.
“Oh, we cared for them the best we could. The Baron de St. Castin
sheltered them in his château for the winter, and his daughter devoted
herself to them with the zeal and tenderness of a saint from Heaven--a
noble, lovely girl, Amélie!” added La Corne, impressively; “the fairest
flower in all Acadia, and most unfortunate, poor girl! God's blessing
rest upon her, wherever she may be!” La Corne St. Luc spoke with a depth
of emotion he rarely manifested.
“How was she unfortunate, godfather?” Philibert watched the cheek flush
and the eyelid quiver of the fair girl as she spoke, carried away by her
sympathy. His heart went with his looks.
“Alas!” replied La Corne, “I would fain not answer, lest I distrust the
moral government of the universe. But we are blind creatures, and God's
ways are not fashioned in our ways. Let no one boast that he stands,
lest he fall! We need the help of the host of Heaven to keep us upright
and maintain our integrity. I can scarcely think of that noble girl
without tears. Oh, the pity of it! The pity of it!”
Lady de Tilly looked at him wonderingly. “I knew the Baron de St.
Castin,” said she. “When he came to perform homage at the Castle of St.
Louis, for the grant of some lands in Acadia, he was accompanied by his
only daughter, a child perfect in goodness, grace, and loveliness. She
was just the age of Amélie. The ladies of the city were in raptures over
the pretty Mayflower, as they called her. What, in heaven's name, has
happened to that dear child, Chevalier La Corne?”
La Corne St. Luc, half angry with himself for having broached
the painful topic, and not used to pick his words, replied
bluntly,--“Happened, my Lady! what is it happens worst to a woman? She
loved a man unworthy of her love--a villain in spite of high rank and
King's favor, who deceived this fond, confiding girl, and abandoned her
to shame! Faugh! It is the way of the Court, they say; and the King has
not withdrawn his favor, but heaped new honors upon him!” La Corne put
a severe curb upon his utterance and turned impatiently away, lest he
might curse the King as well as the favorite.
“But what became of the poor deceived girl?” asked the Lady de Tilly,
after hastily clearing her eyes with her handkerchief.
“Oh, the old, old story followed. She ran away from home in an agony of
shame and fear, to avoid the return of her father from France. She went
among the Indians of the St. Croix, they say, and has not been heard of
since. Poor, dear girl! her very trust in virtue was the cause of her
fall!”
Amélie turned alternately pale and red at the recital of her godfather.
She riveted her eyes upon the ground as she pressed close to her aunt,
clasping her arm, as if seeking strength and support.
Lady de Tilly was greatly shocked at the sad recital. She inquired the
name of the man of rank who had acted so treacherously to the hapless
girl.
“I will not utter the name to-day, my Lady! It has been revealed to me
as a great secret. It is a name too high for the stroke of the law,
if there be any law left us but the will of a King's mistress! God,
however, has left us the law of a gentleman's sword to avenge its
master's wrong. The Baron de St. Castin will soon return to vindicate
his own honor, and whether or no, I vow to heaven, my Lady, that the
traitor who has wronged that sweet girl will one day have to try whether
his sword be sharper than that of La Corne St. Luc! But pshaw! I am
talking bravado like an Indian at the war post. The story of those
luckless New England wives has carried us beyond all bounds.”
Lady de Tilly looked admiringly, without a sign of reproof, at the old
soldier, sympathizing with his honest indignation at so foul a wrong to
her sex. “Were that dear child mine, woman as I am, I would do the same
thing!” said she, with a burst of feeling. She felt Amélie press her arm
as if she too shared the spirit of her bolder aunt.
“But here comes Felix Baudoin to summon us to dinner!” exclaimed Lady de
Tilly, as an old, white-headed servitor in livery appeared at the door
with a low bow, announcing that dinner was served.
