DESIRÉE
The mass bell's solemn chime pealed forth from the squat tower of the
Mission House, echoed against a thousand different rock peaks of the
shoreline and rolled resonantly over Oxford's bosom till distance killed
the sound and the tone was lost in the splash of whitecaps jumping like
silvery salmon beyond the Bay.
Since Carman, the Church of England missionary, had perished in the
winter's last blizzard on Lone Wolf Lake and the Company had failed as
yet to get a minister in his place, the spiritual welfare of Oxford
House was entirely in the hands of Father Brochet. Protestant and
Catholic, disciple and pagan, zealot and scorner alike attended the
kindly priest's services and sought his generous aid in many private
matters.
With the bell's summons they came singly, in twos or threes, and in
groups of varying size to take part in, or view the morning mass as well
as to see the christening of Flora Macleod's child.
Bruce Dunvegan left his business in the trading room of the Hudson's Bay
Store and stepped out into the dewy sunshine. The auroral flame which
had licked the waters of Oxford Lake was gone. He saw the horizon as a
sheet of molten gold floating the coppery disc of the sun. From wet
rocks the writhing mists twisted and uncoiled, while the breeze which
crooned over the outer reach of the lake and raised the crested swells
beat in with little darts and lanceolate charges, puffing the fog-smoke
like the muzzle-jets of rifles.
As the chief trader contemplated the magnificent splendor of the watery
vista before him, he thrilled with the indefinable magic of the outland.
He inhaled a huge breath and threw his arms wide, the action nearly
upsetting the balance of Edwin Glyndon, the new clerk, who had emerged
at his side.
"Ha! Your pardon!" exclaimed Dunvegan, laughing. "These northern
sunrises get into my blood like wine. You'll feel it before you are very
long here. Going over to the Mission?"
"I wouldn't mind," returned Glyndon. "It's all so new to me, and I
wasn't at Norway long enough to see much. Do you attend?"
"We all drop in," the chief trader informed him. "Brochet's faith has
many adherents, but of course you don't have to take part unless your
inclinations run that way. You are a Church of England man, I suppose!"
"Oh, yes--quite an orthodox one," laughed Glyndon bitterly. "Didn't you
know I drank myself and parents into disgrace at home? That's why they
sent me out here--away from the evil ruts, you understand! And I fancy
it might not be so hard to be a good Churchman in this wilderness. At
any rate the chances are increased."
"This is the best opportunity that you will ever find," Dunvegan
declared. "If you want to go straight and live clean, the way is easy.
It seems to me these lake breezes, these pine woods, these outdoor days
are a long way removed from temptation."
He swung his hands illustratively from the sheen of Oxford's surface to
the dark green of the Black Forest, which loomed in somber mystery on
Caribou Point, and looked into the clerk's soft eyes. But Edwin Glyndon
was staring over the chief trader's shoulder at someone coming up the
path to the store.
"Good Lord!" was his amazed exclamation. "Who in all the angels'
category is that?"
Dunvegan turned to see Lazard's niece hurrying toward the building.
"That? Oh, Desirée Lazard!" he answered, striving ineffectually to keep
his stirring blood from crimsoning his tan. "She's a ward of old Pierre
since her father died. Pierre is her uncle."
"My word!" Glyndon gasped, and could say no more; although his chin went
nervously up and down while Desirée Lazard approached.
She walked without perceptible effort in that easy rhythm of movement
peculiar to wilderness-born women. Her hair, dun-gold as the morning sky
behind, was pinned in a loose knot and parted in the center, letting the
shimmer and wave of the tresses play upon either side like shallow-water
ripples over sun-browned gravel. Forehead, cheeks, nose and mouth held
serene beauty in their perfect chiselling, while her eyes shone like
twin lakes of the north, sapphire-blue beneath the morning sun.
So sincere were the men in the unconscious homage they paid to her
fairness that they did not move aside to let her enter the door. She
stopped and gazed inquiringly at the stranger. And the pair gazed at
her. They marvelled at the luxurious development of throat, bosom, and
arms, clearly revealed by a tight-fitting chamois waist with open neck
and rolled-up sleeves, and at the trim, full contour of her healthy body
from the tops of her shoulders to the hem of her doeskin skirt and on
down the well-filled leggins to moccasined feet which would hardly have
covered a man's palm.
"Good morning, Bruce," she said demurely. "Good morning, monsieur----"
"Glyndon--Edwin Glyndon," supplemented the clerk, eagerly. He was
delighted to find that ceremony was an unknown thing in the posts and
that each greeted a neighbor whether formally acquainted or not.
"I have told Glyndon you are Pierre's niece," Dunvegan interposed. "He
has been drafted from Norway House as our clerk and will henceforth be
one of us."
"Ah! Monsieur will find the society of Oxford House limited after living
in London," laughed Desirée.
"More limited, but assuredly not less desirable," Glyndon returned
gallantly; and the dwelling of his soft eyes on the girl brought the
rose to her cheeks.
"Come," she cried peremptorily to hide her confusion, "let me go in and
get my things or I shall be late for mass."
Dunvegan thought to wait upon her, but the English clerk sprang in
first.
"It is for me to serve," he declared. "I must learn my business."
And the chief trader experienced a pang of intense jealousy as he
watched the laughter and badinage of the two across the counter while
Desirée made her purchases. He glowered in dark envy and strode out on
to the steps. When the girl danced gaily over the threshold, he did not
speak.
Glyndon rejoined him, his eyes devouring the lithe, swinging form of
Desirée Lazard as she rushed home humming a little French song under her
breath.