Le Gardeur and La Corne St. Luc greeted the old servitor with the
utmost kindness, inquired after his health, and begged a pinch from
his well-worn snuff-box. Such familiarities were not rare in that day
between the gentlemen of New France and their old servants, who usually
passed their lifetime in one household. Felix was the majordomo of the
Manor House of Tilly, trusty, punctilious, and polite, and honored by
his mistress more as an humble friend than as a servant of her house.
“Dinner is served, my Lady!” repeated Felix, with a bow. “But my
Lady must excuse! The kitchen has been full of habitans all day. The
Trifourchettes, the Doubledents, and all the best eaters in Tilly have
been here. After obeying my Lady's commands to give them all they could
eat we have had difficulty in saving anything for my Lady's own table.”
“No matter, Felix, we shall say grace all the same. I could content
myself with bread and water, to give fish and flesh to my censitaires,
who are working so willingly on the King's corvée! But that must be
my apology to you, Pierre Philibert and the Chevalier La Corne, for a
poorer dinner than I could wish.”
“Oh, I feel no misgivings, my Lady!” remarked La Corne St. Luc,
laughing. “Felix Baudoin is too faithful a servitor to starve his
mistress for the sake of the Trifourchettes, the Doubledents, and all
the best eaters in the Seigniory! No! no! I will be bound your Ladyship
will find Felix has tolled and tithed from them enough to secure a
dinner for us all--come, Amélie, with me.”
Lady de Tilly took the arm of Colonel Philibert, followed by Le Gardeur,
La Corne, and Amélie, and, marshalled by the majordomo, proceeded to the
dining-room--a large room, wainscotted with black walnut, a fine wood
lately introduced. The ceiling was coved, and surrounded by a rich
frieze of carving. A large table, suggestive of hospitality, was covered
with drapery of the snowiest linen, the product of the spinning-wheels
and busy looms of the women of the Seigniory of Tilly. Vases of china,
filled with freshly-gathered flowers, shed sweet perfumes, while they
delighted the eye with their beauty, etherializing the elements of bread
and meat by suggestions of the poetry and ideals of life. A grand old
buffet, a prodigy of cabinet-maker's art, displayed a mass of family
plate, and a silver shield embossed with the arms of Tilly, a gift of
Henry of Navarre to their ancient and loyal house, hung upon the wall
over the buffet.
In spite of the Trifourchettes and the Doubledents, Felix Baudoin had
managed to set an excellent dinner upon the table of his lady, who
looked archly at the Chevalier La Corne, as if assenting to his remark
on her old servitor.
The lady remained standing at the head of her table until they all sat
down, when, clasping her hands, she recited with feeling and clearness
the old Latin grace, “Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona,”
sanctifying her table by the invocation of the blessing of God upon it
and upon all who sat round it.
A soup, rich and savory, was the prelude at all dinners in New France.
A salmon speared in the shallows of the Chaudière, and a dish of
blood-speckled trout from the mountain streams of St. Joachim, smoked
upon the board. Little oval loaves of wheaten bread were piled up in
baskets of silver filigree. For in those days the fields of New France
produced crops of the finest wheat--a gift which Providence has since
withheld. “The wheat went away with the Bourbon lilies, and never grew
afterwards,” said the old habitans. The meat in the larder had all
really been given to the hungry censitaires in the kitchen, except a
capon from the basse cour of Tilly and a standing pie, the contents of
which came from the manorial dovecote. A reef of raspberries, red as
corals, gathered on the tangled slopes of Côte à Bonhomme, formed the
dessert, with blue whortleberries from Cape Tourment, plums sweet as
honey drops, and small, gray-coated apples from Beaupré, delicious as
those that comforted the Rose of Sharon. A few carafes of choice wine
from the old manorial cellar, completed the entertainment.
The meal was not a protracted one, but to Pierre Philibert the most
blissful hour of his life. He sat by the side of Amélie, enjoying every
moment as if it were a pearl dropped into his bosom by word, look, or
gesture of the radiant girl who sat beside him.
He found Amélie, although somewhat timid at first to converse, a
willing, nay, an eager listener. She was attracted by the magnetism of
a noble, sympathetic nature, and by degrees ventured to cast a glance
at the handsome, manly countenance where feature after feature revealed
itself, like a landscape at dawn of day, and in Colonel Philibert she
recognized the very looks, speech, and manner of Pierre Philibert of
old.
Her questioning eyes hardly needed the interpretation of her tongue to
draw him out to impart the story of his life during his long absence
from New France, and it was with secret delight she found in him a
powerful, cultivated intellect and nobility of sentiment such as
she rightly supposed belonged only to a great man, while his visible
pleasure at meeting her again filled her with a secret joy that,
unnoticed by herself, suffused her whole countenance with radiance, and
incited her to converse with him more freely than she had thought it
possible when she sat down at table.
“It is long since we all sat together, Mademoiselle, at the table of
your noble aunt,” remarked Philibert. “It fulfills an often and often
repeated day-dream of mine, that I should one day find you just the
same.”
“And do you find me just the same?” answered she, archly. “You take down
the pride of ladyhood immensely, Colonel! I had imagined I was something
quite other than the wild child of Tilly!”
“I hardly like to consider you as in the pride of ladyhood,
Mademoiselle, for fear I should lose the wild child of Tilly, whom I
should be so glad to find again.”
“And whom you do find just the same in heart, mind, and regard too!”
thought she to herself, but her words were,--“My school mistresses would
be ashamed of their work, Colonel, if they had not improved on the very
rude material my aunt sent them up from Tilly to manufacture into a fine
lady! I was the crowned queen of the year when I left the Ursulines, so
beware of considering me 'the child of Tilly' any longer.”
Her silvery laugh caught his heart, for in that he recognized vividly
the gay young girl whose image he was every instant developing out of
the tall, lovely woman beside him.
La Corne St. Luc and the Lady de Tilly found a thousand delights in
mutual reminiscences of the past. Le Gardeur, somewhat heavy, joined
in conversation with Philibert and his sister. Amélie guessed, and
Philibert knew, the secret of Le Gardeur's dulness; both strove to
enliven and arouse him. His aunt guessed too, that he had passed the
night as the guests of the Intendant always passed it, and knowing
his temper and the regard he had for her good opinion, she brought the
subject of the Intendant into conversation, in order, casually as it
were, to impress Le Gardeur with her opinion of him. “Pierre Philibert
too,” thought she, “shall be put upon his guard against the crafty
Bigot.”
“Pierre,” said she, “you are happy in a father who is a brave, honorable
man, of whom any son in the world might be proud. The country holds by
him immensely, and he deserves their regard. Watch over him now you are
at home, Pierre. He has some relentless and powerful enemies, who would
injure him if they could.”
“That has he,” remarked La Corne St. Luc; “I have spoken to the Sieur
Philibert and cautioned him, but he is not impressible on the subject of
his own safety. The Intendant spoke savagely of him in public the other
day.”
“Did he, Chevalier?” replied Philibert, his eyes flashing with another
fire than that which had filled them looking at Amélie. “He shall
account to me for his words, were he Regent instead of Intendant!”
La Corne St. Luc looked half approvingly at Philibert.
“Don't quarrel with him yet, Pierre! You cannot make a quarrel of what
he has said.”
Lady de Tilly listened uneasily, and said,--
“Don't quarrel with him at all, Pierre Philibert! Judge him and avoid
him, as a Christian man should do. God will deal with Bigot as he
deserves: the crafty man will be caught in his own devices some day.”
“Oh, Bigot is a gentleman, aunt, too polite to insult any one,” remarked
Le Gardeur, impatient to defend one whom he regarded as a friend. “He is
the prince of good fellows, and not crafty, I think, but all surface and
sunshine.”
“You never explored the depths of him, Le Gardeur,” remarked La Corne.