"Jove!" he exclaimed. "Did you ever see such a figure? Look at the
inswell of the torso to the waist and the outswell over the hips----"
But Dunvegan's hand falling like a great weight on his shoulder cut
short the speech. Glyndon felt that grip clear through his body; felt
his collar bone bend beneath the chief trader's thumb, and he winced.
"Glyndon, never admire a woman in that way," Bruce warned. "Never, I
say! Do you understand me?"
The English clerk slunk back under the powerful menace in Dunvegan's
glance.
"Oh!" he ejaculated with swift intuition. "I didn't know that you----"
"That'll do," the chief trader cut in. "You don't know anything yet. Try
not to bother your head! Go on over to the Mission House!" He started
Edwin Glyndon down the path.
Malcolm Macleod for the first time in twenty years had entered the
chapel, not for the service but for the christening. Dunvegan left the
store in charge of his _mètis_ clerk and followed.
Was he going for the service? Perhaps, for he was a good man, and his
religious creed was not a narrow one. Was he going for the christening
also? Undoubtedly, for he was to stand sponsor for the child.
But in the depths of his being something cried a third reason.
Across the flat ground which served as the trading house yard lay the
chapel. Roughly built after the fashion of northern missions, its very
ruggedness suggested the strength of the faith for which it stood as
symbol.
As Dunvegan approached the steps, people were already filing rapidly
through the narrow doorway. A medley of types was there. Acorn-headed
squaws pattered in. Morose Indians filed after. Women, children, and
settlers drifted through the doorway. The Hudson's Bay men slouched
over. Trappers and halfbreeds filled the single aisle. At the end of a
rough bench in one front corner of the building sat the Factor, dour and
unyielding. His head was bowed. Not a muscle of his body moved. Perched
on the opposite end of that seat was Gaspard Follet, the Fool who had
drifted in from nowhere to the post about a year before. It was the
Fool's delight to go about hearing everything through dog-like ears,
seeing everything through owlish eyes.
None could find out who or what he was, or whence he had come. Yet many
at Oxford House contended that he was not so simple as he appeared.
They declared that he was as wise as themselves and only kept up the
sham to get an easy living. In proof of their contention these
suspicious ones set forth his glibness of tongue when he pleased, for on
occasion he could talk as well as Brochet.
As Dunvegan seated himself not far from Pierre Lazard and his niece, the
mass began in solemn intonation.
"_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_," began Father Brochet,
the mass book supported where the black cassock bulged over his portly
waist.
The clear voice of the clerk answered with sonorous "amens", and the
responses rose in chorus.
Dunvegan looked at the Factor. The latter seemed unconscious that an
earnest service was progressing. Sunk in stony oblivion, he appeared
absolutely motionless, his chest neither rising nor falling as he
breathed.
The long, familiar service was finally concluded, and those who had
taken no part other than as mere listeners sat up with an expectant
shuffle. Flora Macleod moved to the front with her child and stood
before the altar. Father Brochet looked down upon her. There was no
reproach in his mièn. Experience had taught him that in such a case as
this, women followed their own hearts even to fleeing from their
parents.
A hush brooded over the chapel's interior, a sort of awkward silence, a
dread of things running awry! The child's whimper broke it, and Flora
swayed the boy in her arms to quiet him.
Brochet spoke when she finished, his clear voice carrying to the door
and even outside where some latecomers unable to find seats were grouped
on the slab of rough stone which served for a step.
"Who is the male parent, the father of the child?" he asked in the
natural course of the ceremony.
Deep silence reigned. Flora Macleod's lips closed tightly, indicating
that out of stubbornness she would not speak the name. People looked at
the Factor, and he turned from his immobility with the attitude of a
sleeping bear suddenly prodded into angry activity.
"Black Ferguson," he snarled, sidling over a foot or so upon the bench.
"The name this child is to bear with honor through life?" Father Brochet
continued.
"Honor?" grunted Macleod. "I don't know about that. No doubt he will
inherit the spirit of disobedience from his mother. Call him Charles Ian
Macleod! There will be no Ferguson in it."
A murmur stirred the assemblage at the Factor's rude remark, but they
dared not add protest to their surprises. Dunvegan of course, had
expected it from the first.
"Who stands as sponsor for this infant?" asked the priest.
Macleod swung himself half round and nodded to Dunvegan. Bruce rose to
his feet, seeing with surprise that Gaspard, the Fool, had also raised
himself up by jumping upon the seat.
"Who stands sponsor?"
"I," squealed the idiot. "Also, he can have my name, for if the truth
came out, it is as good as anyone's and----"
He got no farther for old Pierre Lazard pulled the foolish dwarf off his
perch before the angry Factor could strike him and pushed him
unceremoniously to the door amid the suppressed chuckles of the
assembly.
"Again, who stands sponsor?" inquired the unruffled Father Brochet.
"I do," spoke Dunvegan.
"Do you, Charles Ian Macleod, renounce the devil, his angels and all
their evil works?"
"I do," Dunvegan, as sponsor, replied.
"Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost?"
"I believe!"
"It is well," observed Brochet. "We may now proceed with the service of
baptism. Behold in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost I baptize you Charles Ian Macleod. And may the good Lord's
mercy lead your feet in honorable paths."
"Amen! Amen! Amen!" rang the responses in many tongues throughout the
chapel.
With the chanting of a hymn the people poured forth. Flora disappeared
instantly with her child, waiting for no birth offering.
The Factor was equally swift in effacing himself from the unfamiliar
Mission House. One of his desires had been fulfilled. There remained the
other, and the consummation of that one promised to be a harder matter.