“I grant he is a gay, jesting, drinking, and gambling fellow in company;
but, trust me, he is deep and dark as the Devil's cave that I have seen
in the Ottawa country. It goes story under story, deeper and deeper,
until the imagination loses itself in contemplating the bottomless pit
of it--that is Bigot, Le Gardeur.”
“My censitaires report to me,” remarked the Lady de Tilly, “that his
commissaries are seizing the very seed-corn of the country. Heaven knows
what will become of my poor people next year if the war continue!”
“What will become of the Province in the hands of François Bigot?”
replied La Corne St. Luc. “They say, Philibert, that a certain great
lady at Court, who is his partner or patroness, or both, has obtained a
grant of your father's sequestered estate in Normandy, for her relative,
the Count de Marville. Had you heard of that, Philibert? It is the
latest news from France.”
“Oh, yes, Chevalier! Ill news like that never misses the mark it is
aimed at. The news soon reached my father!”
“And how does your father take it?”
“My father is a true philosopher; he takes it as Socrates might have
taken it; he laughs at the Count de Marville, who will, he says, want to
sell the estate before the year is out, to pay his debts of honor--the
only debts he ever does pay.”
“If Bigot had anything to do with such an outrage,” exclaimed Le Gardeur
warmly, “I would renounce him on the spot. I have heard Bigot speak
of this gift to De Marville, whom he hates. He says it was all La
Pompadour's doing from first to last, and I believe it.”
“Well,” remarked La Corne, “Bigot has plenty of sins of his own to
answer for to the Sieur Philibert, on the day of account, without
reckoning this among them.”
The loud report of a cannon shook the windows of the room, and died away
in long-repeated echoes among the distant hills.
“That is the signal for the Council of War, my Lady,” said La Corne. “A
soldier's luck! just as we were going to have music and heaven, we are
summoned to field, camp, or council.”
The gentlemen rose and accompanied the ladies to the drawing-room, and
prepared to depart. Colonel Philibert took a courteous leave of the
ladies of Tilly, looking in the eyes of Amélie for something which, had
she not turned them quickly upon a vase of flowers, he might have found
there. She plucked a few sprays from the bouquet, and handed them to him
as a token of pleasure at meeting him again in his own land.
“Recollect, Pierre Philibert!” said the Lady de Tilly, holding him
cordially by the hand, “the Manor House of Tilly is your second home,
where you are ever welcome.”
Philibert was deeply touched by the genuine and stately courtesy of the
lady. He kissed her hand with grateful reverence, and bowing to both the
ladies, accompanied La Corne St. Luc and Le Gardeur to the castle of St.
Louis.
Amélie sat in the recess of the window, resting her cheek upon her
tremulous hand as she watched the gentlemen proceed on their way to
the castle. Her mind was overflowing with thoughts and fancies, new,
enigmatical, yet delightful. Her nervous manner did not escape the
loving eye of her aunt; but she spoke not--she was silent under the
burden of a secret joy that found not vent in words.
Suddenly Amélie rose from the window, and seated herself, in her
impulsive way, at the organ. Her fingers touched the keys timidly at
first as she began a trembling prelude of her own fantasy. In music her
pent-up feelings found congenial expression. The fire kindled, and she
presently burst out with the voice of a seraph in that glorious psalm,
the 116th:
“'Toto pectore diligam
Unice et Dominum colam,
Qui lenis mihi supplici
Non duram appulit aurem.
Aurem qui mihi supplici,
Non duram dedit; hunc ego
Donec pectora spiritus
Pulset semper, amabo.'”
The Lady de Tilly, half guessing the truth, would not wound the
susceptibilities of her niece by appearing to do so; so rose quietly
from her seat and placed her arms gently round Amélie when she finished
the psalm. She pressed her to her bosom, kissed her fondly, and without
a word, left her to find in music relief from her high-wrought feelings.
Her voice rose in sweeter and loftier harmonies to the pealing of the
organ as she sang to the end the joyful yet solemn psalm, in a version
made for Queen Mary of France and Scotland when life was good, hope all
brightness, and dark days as if they would never come.